Stargell said he believed that if hadn’t hurt his knee that season he could have eclipsed Ruth and Maris and hit more than 61 home runs, given that he already had 30—and 87 RBIs—in the season’s first 76 games. “I was seeing the ball very well,” he said later. “But my knee got to the point where I couldn’t stand all the way up on it. I couldn’t put any pressure on it at all. I probably struck out a hundred times in the second half of the season.”65
Stargell believed his poor post-season play cost him the MVP, but traditionally votes are submitted before such play begins. In any event, he didn’t let the snub darken his mood, for he had done what he’d always wanted to do—play for a World Series winner. And the way the Pirates were built, many believed it might not be their last.
Chapter 5
Changing of the Guard
GIVEN THE CLUB’S SUCCESS IN 1971, few moves of any significance were made prior to the 1972 season. One major change did occur, however, as Murtaugh chose to step down as the team’s manager. Speculation that Murtaugh would retire had surfaced periodically during the ’71 campaign, particularly when he had to miss a stretch of 16 games due to health problems, and similar talk could be heard during the World Series against Baltimore. Pirates superscout Howie Haak told the media he had a hunch that Murtaugh would quit if the Bucs won the series. “Murtaugh’s a guy who likes to win and he wants to go out while he’s on top,” Haak said while the Pirates held a 3–2 series edge. “What better time would there be than this year?”1 Murtaugh at the time remained noncommittal, saying only that his family would sit down and discuss his future after the season was over. But on November 23, Murtaugh did indeed retire and Bill Virdon, who had patrolled center field for the 1960 World Series champion Pirates and had served as a coach under Murtaugh, was named to take over as manager. Virdon felt he was ready—in fact, he felt he was ready years earlier, even before he did a two-year minor league managerial stint in the New York Mets’ system. “I think I can manage,” he told the media at a press conference announcing his hiring and Murtaugh’s retiring. “Time may prove otherwise.”2 Virdon did not lack confidence in his team, either. “We have a good ballclub,” he said. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep on winning.”3
And win they did in ’72, despite injuries that slowed both Clemente and Stargell, who had undergone off-season knee surgery. The Pirates started slowly and found themselves in sixth place in May. But the club latched onto first place for good on June 18 and posted an overall mark of 96–59, good for an 11-game margin over second-place Chicago. The regular season was highlighted by a piece of history that occurred on September 30, when Clemente became the 11th player in major league history to collect 3,000 career hits with a double off the Mets’ Jon Matlack in the Great One’s final regular-season at-bat. No one knew at the time, but it also would prove to be his last at-bat in the big leagues.
Stargell enjoyed another outstanding season—not as robust as the previous year but still worthy of MVP consideration, as he finished third in the balloting behind winner Johnny Bench and runner-up Billy Williams of the Cubs. Playing mostly first base—in part to rest his sore knees and in part to bail out the slumping Robertson, who hit only .193—Stargell batted .293 with 33 home runs and 112 RBIs, scored 75 runs and banged out 28 doubles in 495 at-bats over 138 games. He posed no problems for his new manager, even though he was one of Murtaugh’s biggest boosters. “If you wanted him to do something, he’d do it,” Virdon said of Stargell. “He loved to hit. He played mostly first base that year and I might have had to push him a little bit defensively to make him work, but he didn’t mind it. He didn’t resent it. He did what you wanted him to do. He wasn’t a militant. He always had a good frame of mind—he was always smiling and keeping everybody loose, encouraging people. He was a good person and he knew how to operate in the clubhouse. He just loved it.”4
Virdon’s first year at the helm was like a dream, at least in the regular season. “It was the easiest team to manage,” he said of the ’72 club. “When I went to the ballpark, I knew we were going to get six runs—and I had pretty good pitching, too.” Stargell had plenty of help at the plate. Clemente had somewhat of an off-season but still hit .312 with 10 homers and 60 RBIs in 102 games. Oliver continued to excel, batting .312 with 12 homers and 89 RBIs, while Hebner batted an even .300 with 19 homers and 72 RBIs. And that wasn’t all—catcher Sanguillen drove in 71 runs and hit .298, while Clines excelled as a fourth outfielder, hitting at a .334 clip in 107 games. Stennett, the young second baseman, also contributed, hitting .286 in 109 games. On the mound, Blass enjoyed perhaps his finest season, going 19–8 with a 2.49 ERA, while Ellis won 15 games; Briles, 14; and Moose, 13. Giusti continued to loom large as the closer in the bullpen with a 1.93 ERA and 22 saves in 74⅔ innings, and Ramon Hernandez—Stargell’s former Grand Forks teammate from the 1960 Northern League campaign—was nearly as effective as Giusti, posting a 1.67 ERA and 14 saves in 70 innings.
