Willie Stargell

by Frank Garland

  “Pirates Pennant Timber And Murtaugh Knows It” blared the top headline on the first page of the Pittsburgh Press sports section the day before the season opener. Writer Christine noted that the Bucs entered the opener as consensus favorites to win the Eastern Division “and Murtaugh, never a negative thinker, has said nothing in Florida to discourage the notion.”33 Stargell, quietly determined to have the best season of his career, put together an April of historic proportions, at least in terms of the long ball. Twice in an 11-game stretch he clubbed three home runs, both times against Atlanta. In both games, he struck out in his final bid for a fourth home run—the last time on three straight mighty swings-and-misses that Press columnist Musick wrote “probably altered atmospheric conditions in Charleroi.”34 The mighty cuts were no accident. “I know one thing,” Stargell said after his first outburst against the Braves, “if I ever connect, I’m not going to miss No. 4 by inches.” He no doubt was referring to his ultra-close calls against the Dodgers in Los Angeles and the Cubs at Chicago’s Wrigley Field years earlier, when he had to settle for near-miss doubles to go with his three homers. Afterward, Stargell had no clue what led to his latest outburst. “It’s just a funny game, I guess. I was out there trying to do my best and the balls went into the seats.”35 He was also making mental notations of how much money he might have lost in free chicken dispensed to customers at the All-Pro Chicken restaurant on The Hill. “I better go down and see what they’ve been doing,” he said later, flashing back to the time he had homered and dished out $17 in free food to one customer. “Sometimes it’s a snack pack, which cost a dollar; sometimes it’s a superburger, which costs 59 cents. But this one guy, he had a cab waiting outside. He’d ordered six buckets.”36

  Stargell continued his long-distance onslaught; on April 22 he became the third major-leaguer in history to hit 10 homers in April, tying Baltimore’s Frank Robinson (1969) and Cincinnati’s Tony Perez (1970). Ridden by the flu, he was not in a mood to celebrate after the game. “I’m going to take some penicillin and go find a casket,” he told reporters.37 Then, on April 27, he carved out a spot for himself in the major league record book when he blasted his 11th home run of the month. The record-breaker was a 430-foot drive to center that came off Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Pete Mikkelsen in the ninth inning of a 7–5 loss before a sparse gathering at Three Rivers Stadium.

  The game was played on the same day that another famous slugger reached a milestone of his own, as Henry Aaron—who would go on to become the career home run leader in 1974—slugged his 600th homer. And on the same day, Curt Flood, who had challenged baseball authority by refusing to accept his trade to the Phillies and ultimately took baseball to the Supreme Court, ended an ill-fated comeback with the Washington Senators by bolting for Barcelona, Spain.

  After Stargell blasted home run number 11, a fan came into the clubhouse to give Stargell the historic ball, but he wanted no part of it. “What do I want that ball for?” he asked. “I can put any ball in the trophy case. Let him have it.”38 By hitting 11 home runs in 19 games, Stargell was on pace to hit more than 90 home runs. Ruth didn’t hit his 11th home run until the 34th game and Roger Maris did not club his 11th until game number 40. But Stargell had no interest in talking about either one of them. After he had hit his 10th of the month, reporters brought up the immortal sluggers—Ruth, who set the all-time single-season home run record of 60 in 154 games in 1927, and Maris, who eclipsed it with 61 in 162 games in 1961. “Babe Ruth, I’m not concerned about,” he said. “Or Roger Maris.” When someone brought up Ruth’s career numbers 714, Stargell said, “If I hit a hundred a year for five years, we’ll talk about it.”39

  Despite Stargell’s long-ball exploits, the Pirates did not get off to a similar blazing start, going just 12–10 and holding onto third place in the NL East heading into the month of May. Still, the Bucs maintained confidence, based in large part on their performance the previous season and the various personalities that dotted the roster. The ’71 clubhouse, Blass said, was a unique atmosphere. “Nothing was sacred. In a clubhouse of athletes, you hear degrading, defaming and insulting. But we were like brothers. It was a way to get rid of the tension and deal with pressure. It was really formed from a base of affection. But if an outsider walked in, he’d think, ‘My God, it’s awful.’ But that’s the inside of a clubhouse. We were pretty much aware of when the door was closed and when it was open. We’d create rumors and leak them to the ground crew, and then see how quickly it got to the Post-Gazette. ‘Tonight it went over the edge—Hebner attacked all of us with a tire chain.’ It was a great atmosphere. And it was all based on the fact that we knew we were good. You don’t have that type of atmosphere when you know you’re horseshit. Success breeds confidence and camaraderie.”40

