Tanner was often shown smiling and acting as a benevolent leader when it came to guiding his group, but he said he was hardly a softy. “They’d ask Parker about me always smiling and Parker would say, ‘Don’t go in a room with him by yourself because he’s the only one who’ll come out.’ Don’t give me that smile shit. Maybe for the news media and the TV reporters. But in my clubhouse, that was my team. And Willie knew. He had a way to get his point across, a way to get to people.”
It wasn’t so much that Stargell had one way to reach people—he somehow found what made each person tick and could make the connection when needed, Tanner said. “That’s what you have to do because everyone’s different,” Tanner said. “There were a couple of guys I could hammer, some I’d pat on the back and some I wouldn’t. Some guys you kick, some guys you hug. He knew stuff about each individual. And to me, that’s the key to how you communicate. Take Ed Ott—I could scream at him and get in his face. But Omar Moreno, you could never yell at. It’d break his heart—he’d be afraid to do anything. So I’d hug him.”
Tanner said his ’79 team had a once-in-a-lifetime personality and it was the club’s resilience that separated it from other teams he managed. “We’d be losing by two runs in the sixth inning and Stargell would say, ‘They don’t even know—they think they’re ahead but they’re really behind.’ We came back 25 times to win that year. We just had that kind of attitude.” One of the most amazing comebacks occurred on August 11 against the Phillies at Veterans Stadium. The Pirates trailed 8–0, and Madlock—still relatively new to the club—wondered aloud why Tanner wasn’t pulling some of his regulars to give them some much-needed rest. “And Tony Bartirome said, ‘The game isn’t over yet,’” Tanner recalled. “Stargell’s sitting on the top step of the dugout and he says, ‘Let’s go, men, let’s show them what the Buccos are made of.’” The Pirates rallied for five runs in the fifth to make it 8–5, then pushed across four in the seventh to take a 9–8 lead. They nursed that lead for another inning before Ott smashed a grand slam off the Phillies’ ace reliever, Tug McGraw, and the Pirates held on for a 14–11 win. Afterward, a bemused Tanner was entertaining questions from disbelieving Philadelphia writers. “How did that happen?” one writer asked. “They just don’t give up,” Tanner said. “They believe they can win. That’s the way they’ve been since I’ve been here. I know that people laugh at me. They make fun of me in the papers, and on radio and TV. They laugh. I know that. But that’s the way it is.”21
And when they wrapped up the division title on the season’s final day on September 30, the players all celebrated and more than a few tipped their hat to their elder statesman—number 8—who helped carry them down the stretch. Milner, who played for the ’73 Mets team that won the NL title, saw Stargell shed a few tears in the clubhouse after the regular-season finale and was touched. “I watched Willie Mays cry in 1973 and we dedicated the playoffs to him,” Milner said amid pouring champagne that followed the regular-season finale, “and I watched Willie Stargell cry today, and we’re dedicating these playoffs to him.”22
The playoffs brought a foe familiar to Stargell and a couple of other Pirate holdovers from the early- to mid–70s teams: the Cincinnati Reds. But unlike 1970, 1972 and 1975, the Pirates had Cincinnati’s number—sweeping the Reds out of the playoffs in three games just as Cincinnati had swept the Bucs in 1970 and 1975. In the opener at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, the two teams battled to a 2–2 standoff through 10 innings as Candelaria and Tom Seaver matched wits, but in the 11th, Foli and Parker opened with singles off the Reds’ Tom Hume, and Stargell—who lugged a career .220 playoff batting average into the game—followed by hitting the first pitch over the right-center wall for what proved to be the game-winning three-run homer. Tanner was not surprised Stargell came through in the clutch. “This is what he’s done for me ever since I’ve been here,” he said later. “Willie’s come up with the big hit, time and time again, for us. In my opinion, he’s the Most Valuable Player in the National League.”23
Nine innings weren’t enough to settle Game 2, either. Thanks to a couple of timely hits and a strong seven-inning performance from Bibby, the Pirates took a 2–1 lead into the bottom of the ninth behind their ace reliever Tekulve. But with one out, Hector Cruz and Dave Collins smacked back-to-back doubles to tie the game and send it into extra innings. Then, in the 10th, Moreno led off with a single, moved to second on Foli’s sacrifice bunt and scored on Parker’s base hit, and Don Robinson retired the side in order in the bottom of the inning to send the Pirates back to Pittsburgh with a 2–0 series lead.
