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Wilver Dornell "Willie" Stargell (March 6, 1940
– April 9, 2001), nicknamed "Pops" in the later
years of his career, was a professional baseball player who played his entire Major
League career (1962-1982) with the Pittsburgh
Pirates as an outfielder and first baseman. Over his 21-year career
with the Pirates, he batted .282, with 2,232 hits, 423 doubles, 475 home runs and 1540 runs batted in,
helping his team capture six National League East division titles,
two National League
pennants and two World Series (1971, 1979).
Career
Stargell was born in Earlsboro, Oklahoma, but later moved to Alameda,
California where he attended Encinal High School. He was signed
by the Pirates at age 18, and made his Major League debut at the
end of the 1962 season. He soon became a standout player, making
his first of 7 trips to the All-Star Game in
1964.
Beloved in Pittsburgh for his style of play and affable manner,
Stargell was known for hitting monstrous home runs, including 7 of
the 16 balls ever hit completely out of Forbes Field and several of the upper-tier
home runs at its successor, Three Rivers Stadium. At one time,
Stargell held the record for the longest homer in nearly half of
the National League parks. Standing 6 feet 2 inches, Stargell
seemed larger, with his long arms and unique bat-handling practice
of holding only the knob of the bat with his lower hand combining
to provide extra bat extension, Stargell's swings seemed designed
to hit home runs of the Ruthian variety. When most batters would use
a simple lead-weighted bat in the on-deck circle,
Stargell took to warming up with a sledgehammer, adding another layer of
intimidation. While standing in the batter's box, he would
windmill his bat until the pitcher started his windup.
Stargell hit the first home run at Shea Stadium in the first game played at
that arena on April 17, 1964.
Only four home runs have ever been hit out of Dodger Stadium,
and Stargell hit two of them. The first came on August 5, 1969 off
Alan Foster and measured 506
feet—to date, the longest home run ever hit at Dodger Stadium. The
second, on May 8, 1973 against Andy Messersmith, measured 493 feet.
Dodger starter Don
Sutton said of Stargell, "I never saw anything like it. He
doesn't just hit pitchers, he takes away their dignity."
On June 25, 1971, Stargell hit the longest home run in Veterans Stadium history in a 14-4
Pirates win over the Philadelphia Phillies.[1] The
spot where the ball landed was marked with a yellow star with a
black "S" inside a white circle until Stargell's 2001 death, when
the white circle was painted black.[2] The
star remained until the stadium's 2004 demolition.
In 1973
Stargell achieved the rare feat of simultaneously leading the
league in both doubles and homers. Stargell had more than 40 of
each; he was the first player to chalk up this 40-40 accomplishment
since Hank
Greenberg in 1940; other players have done so since
(notably Albert
Belle, the only 50-50 player).
In 1978, against Steve Rogers of the Montreal Expos,
Stargell hit the only fair ball ever to reach the upper deck of Olympic Stadium. The seat
where the ball landed has been since painted in yellow, while the
other seats in the upper deck are red.
Bob Prince, the
colorful longtime Pirate radio announcer would greet a Stargell
home run with the phrase "Chicken on the Hill". This referred to
Stargell's ownership of a chicken restaurant in Pittsburgh's Hill
District. For a time, whenever he homered, Stargell's restaurant
would give away free chicken in a promotion dubbed "Chicken on the
Hill with Will".
Stargell also originated the practice of giving his teammates
"stars" for their caps during the 1978 season. Upon a good play or
game, Stargell would give fellow players an embroidered star to
place on their caps, which at the time were old-fashioned pillbox
caps. These stars became known as "Stargell Stars". The practice
began in the turbulent 1978 season, when the Pirates came from 12
games behind the Philadelphia Phillies to challenge for the
division title. In the bottom of the first inning of the season's
penultimate game, Stargell belted a grand
slam to give the Pirates a 4-1 lead. After Pirates had
relinquished the lead, Stargell sparked a five-run rally in the
bottom of the ninth inning, but the Pirates came one run short and
were eliminated. Stargell called that 1978 team his favorite team
ever, and predicted that the "family" would win the World Series the
following year.
The Pirates did just that in 1979, in a fashion similar to the
way they had ended the 1978 season: from last place in the NL
East at the end of April, the Pirates clawed their way into a
first place battle with the Montreal Expos during the latter half of
the season, exciting fans with numerous come-from-behind victories
along the way (many during their final at-bat) to claim the
division pennant on the last day of the season. And Stargell led
all the way. At his urging as captain, the team adopted the Sister
Sledge hit song "We Are Family" as the team anthem.
