Willie Stargell

by Frank Garland

  Stargell’s feats of long-ball strength were renowned around baseball, and stories of his prodigious blasts were passed down from one generation of players to the next. Bob Walk, who pitched for three teams in the big leagues—including Pittsburgh—before going on to work as a color analyst on Pirate broadcasts, said that when he first came up to the big leagues with Philadelphia in 1980, he would notice seats of different colors in some of the ballparks the Phillies visited. When he’d ask his teammates why those seats were different colors, they’d tell him that Stargell hit balls in those seats. “You needed a telescope to see them,” Walk said of Stargell’s tape-measure blasts. “Everyone used to talk about them. He didn’t hit home runs. He hit conversation pieces.”45

  Chapter 9

  A Whole New Ballgame

  CONVERSATIONS ABOUT STARGELL’S prodigious home run blasts didn’t end when he slid his 35½-inch, 34-ounce Louisville Slugger into the bat rack for the final time. But the next time he’d be seen performing in front of a packed house, someone else would be swinging the lumber. And it wouldn’t be a bat—it would be a conductor’s baton. Just a couple of months removed from his retirement, he would embark on a limited tour with a group of elite musicians, echoing the words of one of his heroes—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  Although the tour took place in January 1983, the seed for Stargell’s unique opportunity was planted more than three years earlier in the mind of a professional musician living in upstate New York. Robert Freeman, who spent much of his adult life leading some of the nation’s most prestigious music schools, was at the helm of the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music during the fall of 1979 when—like millions of baseball fans across the country—he became intrigued by the Pittsburgh Pirates’ “Family” and the team’s charismatic leader. Freeman watched as Stargell virtually willed the Pirates back from a three-games-to-one World Series deficit against Baltimore and helped them defeat the Orioles in the seventh game, hitting a home run to fuel the win. During the post-game interviews, Freeman fell under Stargell’s spell—the earnest appreciation, the heartfelt gratification to be a part of such a wonderful team playing in a sports-crazy community, one that truly cherished its heroes and could see through a phony a mile away. Freeman remembered seeing the media “in Willie’s face”—and was most impressed by the fact that rather than saying how great he felt personally, Stargell emphasized that he was just one player on a team of 25. “He talked about the fact that you can’t play baseball by yourself—that it takes a team and a great owner and a great manager,” Freeman recalled. “It all came forth in the most articulate, heartfelt and meaningful fashion, all representing Pirate baseball. I thought all of that was golden.”1

  Stargell’s selfless display made Freeman think of another African American man who had the gift of galvanizing groups with the force of his personality and his ability to speak so eloquently—the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This was 11 years after King’s death, and the idea hit Freeman like bolt from Stargell’s Louisville Slugger—find a musical piece that would feature text culled from the great writings of King and persuade the Pirate slugger to narrate it. He wanted the piece to be “accessible”—it wouldn’t take a classical music aficionado to appreciate it, but rather it would appeal to the virtually anyone. “I remember lying on the floor with my wife and watching the Pirates celebrate—that’s how this all came together,” he said. “That’s what I do—I put together the mustard, the peanut butter and the chocolate syrup and see what happens. I’m always looking for connections between things.”

  Freeman called Joseph Schwantner, an Eastman professor who had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his composition Aftertones of Infinity, and shared his idea over the telephone. Schwantner was not a baseball fan and had never heard of Stargell. But his son, Christopher, who was about 11 at the time and was a big baseball fan, overheard his father mentioning Stargell’s name in connection with Freeman’s idea. “My son said, ‘That’s Mr. Pittsburgh.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Pittsburgh who?’ The name didn’t ring a bell with me. But Freeman said he had heard Stargell on TV and was impressed with how articulate and thoughtful he was and his brainstorm was that Stargell might be the person to narrate this possible work. I said, ‘Maybe—I don’t know.’” Schwantner had good reason to be skeptical; he had no connection with Stargell and although the now-retired slugger enjoyed music and had been an avid dancer since his teenage years back in Alameda, he had never worked with an orchestra. “I thought it was rather bizarre initially because I didn’t know anything about him,” Schwantner said. “But Willie worked hard and did all the required background. In the end, I got to write the work I wanted to write. As a child of the ’60s, King was such an important figure, and this was a way for me to give back.”2

