Also failing to deliver, at least in the manner in which Pirate fans and team management had become accustomed, was Stargell. The big bopper did hit 20 home runs but drove in only 65—his lowest RBI total since his rookie year in 1963—while batting a subpar .257. But the slugger had good reason to struggle. On the night of May 26, Stargell’s wife, Dolores, began experiencing a pounding headache, and a short time later, the couple went to a nearby hospital, where Dolores suffered a stroke and a brain aneurism. She underwent surgery but was left partially paralyzed on her left side and was required to undergo extensive rehabilitation. The experience devastated both husband and wife; Dolores later said she believed it triggered the ultimate demise of their marriage. Stargell missed a number of games during Dolores’s illness, and after he returned to the lineup, he never found his customary groove. “The ’76 season was hell, capital H-E-L-L,” Stargell told Sports Illustrated writer Anthony Cotton three years later. “I couldn’t concentrate. I could only see Dolores with all this equipment strapped on her, and my mind drifted quite a bit.”32
If Dolores’s medical issues were not enough of a weight to bear, Out of Left Field—the controversial book that raised eyebrows all over the baseball world before being pulled in 1974—was back and ready for distribution by Two Continents Publishing Group. The 223-page book consisted largely of transcribed conversations with Stargell, general manager Brown, Murtaugh, Virdon and several teammates, including Blass, Briles, Zisk and Ellis. It even featured Dolores Stargell and a self-proclaimed baseball groupie named “Gayle.” The book featured discussions about baseball—including an account of Stargell’s contract negotiations—but it was the sexual escapades and tales of drug usage that had the baseball world buzzing. A Two Continents Publishing Group press release characterized it as a “searing, startling, brutally honest book ... baseball as the powers would rather you didn’t know it, baseball as the fans couldn’t know it, baseball in its real glory, warts and all.”33 Ellis, by this time, had moved on to the New York Yankees but his Pittsburgh-based attorney, Tom Reich, called the book “disgusting. The bottom line is that it makes me sick. It’s one of the most offensive things ever. Willie Stargell is one of the finest men and athletes in this town and he’s being victimized by this stuff.”34
Dolores—known as Dee in the book—revealed that her famous husband would bring cards home from women who missed him “very much. Just funny little cards signed by women. Willie denies everything. As long as he denies it, that’s fine with me. It can never hurt me if I don’t know about it specifically.”35
Despite the distractions Dolores’s illness posed, the publication of the controversial book and Stargell’s subpar individual effort, the Pirates went 92–70. But when post-season play began, they were on the outside looking in, as the Phillies claimed their first-ever NL East title. It didn’t come easy, though. After trailing by 15½ games on August 24, the Bucs made a late run and cut the margin to just three games on September 17. But they proceeded to lose their next three in a row and saw their deficit grow to 4½ games. It never got smaller and they wound up second, nine games back. The ’76 season would signal a major changing of the guard in the Pirate organization, as Brown stepped down as general manager on September 29 and Murtaugh retired just three days later, citing his health as a major factor. Brown, who was 58 and had been with the Pirates for 21 years, said he thought his departure might actually help the organization in some ways. “The nature of my position is that you leave a stamp on the team,” he told the media. “The people in Pittsburgh feel a certain way about the team, and it’s not all good. A change could be good. We’ve been doing it Brown’s way for 21 years. Maybe it’s time for new ideas, new thoughts.”36
Harding “Pete” Peterson was named to replace Brown as general manager, and his first order of business was finding someone to succeed Murtaugh. Among the names that surfaced early was none other than Stargell; after all, he was universally respected, and another black player-manager had been hired recently in the Indians’ Frank Robinson. But Stargell dismissed such talk before it gained any momentum. “All I want to do is play,” he told the media on the same day he was named the recipient of the Catholic Youth Association’s second annual Art Rooney Award. “I have a few years left before I think about that.”37 On November 5—the day before Stargell was to receive yet another award, this time the Brian Piccolo Award from the national YMCA in Seattle for “unselfish contributions to the betterment of man and community”—Peterson ended the speculation about who would manage the Bucs by “acquiring” Chuck Tanner from Oakland. Peterson had to send catcher Sanguillen and cash to the Oakland A’s for the rights to employ Tanner, a native of nearby New Castle who was coming home for his dream job. Tanner joked at his press conference that he had agreed to take the job only after Murtaugh took “an oath that he really retired.”38 Sadly, a little more than three weeks later, Murtaugh suffered a stroke at the age of 59 and died two days later on December 2. That wasn’t the only death in the Pirate family that off-season, as the right-handed Moose died in a car accident on October 9—his 29th birthday—while headed to a dinner party that followed a golf outing near St. Clairsville, Ohio. “Here’s a young man in the prime of his life, alive and healthy one minute and not with us anymore the next,” a distraught Murtaugh said after hearing the news. “I can’t tell you how depressing that is.”39
Peterson wasted no time in putting his stamp on the ballclub. In addition to bringing in a new manager, he dealt away a couple of backup infielders for reliever Grant Jackson, then shipped Zisk and pitcher Silvio Martinez to the White Sox for pitchers Rich Gossage and Terry Forster—both of whom Tanner had managed before. Then, in the middle of spring training in March 1977, Peterson sent Giusti, Medich and five prospects to the A’s for Phil Garner. The scrappy Garner had been playing second base in Oakland but was expected to take over at third for Hebner, who had played out his option and signed with Philadelphia.