For the second time in three seasons, the Pirates matched up with Bench, Perez, Rose and the rest of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine in the National League Championship Series. But unlike 1970, the ’72 Reds featured a dynamic Hall-of-Famer in the making—Stargell’s old friend from the East Bay, Joe Morgan. Now in the prime of his career, Morgan scored a whopping 122 runs, smacked 16 homers, drove in 73 runs and stole 58 bases to go along with a .292 batting average. Gary Nolan anchored the pitching staff, winning 15 of 20 decisions with a 1.99 ERA.
The teams split the first four games in the NLCS, with each team winning once at the other’s home park. Blass and Hernandez combined to stifle the Reds in a 5–1 Game 1 win at home, but Cincinnati produced a four-spot in the first inning of Game 2 and went on to post a 5–3 win. Briles, Kison and Giusti limited the Reds to eight hits and two runs in a 3–2 Game 3 win at Cincinnati, but Morgan and Company evened things with a 7–1 pummeling of Ellis in Game 4, as the Pirates managed just two hits off Ross Grimsley. It all came down to a decisive Game 5 at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, and the Pirates scratched out a pair of runs off Don Gullett in the second to take a 2–0 lead. Hebner doubled in one run and Cash singled in another. The Reds scored once in the third off Blass on Rose’s RBI double, but the Pirates answered in the fourth on consecutive singles by Sanguillen, Hebner and Cash. The Reds managed another run off Blass in the fifth, but the Pirates maintained their 3–2 lead into the bottom of the ninth. Giusti came on in relief of Hernandez, who had gotten the final two batters in the eighth after taking over for Blass. But Giusti could not make the lead stand up, as Bench deposited a palm ball into the right-field seats, and Perez and Denis Menke followed with consecutive singles. When Giusti went 2–0 on Cesar Geronimo, Virdon called on Moose to come on in relief and the right-hander retired the next two Reds to leave runners at first and third. But with Hal McRae at the plate, Moose uncorked a wild pitch in the dirt on a 1–1 delivery, allowing pinch-runner George Foster to score the game- and series-winning run.
Virdon, asked if he regretted calling on Giusti to start the ninth, would have none of that. “I thought Giusti had good stuff,” Virdon said. “Bench got a pitch that was up and hit it out. That upset him. Then he tried to rush and he was a little wild. I had to get a strike-thrower in there. But Dave Giusti doesn’t have anything to apologize for.”5
Momentarily lost in the gloom was yet another subpar NLCS performance by Stargell, who went 1-for-16 in the five-game set with the Reds. When coupled with his performance in the previous year’s playoffs against the San Francisco Giants, Stargell was in a 1-for-30 funk in NLCS play. The Pittsburgh media did not jump on him, however, after his most recent tailspin. “Willie Stargell asks no pity for his 1-for-16 playoff bat,” the Post-Gazette’s Feeney wrote on October 12. “Willie Stargell hurts inside today. He hurts because he wanted desperately to help carry the Bucs all the way. It wasn’t to be. Maybe next year.... Willie’s long ball was missing, but it was not a one-man loss to the Reds. Pittsburgh, as a team, won a world championship l
ast year. This year, the team didn’t make it.”6
Indeed, Stargell wasn’t the only one who failed to deliver at the plate. Oliver started strong but had only one hit in his last 13 NLCS at-bats. Hebner was 1-for-12 before getting two hits in his last game, and Alley did not have a hit in 16 plate appearances. The team had a .190 batting average for the five games.