  Soaking all of it in was Bruce Kison, a 21-year-old pitcher who opened the ’71 season at Charleston—then the Pirates’ top farm club in the International League—and won 10 of his first 11 Triple-A decisions as a starter. That earned him a recall to the big-league club in July, and he had a front row center seat to the craziness that was the Bucco clubhouse. Kison, whose boyish looks made him look even younger than his age, said the bantering that went on was partly entertainment value, but it also served a purpose in that it told the players who was strong enough to survive in the white hot caldron of a pennant race. “If you have thin skin, you can’t handle it,” he said of players getting on one another. “If you can’t handle it in the clubhouse, how are you going to handle it between the lines? We were a championship-caliber club and if you have that kind of a group and you add a player, you want a championship-caliber individual. You don’t want a meek, non-championship caliber guy just passing through. You want the best you can get on the team. Willie orchestrated a lot of that on a daily basis.”41

  Nelson “Nellie” King, a one-time Pirate pitcher who began broadcasting his former team’s games in 1967, said Stargell “ran the clubhouse in a way that nobody noticed it. Nobody was above anybody. Everybody was open for jokes and everything else. That team was as close as any team I’d seen there.”42

  Stargell told Sports Illustrated writer Roy Blount Jr. that he wasn’t sure why the various cultures got on so well in the Pirates clubhouse when that wasn’t always the case with other ballclubs. “It really doesn’t make a difference what color you are, you’re just a guy to me. I know some black so-called friends who are dogs.”43

  Clines, the young outfielder who would ascend to a key role on the ’71 club, said the clubhouse atmosphere was special. “We could say anything about each other and get on one another,” he said. “But we did everything together. Everyone talks about the ’79 team being ‘We Are Family.’ For me, that started back in the early ’70s—’71. There was no theme song or anything, but we treated each other like brothers. If someone’s kid had a birthday, everyone showed up. If someone had a party, everyone showed up.”44 Stargell was known for his team parties—and for a special elixir that he would whip up for just about everyone. He called it Purple Passion, and while the ingredients were somewhat of a mystery, there was nothing mysterious about its impact. “He’d get this big bucket,” Clines recalled, “and he’d put Welch’s grape juice and these other things in there. It was like punch that had a punch.” Blass recalls Stargell going to Sears and buying a big rubber garbage can. “He’d fill it halfway with ice and then put every conceivable type of alcohol in it, and then disguise the poison with five gallons of grape juice—and then stir it with one of his bats.” Blass joked that Stargell “could have sold the stuff in Home Depot as paint thinner. But we couldn’t get enough.” Oliver did not drink, but he would partake in the Purple Passion anyway. “It was grape juice—and everybody loves grape juice,” he said. “But Willie would put grain alcohol in there. I mean, it was good. You’d drink it like it was Kool Aid. But before you knew it, you were laid out. You were through.”45

  Oliver, who played the game aggressively and with great passion, said Stargell “really knew how to thro
w parties—and nobody on the team would be left out. He was a great host—he had a great demeanor about him. Nobody could say they didn’t have a good time. We’d sit around and talk about everything. And laugh—we were a laughing team. We were serious on the field, but after a game, we were as loose as we could be. We were loose when we took the field. Most games can be won or lost in the clubhouse, and when we left the clubhouse, we knew our chances of winning were good. That’s how much confidence we had as a team. We had as much confidence in our teammates as we had in ourselves. That’s why those Pirate teams in the early ’70s were so strong. Our ’71 and ’72 teams were probably the best teams the Pirates ever had, talent-wise.”