No such drama ensued two days later in Pittsburgh in Game 3, thanks in part to Blyleven, who tamed the Reds on eight hits, and Stargell, who hit a solo homer in the third and then cracked a two-run double in the fourth that turned a 4–0 lead into a 6–0 edge that ultimately finished in a 7–1 series-clinching win. However, there were some theatrics, as a group of Pirate wives leaped onto a cement wall behind home plate during the seventh inning stretch and began boogying to “We Are Family.” “I thought it was something they deserved,” said Stargell, who was named the playoffs Most Valuable Player after hitting a pair of home runs, driving in six runs and posting an NLCS-record 1.182 slugging percentage. “When you’ve got high-strung athletes around, coming in at all times, they’re mother and father most of the time. They deserve as many stars as we get. To look up there and see them letting it go, I was very happy.” He was also elated for the win and a ticket to his second World Series—another matchup with the Baltimore Orioles. “If they took a picture of my body,” he said, “it would show goosebumps everywhere. The good Lord lets us shed tears at touching moments, and that’s what transpired with me. I wish there was a way to thank every fan individually.”24 It took an hour before Stargell was finished with media interviews and then he finally made it into the Pirate clubhouse, where he talked about how proud he was of his teammates—his Fam-A-Lee members. “These guys,” he said. “They made it happen.”25
Stargell told reporters it was the loose clubhouse atmosphere that played a key role in the club’s success up to that point. “We feel we can have fun in the clubhouse, and that way there’s no way we can wrap ourselves up so tight that we’ll go onto the field and do things unnaturally. The Series will be like this. We’ll be out there playing good country baseball. Nothing fancy. If we keep that up, we’ll give Baltimore a good Series.”26
But after Game 4 of the Series had ended, it looked like the Pirates had done exactly the opposite. In Game 1, Kison—traditionally a big-game pitcher—surrendered five runs in the first inning and the Orioles held on to win 5–4. The Pirates outhit the O’s 11–6, and Baltimore managed just one hit after the second inning. Stargell did his part, driving in a run with an infield out and then hitting a solo homer in the eighth that trimmed the margin to one run, but he also popped out to short left field with Parker on third base and two outs in the top of the ninth inning to end the game. While Kison did not pitch well, he was also betrayed somewhat by his defense. Garner, for example, fielded a potential double-play ground ball with the bases loaded, and threw it—as he said—“like a bar of soap” beyond shortstop Foli and into left field, allowing two runs to score. “The ball was wet and my fingers were numb with cold,” Garner told reporters later, referring to the 40-degree game-time temperature, which followed intermittent rain and snow earlier in the day—a continuation of the type of weather that forced Game 1 to be pushed back a day. “I couldn’t feel the stitches and get a grip on the ball.”27
Garner was disconsolate after the game—and it was just the type of situation where Stargell was known to work his attitude adjustment magic. Although he didn’t preach to his teammates, he seemed to have a knack for knowing when one of them needed a pick-me-up. Garner needed just that following Game 1. Even 30 years later he believed his throwing error “cost Kison three runs and probably cost us the game. If I make the play, they don’t score. So I’m feeling pretty crappy. I sit down on t
he bus after the game and Willie sits down beside me. I’m looking out the window. He coughs. I turn around and look at him. Now, take your index finger and bend it toward the palm of your hand and stick your knuckle in your nose hole. That’s what he was doing. And he says, ‘You know, in the ’71 World Series, I made an error and I cut my finger off.’ He said it with such a deadpan delivery. I started laughing. That’s all he did. That’s leadership. That wasn’t a rah-rah speech. I think there’s a subtle way that leaders head off problems. We had players who could be volatile. You didn’t know what Parker would say and you didn’t know what I would say. But Willie had a way of guiding it into a fun sort of thing. That’s how he led. That was his style and how he did it. He did it because he was in close communication with everyone as individuals. He didn’t have to stand up and deliver a group thing, although he could speak brilliantly.”28
Stargell spoke about his approach to Mike Littwin of the Los Angeles Times years later. “The game is 85 percent mental. The parts that are physical, everyone has when he comes to the big leagues. But if you’re going to make it, you have to be able to live under a microscope. You have to learn to deal with pressure. Maybe that’s part of what I do. If I see someone who isn’t dealing with the pressure, I try to loosen him up.”29
Blyleven bounced back to pitch well in Game 2, limiting the Birds to five hits in six innings, and relievers Robinson and Tekulve combined to allow just one hit in the final two frames. The Pirates took a 2–0 lead off Baltimore starter Jim Palmer in the second inning on consecutive singles by Stargell, Milner and Madlock, and Ott’s sacrifice fly. Eddie Murray’s home run in the bottom of the second cut the margin in half, and his RBI double in the sixth tied the score. Then in the ninth, with two outs and nobody on, Ott singled, moved to second on Garner’s walk and scored when the veteran Sanguillen—a key cog in the ’71 club that vanquished the Orioles in the Series but now relegated to spot duty—served a soft line drive to right field for a pinch-hit single. Tekulve set the Orioles down in order in the bottom of the inning and the Pirates had evened the series at one game apiece.