The changes, coupled with Tanner’s natural and infectious enthusiasm, had players and fans alike keyed up for the ’77 campaign. The Bucs caught fire early, winning 16 of 17 before the season was a month old. By May 24, the team was 26–12 and in first place by 2½ games. But within a week, the Pirates had yielded the top spot to the defending division champion Phillies and, despite coming close during the dog days of August, never quite caught up to their cross-state rivals, finishing second, five games back. Still, the club put together an outstanding 96–66 record—the most wins since the ’71 championship team collected 97.
Perhaps the pivotal—and most memorable—game of that season occurred on July 8, when the Pirates roared back from a 7–3 deficit and a bench-clearing brawl to pull out an 8–7 win over the Phillies. With the Pirates leading 3–2, the Phillies’ Garry Maddox hit a two-run homer in the seventh to put his team ahead 4–3. Kison then hit Mike Schmidt with a pitch, prompting Schmidt to bark at Kison, who then challenged the Phillies’ slugger to back it up with some action. Schmidt obliged and headed to the mound, and a wild melee ensued, emptying both benches in the process. But the fireworks weren’t over. The Phillies scored three more runs off Kison and reliever Kent Tekulve in the eighth and led 7–3. But after Oliver led off the bottom of the inning with a double, Phillies reliever Tug McGraw hit Stargell in the back with a pitch, and that sent Stargell slowly toward the mound—with a bat in his hand. Again, both benches emptied and this time McGraw and Phillies manager Danny Ozark—both of whom had been warned after Kison had hit Schmidt—were tossed.
“It hurt,” Stargell said, when asked why he headed toward the mound. “Out of instinct I started out there. Then I realized I had a bat in my hand and I wasn’t going to start swinging a bat.” The Pirates, though, started swinging, rallying for four runs in the eighth to tie the game and then pushing home the deciding run in the bottom of the ninth on a four-pitch bases-loaded walk in one of the year’s most satisfying wins. “If the adrenalin on our bench were water,” said Oliver, “everybody in Pitts
burgh would have drowned.”40
Even after the win, the Bucs sat in third place, 8½ games out of the lead. But it sparked a run that saw them trim their deficit to a single game by August 6. That was as close as they got, though, as the Phillies held on, eventually finishing with a five-game margin over the Pirates. The Bucs made their run with virtually no help from their slugging first baseman, as an injured elbow incurred while trying to pull the Phillies’ Greg Luzinski out of a pile during the Kison–Schmidt brawl left Stargell unable to generate any power. So, after playing for another week, he was taken out of the lineup and relegated to a seat in the dugout, where his teammates ribbed him, calling him “Judge” for spending so much time on the bench. “I want to get back in there real bad,” said Stargell, by then the club’s all-time leading home-run hitter with 401, “but there’s nothing I can do until the numbness goes away.”41 The club placed him on the disabled list August 5 and he underwent surgery in September, his season cut short after just 63 games. Despite missing two weeks in mid–April and another week in early July, Stargell finished with 13 homers and 35 RBIs in 186 at-bats—roughly the equivalent of 40 homers and 105 RBIs over a full season—and a .274 batting average.