  For his part, Stargell did his best to keep the club on an even keel, as he had inherited—partly by the force of his personality and partly by the force of his prodigious hitting—a piece of the leadership mantle. Blass certainly could sense it. “You could see him emerging and being a presence,” he said. “He was a big man, and he had a big physical presence. But he had that wonderful soft voice when he wanted to use it. He had a wonderful delivery. You could see him go over to a locker and spend time with guys who were struggling. And he was also part of the levity. We played clubhouse tricks on writers and clubhouse boys that were just obscene.”

  Sam Nover, a young Pittsburgh television sportscaster, was victimized in one such prank—the infamous “three-man lift.” A few of the players were telling Nover for weeks that Bartirome—the team’s trainer, who stood 5-foot-10 and weighed 155 pounds in his playing days—was so strong that he could lift three men at one time. Nover was skeptical and wanted to see proof. So the players had Nover lie on his back in the clubhouse, with coach Don Leppard on one side and pitcher Johnson prone on the other side. “I had my suit and tie on, so Jose Pagan tells me to take off my shirt and tie because I might get a little sweaty,” Nover recalled. “All the players are sitting around watching. Stargell’s laughing his ass off. I’m lying down and Johnson and Leppard intertwine their arms and legs with me—I couldn’t move if my life depended on it. I had a photographer shooting the whole thing—I was going to see Bartirome lift three people weighing over 600 pounds. So Tony steps over me and puts a belt around my waist. This is how he’s going to do it—by lifting that belt, he’s going to lift everybody, since we’re all bound together. I’m shouting instructions to the photographer—‘Ronnie, you got a good shot of Tony? Can you see me?’ I’m directing this thing flat on my back. Tony says, ‘When I count to three, clench your muscles.’ He says, ‘One, two, three.’ I clench my muscles. Bartirome leans over and pulls my pants down. I jerked and tried to fight it, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m completely naked from the waist down.” What happened next wasn’t pretty, as a mixture of analgesic balm and orange juice was dumped all over Nover’s testicles and legs. “Clemente’s standing there laughing, saying, ‘You good sport, Sam, you good sport.’ The clubhouse was howling. I was laughing my ass off. It was a classic setup—and that’s the kind of relationship you could have with ballplayers in those days.”46

  Stargell wasn’t above getting involved in such clubhouse hijinks but he was clearly taking on more of a leadership role, according to Bartirome. “He was blossoming and it was him and Clemente who were the leaders of that club,” Bartirome said. “They did it in different ways—Stargell did it in a quiet way. Clemente was more vocal when he was in the clubhouse. He exerted his feelings more—he was more of a fiery leader. Then we had Maz, who was quieter than Stargell.”47

  Clines certainly viewed Stargell as a key leader on that team. “He was a leader by example. All you had to do was follow his lead. He wasn’t a big rah-rah guy. You just watched the way he went about his job, how he played the game. He was not a big cheerleader. But for me, Stargell and Clemente were leaders by example.” Oliver, then a young player trying to get comfortable in center field, said Stargell “knew when to approach a player when he wasn’t going good. That’s the type of leader he was. He always had great timing when going to a player.” Oliver said one important thing he learned from Stargell was the idea of self-control. “Every now and then, especially when I first came up, I would throw a batting helmet,” he said. “Ask anyone on that team and they’ll tell you that Hebner and I were the president and vice president of the lumber company—we’d go down in the runway next to the dugout and tear up some bats if we didn’t get a hit. But Willie always kept calm. Win or lose, 0-for-4 or 4-for-4, he was always the same. And as a young player, when you see someone like him carry himself that way, you start to follow suit.”

  The ’71 club—packed with plenty of hitting, solid defense and sufficient if not exactly spectacular pitching—moved into first place in late May, right about the time Murtaugh had to be hospitalized. The veteran skipper remained out of commission until the second week of June, and although the club fell out of the top spot during his absence, it remained in the thick of the race, thanks in part to consecutive shutouts hurled by Moose, Blass and Ellis from May 30 through June 3, the last of which boosted the Bucs’ record to 30–19. Less than a week after Murtaugh returned, the team regained first place and went on a 22–8 rampage to open up a nine-game lead at the All-Star break.