The Series shifted to Pittsburgh for Game 3, and after two innings it looked as though the Pirates were off and running, scoring once in the first and twice in the second off Orioles starter Scott McGregor. But the Orioles narrowed the margin to 3–2 in the third off Candelaria and then erupted for five runs in the fourth to take a 7–3 lead on the way to an 8–4 win. The inning was punctuated by an error, a wild pitch, a hit batsman and—as in Game 1—the Pirates’ inability to convert a double play. “We’re going to have to start playing better baseball,” Garner said afterward, “or we’re not going to make it back to Baltimore.”30 The frustration continued for Pittsburgh in Game 4. After scoring four runs in the second—one coming on Stargell’s solo homer—and then adding single runs in the fifth and sixth, the Pirates appeared on course to even the Series, taking a 6–3 lead into the top of the eighth inning. But a pair of singles and a walk off reliever Robinson loaded the bases and prompted Tanner to call on Tekulve with one out. The submarine-style closer was not up to the task, though, yielding two-run doubles to John Lowenstein and Terry Crowley and then surrendering a base hit to Tim Stoddard and a run-scoring groundout to Al Bumbry, giving the Orioles a 9–6 advantage. The Pirates put a pair of runners on base in the ninth to bring Ott up as the potential tying run, but Stoddard struck him out to end the game and give the Orioles what appeared to be a commanding 3–1 lead.
Afterward, Tanner stood behind his battered closer Tekulve, saying if the same situation presented itself in Game 5, he’d make the same move and bring the reliever—known as Teke—into the game. “Kent saved our life,” Tanner said. “He took us to the World Series. But today, he threw a couple of balls that didn’t sink. It was as simple as that. But I still think he’s the best reliever in baseball.” Tekulve, a standup guy, offered no excuses. “I threw the right pitches for the situation but I didn’t get the location,” he said. “The ball doesn’t always do what you want it to do.”31
Facing elimination at home in Game 5, the Pirates sent the veteran lefty Rooker to the mound to start—this despite the fact that he was just 4–7 with a 4.59 ERA during the regular season. “He’s the only guy I can start,” Tanner said, noting that Kison—the Game 1 starter—was unable to go because of a tender forearm. Rooker certainly had respect for his opponent. “They’ve put on a baseball clinic,” he said, referring to the Orioles’ performance in the Series’ first four games, “and we’ve watched it.”32 Through the first half of Game 5, things did not look good for Pittsburgh, but it was no fault of Rooker’s. The 37-year-old started strong, retiring 12 of the first 13 hitters he faced and, heading into the fifth inning, the game was scoreless. But in the fifth, Rooker yielded a double to Gary Roenicke and a single to Doug DeCinces, and when Rich Dauer bounced into a double play, the Orioles took a 1–0 lead. Just as Rooker was sharp early, so was Orioles starter Mike Flanagan, who allowed just two hits through the first four. Then in the sixth, the slumbering Bucco bats finally awakened. A walk to Foli, Parker’s single and Bill Robinson’s sacrifice left runners at second and third, and Stargell plated the tying run with a sacrifice fly that also moved Parker to third. Madlock then followed with a base hit to drive home the go-ahead run. Pittsburgh added two more runs in the seventh on Foli’s triple and a double by Parker and then put the game away with three in the eighth to seal a 7–1 victory. Blyleven, who came on in relief of Rooker in the sixth, was even more effective, limiting the Birds to three hits and no runs in pitching the final four innings. Rooker, who came through with a clutch performance, said the club finally played its game. “The real Pirates played today,” he said later. “The first four games, we had some no-shows. Today, we rose to the occasion.”33
Game 6 started out just the way Game 5 did, with neither team able to muster much of an attack, as starters Candelaria and Palmer had their way with the opposing hitters. With the game scoreless through six, the Pirates finally broke through against Palmer with two runs in the seventh. Singles by Moreno and Foli set the stage, and Parker followed with an RBI single. Stargell then contributed a sacrifice fly, and that proved to be all the offense Pittsburgh would need in what ultimately proved to be a 4–0 series-evening victory. Candelaria rebounded from a sub-par Game 3 effort, yielding just six hits and no walks through six innings, and the resilient Tekulve allowed only one base runner in his three-inning save.