Some began to wonder if it was the beginning of the end of Stargell’s career. After all, he had come off his worst season in years in 1976 and followed it up with just a 63-game effort that was punctuated by a season-ending injury. And he was 37 years old—not exactly the age when ballplayers figured to resurrect their careers. Some even called for the gentle giant to step aside and make way for one of the younger prospects. But Tanner stood by his first baseman. “Nobody’s going to tell Willie Stargell when to quit!” Tanner said. “He’ll have a job as long as he wants one.”42
While Stargell worked to rehab his surgically repaired elbow, Peterson was busy operating on his roster, trading the veteran Oliver to Texas as part of a four-team deal that brought pitcher Bert Blyleven—a future Hall of Famer—and outfielder John Milner to Pittsburgh, signing free-agent pitcher Jim Bibby and then reacquiring Sanguillen from Oakland.
The 1978 Pirates were counting on those new faces, along with a return to form from Stargell and second baseman Stennett—who suffered a broken leg the previous August—and more of the same from Parker, who had a monster year in 1977, leading the league with 215 hits and 44 doubles, pounding out 21 homers and driving in 88 runs while hitting .338. But Parker’s big bat and the new faces didn’t help the club get off on the right foot, as it was scuffling in mid–June with a 27–31 mark in fourth place, 6½ games back. By that time, Stargell had registered seven homers and 34 RBIs. Included during that run was a two-homer night on May 20 off Wayne Twitchell in Montreal, with one of them traveling 535 feet—among the longest Stargell ever hit and the longest ever hit in Olympic Stadium. “How can anybody hit a ball that far?” Tanner marveled afterward. Stargell was unfazed, noting that a couple of the balls he had hit into Three Rivers Stadium’s upper deck had traveled farther than the shot he hit off Twitchell.43
Willie bundles up on a chilly day in Pittsburgh (courtesy Pittsburgh Pirates).
The club sustained a major loss at the end of June when Parker—trying to tag up and score the tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning against the visiting Mets—dived head-first into catcher John Stearns. The result: a fractured left cheekbone and a three-stitch cut about his left eye that kept him out of the lineup for 11 games. By the time he returned on July 16, the Pirates were 43–43, in third place, six games back. Some members of the local media gave the Bucs up for dead. The Post-Gazette’s Feeney wrote on August 7: “The Pirates yesterday were placed in the funeral parlor, reserved for teams due to be eliminated from the pennant race in September. The burial date is anybody’s guess.” The headline read, “Bucs Dead, Funeral Date Pending.44 It got worse; by August 12, the club sat in fourth place, 11½ games back, with a 51–61 record. But from that point on, the team went on a tear, winning 37 of its last 49 games to make a late—but ultimately unsuccessful—charge. It all came down to the last series of the year, a four-game set with the first-place Phillies, who held a 3½-game lead. The Pirates won the first two—the second one coming on a balk that brought home the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning—but the dream died the following night. The Phillies took a 10–4 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but the Pirates rallied to cut it to 10–8 and had the tying run at the plate in the person of Stargell. But the big slugger did not come through, striking out instead, and when Garner grounded out to end the game, it also ended the Pirates pennant hopes.
For Stargell, though, the season represented a major achievement, as he showed he was far was finished. Thanks to some judicious use by Tanner, who gave the veteran a day off now and then, Stargell slugged 28 homers and drove in 97 runs in only 390 at-bats and batted .295. His performance did not escape notice; he was named the league’s Comeback Player of the Year. Although clearly in the twilight of one of the game’s best-ever careers, he also clearly had a little gas left in his tank—and he would show the baseball world just how explosive that fuel could be in 1979.
Chapter 6
We Are Family
THE CLUB THAT ASSEMBLED in Bradenton in early 1979 looked very much like the one that made a late—albeit ultimately unsuccessful—run the previous season, although Peterson did acquire reliever Enrique Romo from the Seattle Mariners in what proved to be a key addition. The rest of the regular lineup, led by Parker—who became the game’s first million-dollar-a-year man when he signed an off-season deal for $5 million over five years—and the rejuvenated Stargell remained intact. However, a major shakeup occurred on April 19 when Peterson swapped shortstops with the Mets, sending Taveras to New York for Tim Foli, who had developed a reputation as a hothead but whose energy and defensive talents would make him a perfect fit in the Pirates infield.