  Giving back was what Stargell had in mind as well. Freeman arranged a meeting with Stargell’s representative, attorney David Litman, and pitched the idea over lunch. Litman was intrigued but wasn’t sure Stargell would be up for it, given that he had no formal musical training. Then Freeman had lunch with Stargell. “He told me, ‘Anything that would help the memory of Dr. King, I’m very much in favor of,’” Freeman recalled. Later, during rehearsal prior to his stage debut, Stargell told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “It’s probably the finest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. Something to commemorate such a great man—what he’s done compared to what I’ve done. [I’ve been] playing baseball, a game, having fun—it’s what kids do.”3 Stargell told Freeman when he first pitched the idea that his only connection with classical music came as a junior high school student back in Alameda and he could recall only “this guy standing on a box waving his hands around,” Freeman said. “He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to follow somebody doing that. But we told him we’d give him lessons and that the conductor would tell him when to start. And once you start, it’s his job to follow you. But it’s your job not to race. One day he said to me, ‘I can’t be Dr. King.’ I said, ‘Of course not, but you’re a black leader of great charisma—people know who you are. All I want you to do is be you. Read Dr. King’s words in your style.’”

  Schwantner spent the summer of 1980 researching King, and his text drew from more than a decade of King’s life. The result, titled New Morning for the World—Daybreak of Freedom, would not debut until January 15, 1983—the day that King would have turned 54—at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It would be performed more than 200 times and recorded several others. Schwantner said Stargell “brought a kind of dignity and force of will to his performance that was quite captivating.” He said only one narrator had surpassed Stargell in all the times he’s heard it performed—and that was Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King’s widow, who performed it with the Indianapolis Symphony. Schwantner attended that performance and during a break, he said Coretta King asked him to stand with her while she finished. “My heart was just pounding,” Schwantner said. “After the performance, I thought to myself, ‘I am never going to be closer to the source than I am today.’ But in terms of a musical, force-driven personality, Stargell’s performance was one of the best of that piece I had.”

  Schwantner said after he agreed to write the piece and prior to its opening performance, he had a chance to meet with Stargell, just to see what he would be working with. “He had this naturally wonderful kind of booming voice—I could tell if we could train him to deliver on cue, the voice certainly was going to be a commanding one,” Schwantner said. “No question he pushed that voice across the floodlights in a most convincing way. He was a man of substantial stature. And being in front of a microphone, he was kind of an imposing figure. And he was used to dealing with the public. He could look you right in the eye and you paid attention to him. He must have been incredibly intimidating on the ballfield.” A Hall of Famer on the field, Stargell delivered in the symphony hall as well, at least the way Schwantner heard it. “Looking back, some of the best performances of that piece were his early p
erformances, including the one at the Kennedy Center. As one who lives in the concert hall, that was an extraordinary event. A lot of those people there that night had never been to a symphony hall or a symphony concert. During parts of the text that can be very dramatic, people started to clap and holler and verbally respond to Stargell’s narration. It was really neat.”

  After retiring as a player, Willie became involved in a number of endeavors, including one in which he performed a composition titled “New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom” with the Eastman Philharmonia early in 1983 (photograph by Jim Judkis, courtesy Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester).

  It didn’t come easily, however. Stargell received voice “coaching” lessons from Ben Shaktman, founder of the Pittsburgh Public Theater. Stargell praised Shaktman’s work, saying that the text director brought out a new side of him. “I surprised myself,” Stargell said. “This big lug can not only swing a bat but can stand up and chime in with beautiful music and say something with a direct meaning.”4

  David Effron, the conductor, certainly played a major role in helping Stargell perform. Effron, who left Rochester in 1997 for Indiana University, said he met Stargell for the first time prior to the start of rehearsal and he recalled the former slugger as being quite nervous. “He had no background in classical music—he didn’t read music and didn’t know what to expect out of this,” Effron said. “You could see the fear in his eyes, actually. We told him he didn’t have to worry about a thing because I was very reliable and I would just give him a cue with my left hand when it was time for him to say something, and when he finished that segment, he would stop and wait for the next cue. That went very well.

  What I remember was when he came onto the stage and I introduced him to the orchestra, the first thing we played was a very loud note where the whole orchestra was playing. He wasn’t expecting it—he’d certainly never been that close to a classical orchestra. He was standing right in front and when they played this chord, the guy almost jumped out of his skin. From my viewpoint, it was very funny, but I felt empathy because he was completely out of his element.”5

  Willie visits with Joseph Schwantner, who composed “New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom” (courtesy Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester).

  But just as he did on the field, Stargell worked at his new game, a fact that was apparent to everyone around him. “He was so into it and so believable—you’d have thought he was a trained actor,” Effron said. “He did it with such passion and feeling. After a few rehearsals, he became very comfortable.” Shaktman told the Pittsburgh Press in a January 1983 interview that Stargell worked diligently and that he reacted to direction as well as any actor he’d ever worked with. “The challenge cannot be understated,” Shaktman said. “After all, this is a concerto written for the spoken voice. Stargell is really the solo instrument. This is a task which would really challenge an experienced actor.”6

  Students at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, enjoy a light moment with Stargell during rehearsal for “New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom.” Students are (left to right) James Pember Lyon, Kristine Rebecca Fink, Nathan Norman, Christopher Allen Chappell (rear), Bryan James Dumm and Julie Ann Gigante (photograph by Louis Ouzer, courtesy Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester).

