Even while in Atlanta, Stargell admitted to keeping close tabs on his old ballclub after the Pirates turned the corner and became serious contenders in 1990. “I’ve been checking on the scores, keeping up with them,” Stargell said in May of that season. “I consider this like an old relationship. The Pirates were my girlfriend. It got to the point where we had to go our separate ways, but I have a lot of fond memories. That’s where I learned how to win and about motivation. So they’ll always be special for me. It’s nice to see they’re doing well again.”20 Things got sticky the following season, when Stargell’s current and former organizations squared off in the playoffs. “I’m rooting for the Braves, but I remember the Pirates,” Stargell said while helping groom future Braves at the club’s fall Instructional League camp in Florida. “Let’s put it this way. If the Braves don’t win, I hope the Pirates do.” That would be the first of two straight years when the Braves and Pirates would meet in the National League Championship Series, with the winner advancing to the World Series. In the first go-round, Atlanta prevailed in a tight seven-game series that featured four one-run games, including three that ended in scores of 1–0. The 1992 matchup featured an even more dramatic conclusion, as the Pirates took a 2–0 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh and decisive game, only to see the Braves rally for three runs—the last of which was scored by former Pirate Sid Bream when he narrowly beat Barry Bonds’s throw home from left field on pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera’s single.
While Stargell certainly was interested in the fate of the big-league Braves, he seemed to get more enjoyment talking about what was coming down the Atlanta pipeline, in the minor league system. After all, he’d been in on the ground floor, helping the Braves rise from years of mediocrity, including a worst-to-first bolt in 1991. “This is no accident,” he said of the Braves’ success heading into the 1991 postseason and added that the good times were just beginning. “The minor league system is in great shape, too,” he said. “We haven’t seen the last of the Braves.” Stargell proved prophetic; the franchise would go on to win an unprecedented 14 consecutive division titles, a string that ended in 2005. He said he liked staying in the background, working with the Braves’ minor-leaguers. “I enjoy talking hitting with the young players from the neck up. I like teaching them winning hitting and thinking.”21
The players who came through the Braves’ system remembered the things that Stargell told them as they made their way up the ladder. “He was very smart—and intelligent about the game—along with being a great talent,” said Gant, who used to wear a mantra that Stargell had given him—“I Will—I Can—I Am”—under the brim of his cap. “One of the things he told me was that if you get into a slump, you should go down to the [batting] cage, turn the machine on and just bunt 50 balls. Don’t swing—just bunt 50 balls. Then turn the machine off, go in and eat a sandwich and you’ll get yourself out of that slump. Sure enough, I was in one of those slumps and I did the 50 balls, went back and went 3-for-4 with two home runs that night. Willie was part of the reason why I stayed out of those long, extended slumps.”22 Klesko, who finished his 16-year big league career with 278 home runs, credited Stargell with making a huge difference in his approach early on. “I used to sit and talk with him for hours,” he said in 1997. “I didn’t know how to hit the ball the other way. I owe almost everything I’ve done hitting-wise to him. Before I got to the big leagues, Willie was my main guy.”23
In a 2010 interview, Chipper Jones said that one of things Stargell told him was to swing the heaviest bat he could. “He knew I’d develop as a power hitter,” he said. “I was 6–3, 180 pounds then, but I’m 6–3 200 now. If you swung a heavy bat, even when a pitcher jammed you, you could still muscle a ball to the outfield for a single. Or, if you hit it square, you could hit it out of the ballpark.” Jones said Stargell’s advice was always simple but smart. One such message: slow feet, quick hands. “When your feet are quick, your hands are moving and you’re not balanced. It puts you behind the fastball and ahead of the curveball. That’s not the place you want to be.” Stargell talked a lot about the mental approach to hitting. “How and when to lay off certain pitches—and how to look for certain pitches in certain situations.” Jones said Stargell—who ranked number 7 all-time among major league baseball’s career strikeout leaders with 1,936 whiffs—never talked much about going down on strikes. “A strikeout is the same as grounding out,” Jones said. “You might feel a little better about yourself, but it’s still an out.” Jones said not everything that Stargell said applied directly to him because he was a different sort of hitter. “I was trying to go out there every day and hit .300 and he was more of a run-producer,” he said. “But as a young player, I was a sponge. I soaked up everything from my hitting instructors—guys like Frank Howard and Willie Stargell. You’d be stupid not to. You’d take little bits of each one and see what applies to you. Maybe 50 percent of what Willie said applied to me.”24