An early six-game losing streak put the team in a 4–10 hole in late April, and it wasn’t until May 29 that it again reached the .500 mark at 21–21. Nothing much changed by late June, as the Pirates remained around the break-even point. But fortunes turned on June 28 when Peterson pulled the trigger on a five-player deal with the San Francisco Giants, acquiring two-time league batting champion Bill Madlock and pitcher Dave Roberts in exchange for three pitchers—Ed Whitson, Al Holland and Fred Breining. In Madlock, the Pirates obtained the quintessential professional hitter who gave the club much-needed punch from the right side and carried the league’s highest active career batting average at .325.
Stargell was elated with the acquisition and said it would help all involved. “It was good for Madlock because it’s a change of atmosphere for him, just what Bill needs. I feel sure Bill is happy to be coming over here.” Not everyone was as thrilled with the deal, though. Garner, who figured to be the odd man out at third base with Madlock’s arrival, said, “It looks like a good trade but I’ll think it’s a horsefeathers trade if I wind up watching the games from the bullpen.”1
On July 8, the Pirates found themselves 40–38 and in fourth place, seven games out of first, but they then reeled off 13 wins in their next 14 starts to improve to 53–39 and climbed to second place, just a game behind Montreal. A week into August, the Bucs had moved into first place and by mid–August had opened up a four-game lead. But a three-game skid in mid–September dropped the Pirates out of the top spot, a game behind Montreal. After splitting the first two games of a four-game showdown with the Expos on September 24, the Pirates were in second place, a half-game back. But convincing wins each of the next two nights—10–4 and 10–1—put Pittsburgh in first place by a game and a half with four to play. A 13-inning, 7–6 loss to the Cubs—made possible in part by a Stargell throwing error—on the season’s next-to-last day cut the Bucs’ lead to a single game with one to play, but a 5–3 win over Chicago in the regular-season finale clinched the division and left the Pirates with a sparkling 98–64 record.
Dan Donovan, a Pirates beat writer with the Pittsburgh Press in the late 1970s
and early ’80s, recalled the next-to-last game loss to the Cubs. “He butchered a play at first base and basically cost them the game,” Donovan said of Stargell. “He hardly ever made really bad plays at first base, but he did on that one. He walked into the locker room later talking about it to everyone. ‘I looked like a monkey fucking a football,’ he said. I had no clue what that would look like. So I wrote, ‘A monkey playing with a football.’ That was his way to keep the team loose and to take responsibility for things. They laughed and joked and kidded him and they realized it wasn’t the end of the world. That’s the kind of thing he would do.”2
Stargell didn’t hit for much average down the stretch—just .222 for the month of September—but he slammed eight home runs, including one in the season-finale, and drove in 18 runs that month to lead the charge. His final two RBIs came in the division-clinching win and gave him 1,476 for his career—enough to move him past Honus Wagner and into the top spot among all Pirate players. “This is the most warm-feeling thing I’ve ever been associated with,” he said afterward as champagne flowed in the victorious clubhouse. “We don’t have many .300 hitters and we don’t have any 20-game winners; what we have is 25 guys who play hard. What we have is a lot of junkyard dogs.”3
Junkyard dogs with pedigrees; statistically, the Pirates had their share of heavy hitters and standout pitchers. Stargell put together his second straight outstanding season, hitting .281 with 32 homers and 82 RBIs in 126 games. Parker belted 25 home runs, drove in 94 and hit .310, and was a major force down the stretch as he ripped 15 hits in his final 24 regular-season at-bats, Madlock did just what the Pirates had hoped when they brought him in from San Francisco, hitting .328 while Robinson—who played 125 games in the outfield and another 28 at first base—offered solid power numbers with 24 homers and 75 RBIs. Garner, inserted at second base after the Madlock trade, hit 11 homers, drove in 59 runs and batted .293 in 150 games. On the mound, no one pitcher dominated but six Pirate hurlers—Blyleven, Candelaria, Kison, Romo, Jim Bibby and Kent Tekulve—reached double figures in wins. Tekulve, the tall, thin right-handed reliever who threw from down under, saved 31 games to go with his 10 wins in a mind-boggling 94 appearances.
Willie Stargell Page 16