Stargell, not surprisingly, didn’t have much to say afterward. “It’s tough right now,” he said softly to reporters. “Six months of planning and preparation and everything and it comes to this. Just like that, it’s over.” Clemente—who unbeknownst to him or anyone else had just played his final game in a Pirate uniform—tried to pick up the mood in the clubhouse. “Giusti! Damn you, Giusti,” he screamed at the veteran right-hander, who was sitting on the floor, his chin slumped against his chest. “Look straight ahead. Pick up your head. We don’t quit now. We go home and come back in February.”7
But Clemente would not come back in February. On New Year’s Eve, a four-engine DC-7 piston-powered plane that was carrying the 38-year-old outfielder and relief supplies from his native Puerto Rico to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua crashed shortly after takeoff from San Juan International Airport at 9:22 P.M. The plane, carrying a crew of three and one additional passenger, came down in the sea about a mile and a half from shore, and Clemente’s body never was found. Clemente, who was leading his nation’s efforts to aid the Nicaraguan quake victims, made the trip personally because he was concerned that supplies were falling into the wrong people’s hands in Nicaragua. Clemente’s efforts were not unnoticed, even before his fatal crash. A letter to the editor that appeared in the Post-Gazette on New Year’s Day—the day before the crash was reported—praised his efforts. “[A]mid this world of bombings, murders and overall destruction, it seems an anachronism to find a person such as Roberto Clemente, filled with pride, strength, determination and love. But Sr. Clemente could never be more right for his time. His is an example it would do us all good to follow,” wrote Trudy Labovitz of Pittsburgh.8
Clemente’s death stunned everyone connected with the Pirates. “He died caring,” GM Brown said. “I’m sorry about baseball last. The big thing is losing Roberto Clemente, the man.” Giusti couldn’t grasp the reality of the situation two days after the fact. “I’ve been around other superstars. I never saw any of them have as much compassion for his teammates like Clemente did. He would treat a rookie like he was Willie Stargell.” It wasn’t just his leadership that would be missed, though, as Virdon well knew. “When you think of baseball in Pittsburgh, you think of Clemente,” he said. “There’s no way to replace him. We will just fill the spot. He was the best I ever saw in my era.”9
When the Pirates reassembled the following February, Clemente’s loss became all too apparent. For his part, Stargell tried to step into the breach, accepting the offer to become team captain—an offer made by Murtaugh, who while no longer managing the club still remained involved as the team’s director of player acquisition and development. Stargell, concerned over the losses of Clemente and Mazeroski, tried to convey his own personal philosophy of remaining on an even keel—never getting too high or too low. It was the same approach he had learned from his stepfather, Percy Russell, while coming of age back in the projects of Alameda. “Roberto meant so much to the Pirates and made players like me feel so welcome,” Stargell would say years later. “He taught me what an important influence you can have on a team and in the clubhouse. It was a lesson I never forgot and tried to relate to young players on the team.”10
Kison, who missed much of the 1973 season while nursing a shoulder injury, said he appreciated Stargell’s efforts in the wake of Clemente’s death. “It was a sudden shock to the team and Willie took over in effect as the leader and stabilized the group. He had a calming influence on one and all. With his sense of humor and with his leadership characteristics, which included being a father influence to some and a brother influence to others, he just stabilized the situation. He had an uncanny way of verbalizing things, whether it was soothing someone or firing someone up. It was a gift. The man had huge shoulders and he took on the responsibility of a lot of things. He was a very stabilizing force both on and off the field.”11
Stargell never proclaimed himself as the club’s leader. He didn’t have to, said Bob Smizik, a longtime Pittsburgh journalist who had the Pirates beat at the Pittsburgh Press from 1972 through 1977 and remains active today on the city’s sports scene, having crossed into the blogosphere several years ago. Smizik characterized the Pirates’ effort in 1973 as “heroic” and said Stargell did what he had to do. “He had to pick up the mantle for Clemente and he did,” he said. “I remember after Clemente died, Al Oliver saying he needed to step up and be a leader on the team. But Willie never said that; he never changed.”12