The Bucs’ second straight win set up a Game 7 showdown between Bibby and Scott McGregor, and brought with it all the drama that usually accompanies a winner-take-all meeting. If that wasn’t enough, hanging over Tanner’s head was the death of his mother, which occurred the same day Game 5 was played. Baltimore struck first on Dauer’s solo homer in the second and the Orioles got into the Pirate bullpen early, as Tanner called on young Don Robinson to start the fifth. He recorded two outs but also allowed a single and a walk, and Tanner then summoned Grant Jackson from the pen, and the veteran lefty escaped with no further damage. Then in the sixth, the tide turned for Pittsburgh. With one out, Bill Robinson singled to left and on the first pitch, Stargell took McGregor deep and beyond the right-field wall for a two-run homer for what proved to be the deciding runs. Stargell said later that McGregor threw him a breaking ball. “I didn’t want to commit myself on the pitch too soon. I was out in front of it, but I got the bat speed I wanted. At first, I didn’t think it would travel that far. When it did, I was just thrilled.”34 McGregor tipped his hat to the Pirates’ slugger afterward. “Mr. Stargell is an amazing man,” he said. “He must be 50 years old, but God bless him, he’s just a fantastic hitter.”35
Jackson worked into the eighth before yielding a pair of walks and giving way to Tekulve with one out. Stargell came in from first base to offer a few words of encouragement. “I said, ‘Teke, show how you are the best reliever there is,’” Stargell said after the game. “’And if you can’t, you play first base and I’ll pitch.’”36 Tekulve induce
d Terry Crowley to ground out, then intentionally walked Ken Singleton to load the bases before retiring Murray on a deep fly ball to right field, preserving the 2–1 lead. In the top of the ninth, the Pirates added some insurance as Garner—who doubled to lead off the inning—scored on Moreno’s base hit, and Moreno came around to score when Bill Robinson was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Then in the bottom of the ninth, Tekulve mowed the Orioles down, striking out Roenicke and DeCinces swinging on seven pitches combined and then getting pinch-hitter Pat Kelly to fly out to Moreno in center on the first pitch.
On the day that Mother Teresa of Calcutta won the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work with the poorest of the poor, the Pirates were champions again—becoming only the fourth team in World Series history to erase a 3–1 deficit and win a title. Stargell was brought to an interview room between the two clubhouses, where he answered questions from the media. While he was talking on a wooden platform, his sister, Sandrus Collier, made her way into the room, and Stargell spotted her sitting there. “There will be a short pause,” he said and then brother and sister embraced, and all the memories of Willie’s childhood came roaring back. He could not control his emotions and as he continued to embrace his sister, the tears came pouring out. He reached for the towel around his neck to wipe away the tears. “We’ve been together a long time and it’s been hell, but....”37 The embrace earned applause from the reporters who remained in the room. Later in the clubhouse, Sandrus answered a few questions as well. “Ever since I was a little girl, I always loved my brother,” she said. “Our whole family loves him—whether he ever hits another home run or not.”38
For Collier, the moment was a dream come true. She had moved to Pittsburgh the year before to help Stargell with his sickle cell anemia foundation and so she was on hand for the entire “We Are Family” magic that culminated with that moment in the clubhouse following the seventh game. Collier, like other family members, was ushered into a room while the clubhouse celebration commenced, but she went looking for Willie. She found a room and a man at the door told her she could not enter. “I said, ‘I don’t care,’” she recalled 31 years later. ‘How many people have a brother who just became the MVP of the World Series?’ He said, ‘OK.’”39 So Collier made her way into the interview room and embraced her big brother. “I was very proud of him,” she said. “He had come a long way to reach that point where he was in his life and I was really happy that he had finally gotten some recognition. I always felt he was such a good baseball player. People used to talk about his strikeouts, that he was such a strikeout king. But it was nice to hear people in the stadium cheering for him. And when we got back to Pittsburgh, the people in his hometown went literally crazy.”
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