  Just like he enjoyed the camaraderie of the clubhouse, Stargell enjoyed the feeling of community that evolved during his work with the 110-member orchestra musicians, most of whom were students at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. “He opened up to them very easily and they really loved him,” Effron said. “You know how the Pirates called him ‘Pops’ because he was a leader and like a father figure? You could see that with the musicians. He was even like a father figure to me, although I was older. I was in my glory being around him.” Schwantner and Freeman remembered the student musicians taking to Stargell once they realized he was in it for the right reasons. “I think a lot of our kids began with the idea that this was some sort of a PR hustle,” Freeman said. “But David Effron did a marvelous job of making the kids take it very seriously. And it turned out to be a very moving experience for us all.” Schwantner said some of the students were baseball fans and they all knew who Stargell was. “And those who didn’t were made aware of who he was,” he said. “I remember him going on the tour with us—we took the train from Kennedy Center to Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to Rochester and he went on that whole trip. The students had just the greatest time. He was handing out ‘Stargell stars’ all over the place. It was really quite something.”

  Although Stargell worked hard to improve his part of the performance, Freeman believed it was the fact that Stargell was an amateur that helped attract the crowds that the Eastman Philharmonia pulled in during the five-city tour that also featured stops at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh and the Eastman Theatre in Rochester. “Willie was completely unanticipatable, which was the charm of the whole thing,” Freeman said. “Why do people go to NASCAR races? They seem deeply boring to me, but the reason 200,000 people go to watch cars speed around a track is they hope there’ll be a crash. Part of the problem with classical music is that people do it so well. You don’t go expecting to hear Itzhak Perlman play a wrong note. But here you had a major league baseball player—let’s see if he’s going to crash. But not only did he not crash, he performed magnificently. People were moved—there was so much cheering and applause. And he was really pleased by all of this, too. You can imagine, you have a retired baseball player coming into a whole new era of his life, where he’s honoring Dr. King’s memory through music. He enjoyed the whole thing.”

  Effron would not argue that point. “I think he felt so much for this subject,” he said, referring to Stargell’s feelings for King. “He didn’t talk about it, but obviously he had a special connection with it because he could really reach the audience. He was a huge hit—and not just because he was Willie Stargell, but because he delivered his words with such great expression and sensitivity.”

  Schwantner said he puts New Morning for the World very close to the top of his accomplishments. The piece has now entered the standard repertoire; it’s a well-known work and is performed numerous times during the year, particularly during the month of January to commemorate King’s birthday. “Sometimes orchestra pieces take time to catch fire,” Schwantner said. “Some are performed once and never again. This one is extraordinarily successful. I have to thank Stargell and his luminous career and this quirky connection between baseball and music that led to the initial interest in the piece. If Freeman had selected a prominent black minister from Rochester to narrate it, that would not have done it. It was Freeman’s extraordinary genius at promoting the school, which he was extremely good at ... this was maybe his greatest stroke of media madness. And in the end, good things came out of this for many, including Stargell.”

  Stargell would go on to perform Schwantner’s tribute to King a number of other times over the next several years, including once in 1990 in Syracuse. There, he told a local reporter that he was in awe at his first rehearsal seven years earlier. He felt he was in over his head and nearly gave up. “I’d look over and see how the students at the Eastman School were playing their hearts out,” he said. “I’d make a mistake and look out of the corner of my eye and I’d see them cringe.”7 Stargell even tried his hand at other pieces, narrating Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” with several symphonies, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in late September of 2000—less than five months before his death. Although by that time suffering from serious health issues, Stargell delivered a game performance at Heinz Hall that night, periodically staring “out into the audience with the same intense eyes that once terrorized countless pitchers.”8

  Freeman and the others weren’t surprised that Stargell could adapt to other works of music. Years earlier, after the initial tour of the K
ing tribute, Freeman envisioned Stargell fashioning a second career built around performing on stage—and doing the necessary work to promote those performances. That’s how easy the big man was to work with. “Gracious and hard-working and honest and undemanding—that’s how I would describe him,” Freeman said. “Willie was superb, not only on the stage but also in all of the public relations activities that surrounded the event.” When Schwantner’s tribute to King opened in Washington in 1983, the Reagan White House held a reception that included the most elite power brokers in Washington—including the President himself. “He never said anything but the most appropriate things in a social situation,” Freeman said of Stargell. “He was like a gold mine.”