On the field, the Pirates sported a different look, with Sanguillen moving out from behind the plate to take over for his best friend Clemente in right field, backup Milt May stepping in for Sanguillen as catcher and Robertson reclaiming first base, a move that allowed Stargell—no longer worried about his knee—to return to left field. The moves did not pay off at the outset, as the club got off to a dreadful start, even falling into the NL East cellar for several days in late June. The team continued to scuffle but somehow remained in the thick of things into September despite Clemente’s absence and the bewildering loss of form by Blass, who went from a Cy Young-caliber starter to a 3–9 record and a mind-boggling 9.85 ERA in 23 appearances. He worked only 88⅔ innings and yielded 84 walks, hit 12 batters and threw nine wild pitches. It was then, with the Pirates 68–70 and trailing first-place St. Louis by three games in the NL East, that Brown lowered the boom on Virdon, firing him on September 6 and replacing him once again with his longtime friend and collaborator, Murtaugh. Brown wouldn’t elaborate on his reasons for the firing. “It’s enough of a blow to be relieved,” Brown said. “I don’t want to be specific. I don’t want to get into chapter and verse. It’s unfair and unreasonable. My criticisms are kept within me.” Virdon took his dismissal with his usual stoicism. “I did what I thought I had to do,” he said later. “It didn’t work out. But it’s only natural to be hurt.”13Some players were not pleased with the change; others were not unhappy. “I have no feeling,” Stargell said. “The shock hasn’t subsided yet.”14
The change energized the club, at least for a while, as it won seven of nine and reclaimed first place by mid–September. But the Bucs faltered down the stretch and finished 80–82, in third place behind the division champion Mets and runner-up St. Louis. The lackluster mark, particularly coming off a championship-caliber performance the year before, was not a surprise, given the void left from Clemente’s death. “It was an emotional year, trying to get over the shock of losing one of your leaders, one of your teammates,” Kison said. “It was certainly not something you could prepare for.”15
Stargell certainly was not to blame for the Bucs’ downturn, as he had one of his best seasons, crushing 44 home runs and driving in 119 runs while batting .299. He appeared in 148 games—the most in his 21-year career—and posted career highs in runs (106), doubles (43), slugging percentage (.646) and on-base-plus-slugging (1.038). His herculean homers also came, including a 468-foot upper-deck bolt off Gary Gentry on May 31 at Three Rivers Stadium and a shot on May 8 that cleared the right-field pavilion at Dodger Stadium, the second time he had hit one out of that particular park.
Stargell was a master at work, and all who watched recognized it as such. “He was one of the smartest hitters I’ve ever been around,” Bartirome said. “He would set pitchers up. I used to call him on it. He’d swing and miss in the first inning if nobody was on. The pitcher would throw a curve or a slider, or whatever pitch was the best that pitcher had. He’d swing and miss by a foot. He’d turn and ask the catcher, ‘What was that pitch?’ I’d never seen anything like it. Then in the eighth, if we were behind with a couple of guys on, he’d know that pitch was gonna come.”16
Ol
iver related nearly an identical observation. “He was one of the few hitters I knew who could go to the plate and on occasion look for certain pitches in key situations. It might be a pitch you got him out with in the first inning, but in the eighth or ninth inning, you couldn’t get him out. He looked for it, and if he got it, he didn’t miss it. Lots of guys look for pitches and get them and then not capitalize on them. He could do it. He just knew how guys were going to pitch him in certain situations. Most of the time in key situations, he outsmarted them.”17
Willie unleashes his mighty swing, the one that propelled 475 balls beyond outfield walls throughout the major leagues and made him one of the game’s all-time great sluggers (courtesy Pittsburgh Pirates).
Stargell was miles removed from the days of being platooned against left-handed pitching, as all the hard work he had put in over the years had finally paid off. The left-handed Veale recalled the hours of time Stargell spent in batting practice, asking Veale to throw to him so he could get comfortable hitting against southpaws. “I would pitch him off-speed stuff just so he would get used to it,” Veale said. “We’d come out early and he’d hit a couple of bags of balls. I would tell him, ‘If I hit you, just chalk it up to on-the-job training.’ He got to the point where he wasn’t afraid to hang in there against left-handers. At that time, I could throw just about every day. So I’d throw to him for five or 10 minutes. I’d tell him that I was coming inside or going away or high and tight, just to let him get an idea what a fastball looked like coming out of my hand. Then I’d show him a few breaking balls, and move them around from one side of the plate to the other. I would try to explain to him that all he needed to do was keep his eyes on the ball from the time it leaves my hand to the destination of where he wanted to hit it. All he had to do was make solid contact. And if it got into his power zone, he would smash it. And it was gone.”18
Willie Stargell Page 14