David Justice, who gained the reputation of being somewhat moody and who rubbed some people—including teammates—the wrong way, said Stargell tried to counsel him during his early years in the Braves’ system. “Willie used to say you can break people up into three sections,” Justice said late in the 1993 season. “One third will like you no matter what. One third are not going to like you no matter what. Then you’ve got a third just waiting to see. They’re on the fence.”25
While Stargell was enjoying his role as mentor/instructor with the Braves, his personal life took a major turn. On January 16, 1993, in Wilmington, North Carolina, the 52-year-old Stargell was married for the third time. His new bride was Margaret Weller, a 33-year-old crisis counselor. A story that ran December 27, 1991, on the front page of the Wilmington Morning Star’s local/state section related the tale of Stargell’s engagement, saying that he hid a diamond engagement ring in the pocket of a coat that Weller had received from her parents for Christmas. “I had no idea,” Weller said. “He kept saying, ‘Will you?’ I told my family I had to have some time to myself. I cried as I ran out of the room.” Stargell did not officially propose until the next morning; he got down on his knees and asked Weller to marry him. “She makes me very happy,” he said. “It took a lot of planning to pull it off. She was totally surprised.” The couple had met three years earlier at a banquet in Raleigh, where Stargell was the guest speaker. Weller did not know much about Stargell, nor about baseball, but came to enjoy the game. Stargell said he was impressed with Weller’s family background; her father was a retired postman and her mother a retired school administrative assistant. “Her parents are the epitome of what you want parents to be,” Stargell said. “Everyone is warm and down to earth.” According to the story, the couple was “shy” about talking about their relationship and their future and wanted a chance to break the news to friends and family before the media got involved.26 The wedding took place in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Wilmington with some 400 former teammates, friends and family members taking in the ceremony. Stargell said none of his accomplishments in baseball could compare to exchanging vows with Weller. “This is something much more personal,” he said. “I regard it as something very sacred. You can always go into baseball and try to get a hit, but to me, this is just like two trees getting together and going out into the world to blossom.”27
By 1994, Stargell’s business card needed revision again—he was now serving as the Braves’ special assistant to the director of scouting and the director of player personnel. The club had expanded Stargell’s responsibilities each year and by ’94 he was involved in all personnel matters at both the major- and minor-league levels. Stargell was asked just prior to the start of the 1994 season why he wasn’t practicing his craft with his first franchise—the Pirates. “I’ve thought about what it might be like to be back there,” he told the Post-Gazette’s Ron Cook. “But nobody has asked me.” Cook recounted the Tanner firing in Pittsburgh, Tanner’s bringing Stargell to Atlanta and the ill-fated “Willie Stargell Night�
�� in 1988. Stargell denied that the day in his honor fell through because the Pirates failed to deliver a luxury sports car as he had demanded and said he was hurt by the media’s portrayal of him as greedy. “They took the word of some unnamed source over mine,” he said. “Baseball was never about money to me. It was about opportunity. I never had any serious bickering about money with the Pirates. I could have left several times as a free agent, but my loyalty was to the Pirates. I loved Pittsburgh.” Stargell said the booing he received the night he took his spot in the third-base coaching box for the first time at Three Rivers Stadium, which precipitated Tanner’s—and his own—firing by the Braves, didn’t leave a lasting mark. “That one night doesn’t ruin all the good memories I have of Pittsburgh,” he said. “Not good memories, great memories.”28