Then his play on the field inspired his teammates and earned him
the MVP awards in both the NLCS and the World Series. Stargell
capped off the year by hitting a dramatic home run in Baltimore
during the late innings of a close Game Seven to seal a Pirates
championship. That World Series victory made the Pirates the only
franchise in baseball history to twice recover from a
three-games-to-one deficit to win a World Series (previously in the
1925
against the Washington Senators).
In addition to his NLCS and World Series
MVPs, Stargell was named the co-MVP of the 1979 season (along with St.
Louis' Keith
Hernandez). Stargell is the only player to have won all three
trophies in a single year. He shared the Sports
Illustrated magazine's "Sportsmen of the Year" award with
NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who also played at Three
Rivers Stadium, for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Pirates manager Chuck Tanner said of Stargell, "Having him
on your ball club is like having a diamond ring on your finger."
Teammate Al Oliver once
said, "If he asked us to jump off the Fort Pitt Bridge, we would ask him
what kind of dive he wanted. That's how much respect we have for
the man."
Some observers believe Stargell's career total of 475 home runs
was depressed by playing in Forbes Field whose deep left-center field
distance was 457 feet. Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente estimated, perhaps
generously, that Stargell hit 400 fly balls to the warning track in
left and center fields during his eight seasons in the park. Three
Rivers Stadium boosted Stargell's power numbers. In his first
full season in the Pirates' new stadium, 1971, Stargell led the
league with 48 home runs. He won one other home run title, in 1973,
his best season he hit 44 home runs and 119 RBI as well as a .646
slugging percentage.
Post-retirement
After retirement, Stargell spent several years as a coach for
the Atlanta
Braves. While working for the Braves, he heavily influenced a
young Chipper
Jones. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988, his
first year of eligibility. In 1999, he ranked 81st on The Sporting News' list of the 100
Greatest Baseball Players, and was also nominated as a finalist for
the Major League Baseball All-Century
Team. Stargell was the last person to throw out the first pitch at
Three Rivers Stadium. He died of a stroke in Wilmington, North Carolina,
in 2001, on the same day that a larger-than-life statue of him was
unveiled outside the Pirates' new stadium, PNC Park.
His autograph suggests that he preferred "Wilver" to "Willie,"
and Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully typically called him "Wilver
Stargell."
In the 1985 trial of alleged cocaine dealer Curtis Strong, Stargell was
accused by Dale Berra
(Yogi's son) and Dave
Parker (both former Pirates teammates) of distributing
"greenies" (amphetamines) to players. Stargell strongly
denied these charges.[3]
Death
On April 10, 2001, Stargell died from complications related to a
stroke, according to officials at New Hanover Regional Medical
Center in Wilmington, N.C., where he died, Stargell had been
suffering for years from a kidney disorder. Stargell died the same
day the Pirates' new stadium, PNC Park, was opened.
Stargell's own
quotations
- "The (umpire) says 'play' ball, not 'work' ball."
- "Trying to hit Sandy Koufax was like trying to drink
coffee with a fork."[1]
- "Throwing a knuckleball for a strike is like throwing a
butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor's
mailbox."
- "They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and
they tell you to hit it square." (Ted Williams and Pete Rose have also been credited with
similar versions of this quote.)
- "Now I know why they boo Richie—Dick Allen—all the time. When he hits a home
run, there's no souvenir." (Allen, also well known for mammoth home
runs and not very beloved by Philadelphia Phillies fans, had
hit a ball over the left-center field roof of Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium.)
- (After winning a game in 1979 against the Cincinnati Reds
with a pinch RBI single after a disputed
check-swing call) "Maybe it was this black bat I used. Or this
black shirt or my black arms that made the Reds think they saw
something."
- "Now when they walk down the street, the people of Pittsburgh can say that
we come from a city that has nothing but champions!" (Stargell
during the celebratory parade in the city after the 1979 World
Series, that year Pittsburgh won both their third Super
Bowl and second World Series of the seventies. This quote is
attributed to the creation of one of Pittsburgh's nicknames: "The
City Of Champions")
Highlights
- Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee (1988)
- National League Co-MVP (shared with Keith Hernandez, 1979)
- 7-time Top 10 MVP (1971-75, 1978-79)
- 7-time All-Star (1964-66, 1971-73, 1978)
- National League Championship Series MVP (1979)
- World Series MVP (1979)
- ABC's Wide World of
Sports Athlete of the Year (1979)
- Led National League in Slugging Percentage (1973)
- Twice led National League in OPS (1973-74)
- Led National League in Doubles (1973)
- Twice led National League in Home Runs (1971 and 1973)
- Led National League in RBI (1973)
- Twice led National League in Extra-Base Hits (1971 and
1973)
- Hit for the cycle (1964)
- Threw the last pitch at Three Rivers Stadium, as part of the
park's farewell ceremony (2000)
See also
References
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