  Stargell’s hot home run pace in April did not cool off much, as he established another major-league record, this time for most home runs by the end of June—28. He was also hitting for distance—he clubbed a 458-foot shot off the Cubs’ Ken Holtzman that reached the upper deck of Three Rivers Stadium on May 30, and then on June 20, he again launched one into the top deck at his home park, this time a 472-foot blast off the Expos’ Howie Reed.

  Willie crosses home plate and is greeted by Pirates teammates Roberto Clemente (21), who scored ahead of him, and Al Oliver (16), who was hitting behind Stargell (courtesy Pittsburgh Pirates).

  Murtaugh attributed Stargell’s record-breaking start to being in top shape; Stargell came into spring training having lost 18 pounds over the winter. “The time he used to spend running off fat, he spent at batting practice,” Murtaugh told Dick Young of the New York Daily News. “He got off to a great start.”48

  Roy McHugh, a legendary Pittsburgh journalist, first encountered Stargell during the player’s earliest days with the Pirates and he watched him evolve from a young colt to a thoroughbred who was mashing everything in sight in 1971. McHugh painted a word picture of Stargell’s hitting stature that year. “Tall, weight shifting rhythmically from one foot to the other, his bat moving in circles like an airplane propeller, Stargell creates a feeling of menace as he waits for the pitch. He takes a full, free swing with his entire upper body committed and there is never anything hesitant about it. Once Stargell decides he will swing, the decision is not subject to change.”49

  By the time Stargell showed up for the All-Star Game in Detroit—his first trip to the Mid-Season Classic since 1966—he had collected 30 home runs and 87 RBIs. So it was no surprise that the media wanted to talk to him about Ruth and Maris. But Stargell said he spent no time at all thinking about them or any home run records. He did allow that the move from spacious Forbes Field, whose 457-foot distance to center field was so cavernous the Pirates would store their batting cage there—in play, no less—to Three Rivers Stadium certainly was aiding his home run cause. He was able to hit the ball to all fields rather than concentrate on pulling the ball to right because the new park was symmetrical. Going to all fields made him a better hitter.

  Stargell used the opportunity at the All-Star break to talk about his work on the sickle cell anemia front, telling the media about his work in the Pittsburgh area to raise funds for research and to raise awareness of the disease. He also used the forum to wonder aloud about the possibility of a black man becoming a major-league manager—speculation that was spawned when someone asked Stargell about Murtaugh. “I like to think that the owners will make it happen, that there will be a black manager soon,” he said. “But the way they’re going to have to do it is the way Branch Rickey did it with Jackie Robins
on. The owners are going to have to give that manager full backing. They’re going to have to say to that man, ‘You’re my man and you go out there and run things your way and I’ll back you all the way.’ The man will have an awful lot of pressure. He’ll take an awful lot of things.”50 Later that year, Stargell would say that at least a half-dozen black or Latin players were qualified to manage in the big leagues—Frank Robinson, Maury Wills, Junior Gilliam, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.51

  At the All-Star Game, Stargell also alluded to knee pain he was experiencing, telling reporters that some days it felt fine, but other days he was in great discomfort. He injured one knee before the break at the same time he had been experiencing pain in his other knee. The problems left him unable to properly pivot at the plate and that cut into his power production, as his home runs dropped off markedly in the season’s second half. Murtaugh and others suggested he have surgery then, but Stargell declined, not wanting to miss a potential pennant drive. “I had a chance to be in a World Series,” he would say after the season. “I told the doctor the only way I was coming out was in a wheelchair.”52

  Stargell also used his newfound notoriety to speak out—albeit somewhat quietly—about what he perceived as a lack of endorsement opportunities for the game’s black stars, noting that Clemente had virtually no such opportunities despite his stature in the game. “It just irks me, but it shouldn’t even have to be discussed,” Stargell said. “Why doesn’t Clemente have his own sports program here in Pittsburgh? I mean, baseball has gotten a lot off this man. Why do they feel he shouldn’t reap something because of what he’s done? He doesn’t say these things, but I know how he feels. We get together and talk about them. Maybe they don’t even want us to talk about them, but it’s not fair to the guys coming up if we don’t talk.”53