Later that year, while the Braves were preparing to play in their fourth of what would be 14 straight NL playoff series, Stargell paid a visit to the club’s Instructional League camp to work with a couple of the club’s prospects. “We wanted Willie to put a few finishing touches on things,” said Bobby Dews, an instructor and camp coordinator. “He works with them on what to expect in game situations—how to react in certain situations. He gives the kids a lot of confidence. He’s a great motivator, having been such a great player. He takes his time with them and gives them respect.”29
He wasn’t just respectful to the players. As a roving hitting instructor, Stargell would make the rounds throughout the Braves’ minor league system, stopping in the various towns that housed the organization’s various affiliates. And when he showed up at those minor league ballparks, people knew about it. Mike Snee, who worked as the director of ticket sales for the Durham Bulls—the Braves’ Class A club at the time—remembered Stargell trying to find some privacy in the press box, but that was usually a losing battle. “He’d get to breathe for a little while,” he said. “If he went out in the daggone stadium, he’d be accosted. He’d try to find a place in the press box because he had a job to do. But throughout the course of the game, you’d have people coming to the office—they’d see him and it was, ‘Is that Willie? Is that Willie?’ Every now and then he’d go out and sign. He was the nicest guy. You’d see a big guy and think he was going to be kind of loud. But he was not. He was very low-key, gracious and soft-spoken. Lots of kids would run around the ballpark with broken bats or foul balls and they’d keep a bunch of this stuff and wait for Willie to come to town, and then try to get him to sign it. He’d always sign. He would never bat an eyelid.”30
Stargell’s impact on the Atlanta franchise, both as an instructor and in the scouting realm, was becoming well known, and the Braves brain trust was more than willing to acknowledge his contributions. “He makes a tremendous impression on young people, either the players he works with or the ones he meets,” Braves general manager John Schuerholz said in March of 1995. “I think it is important that a guy [like Stargell] is not just a figurehead, but rather a productive member of the staff, as is the case with Willie.” Stargell said he enjoyed working directly with young players on the field, but admitted that he also liked being involved in the scouting end of things. “There are a lot of things I’m equipped to get involved with,” he said. “I offer my opinion about various things. Branching out has been good.” Stargell said he would enjoy working as a minor league director and didn’t rule out the idea of becoming a general manager. At that time, Atlanta’s Bob Watson was the major leagues’ lone black general manager. “I’ve got my feelers out,” Stargell said. “If a farm director job or player personnel job came open for me, it would be great.”31
In retrospect, those who worked with Stargell during his stay in Atlanta said he played no small role in the success the franchise had during the 1990s and into the 2000s. “We had a tremendous minor-league system at that time—we were blessed with great talent, which obviously the record will show,” La Mar said. “And Willie had input on a lot of our young players who eventually ended up having long and productive careers at the major league level.” La Mar said it’s not uncommon for organizations to bring in retired stars and hire them as “special assistants”—almost in an honorary capacity, to keep them involved in the game. Stargell was no honorary assistant, though. And while he certainly appreciated being around the game, he took it seriously—and particularly when it came to teaching hitting. “I think he had more connection with the hitters than any other phase of the game,” La Mar said. “He truly relished the mentality of a power hitter. That’s who he was. I think most power hitters have that identity. It’s an attitude. If you hit 500 home runs in the major leagues, it not only takes ability but it takes an attitude. I think Willie loved talking to our young men who showed some power potential in the organization. He really relished it. He was one of those guys who could win a young player over even if that player didn’t know about his history. Those days, and even now, a lot of younger players didn’t know the history of the game like we did as kids. Some of our guys had to look at the media guide to find out who Willie was. ‘We Are Family?’ What the heck is ‘We Are Family?’ But Willie never wore his success on his sleeve. He communicated with people like he’d never had a major league career. I think he gained their respect right off the bat by the type of person he was and how he treated those young players. Then they realized that not only did he know what he was talking about and they liked being around him, but this guy was pretty good. And he wasn’t one of these guys who walked in and made this grand announcement—that you have to listen to me because I’m Willie Stargell. He was as humble a star as I’ve ever been around. He was truly the total package—you seldom see someone with that kind of career stay that humble and friendly to all of us who will never reach his heights in the profession. He was that good of a person to everyone in the Braves organization.”32
Schuerholz, who arrived in Atlanta during the fall of 1990 as general manager, said that Stargell commanded plenty of attention and just as much respect among his players by simply being who he was—a thoughtful, quiet, perceptive person. “When he shared his views, whether they were to a player about how that player ought to personally approach his craft, or whether it was in a staff meeting sharing his opinion of a player and his potential and his ability, his strengths and weaknesses, he communicated very well,” Schuerholz said. Unlike some naturally gifted and successful players who have a tough time connecting with those players who are less talented, Stargell seemed to be able to reach a broad spectrum of youngsters. That didn’t just come naturally, either, Schuerholz said. “He was a guy who cared about the game—he knew the game and studied the game and he had played on winning teams, so he knew what winning environments had to be like, what work ethic and work culture was demanded by people who wanted to be part of a winning environment. And Willie did that in his own inimitable, gentle giant fashion.”
Although Stargell had often voiced a desire to become a manager in the mid to late 1980s, Schuerholz said the two never talked about that. “He seemed to be one of those rare individuals who wasn’t standing in one level of responsibility and looking upward at what his next step or goal might be. Instead, he focused on the job he had and he did it with pride, dignity and responsibility.”33
Stargell wasn’t the only Hall of Fame slugger employed by the Braves in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Aaron, who retired in 1976 as the game’s career home run leader with 755, worked as Atlanta’s vice president and director of player development for 13 years before becoming a senior vice president in 1989. Aaron said when the Braves fired Tanner and several of his coaches in 1988, the organization wanted to keep Stargell on board. “He was supposed to stay with the ballclub,” Aaron said. “Chuck gave Willie the bad news about Chuck being fired and he thought Willie was going to be fired. But Willie was not going to be one of the ones fired. I know that to be true. I don’t know what happened, but Willie got back with the Braves.” Aaron said he and Stargell had “mountains of conversations” in the Braves spring training home of West Palm B
each, Florida, discussing the Braves organization and individual players. “Willie was in a class of his own when talking about talent. He knew talent, he knew how to coach and knew how to work in the front office. He could do it all. And he enjoyed it very much. He brought a lot to the game. He enjoyed being with the players, with the coaches. He could talk their language. It wasn’t like he was a foreigner. He could talk baseball. And when he saw someone with a little talent, he could help.” Part of that was because Stargell wasn’t that far removed from his own big-league career, having retired in 1982. “He had a connection with older and younger players alike,” Aaron said. “He could sit down with players who’d been in the game for 20 years and hold a good conversation, but then he could also sit down with someone like Ron Gant, just trying to make it in the big leagues, and bring something to that table, too.”34
Tanner, who saw Stargell work with hitters both as a coach in Atlanta and as a player with the Pirates, said the key to Stargell’s effectiveness as a hitting coach was that he “didn’t try to make everybody hit like him. He tried to make them hit like they hit and get the best out of their swing, not his swing. He was a good hitting instructor and he helped a lot of guys.” Tanner said he thought Stargell would have made an excellent manager, and that was all part of his plan. In both Pittsburgh and Atlanta, he would make Stargell sit near him in the dugout and tell him things about the game. “I was grooming him,” Tanner said. “I would say, ‘Willie, when the time comes, I’m going into the front office and you’ll be the manager.’” Tanner had no doubt Stargell would succeed in that role. “He could communicate individually and collectively and he could chew their ass out if he needed to,” he said. “He could give them hell his way and get his point across. He knew how to get to whoever the person was he was dealing with. And that’s what you have to do to be a successful manager.”35
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