Stargell Stood Tall as a Hero

If the memories are only of an image, why does it feel like such a loss?

Willie Stargell, the big man who swung that huge baseball bat, never seemed taller than a few inches to me on my TV screen.

He spent his entire Hall of Fame career in Pittsburgh, on the other side of the continent. And yet the first baseman was as much a part of my young days in L.A. as the sun and the beach.

I thought about him each time I went to Dodger Stadium, because for the first 35 years of its existence he was the only player who had hit a ball over the outfield pavilion roof--and he did it twice.

I bought a Pirates’ cap in that rounded, flat-topped, turn-of-the-century style that Stargell and the team wore in the 1970s.

When I played Wiffle Ball in my friend’s backyard I wheeled my bat around and cocked it, twirled and cocked, the same way Stargell did in his nonstop batting stance.

Not long after I heard that Stargell had died Monday morning, after a long kidney illness, I realized that he was the only one of my childhood sports heroes that I never met in person. The posters come to life in the sportswriting business, but somehow I never crossed paths with Stargell, not even when he was working as a first base coach for the Atlanta Braves.

Sometimes it’s better not to meet your heroes. You’d be surprised how many of the players you like aren’t likable in person.

But it didn’t take much time on the phone with Stargell’s former teammates to learn that “Pops” was worth knowing, that his loss is worth mourning.

“You could approach him about anything,” said Lee Lacy, a Pirate from 1979-1984. “In that era--late ‘70s, early ‘80s--most of the stars in the league were standoff-type players. Stargell wasn’t that way at all. You could talk to him all the time about anything. He was always available to [everyone].

“He was someone who made the game fun, no matter what the circumstances.”

Even during a supposed serious moment on the pitcher’s mound.

One time Stargell paid Bert Blyleven a visit for no apparent reason.

“I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ ” Blyleven said. “He said, ‘I get tired of standing at first. I just thought I’d come to the mound.’

“I said, ‘Get outta here. Do you see me standing at first?’ ”

Stargell, whose 475 home runs included some of the longest shots hit in older stadiums around the National League, refused to let the Pirates collapse after the tragic plane crash that killed Roberto Clemente in 1972.

“He was the heart and soul of that team and of that organization,” Lacy said.

Stargell was 6 feet 4, weighed 225 pounds, and his 36-inch Louisville Slugger model K44 was like a redwood compared with most other bats.

“He swung a bat in the category of Babe Ruth,” Lacy said. “His bat was so heavy and he was twirling it around like a toothpick.”

Despite his imposing physical prowess, he was very likable--”a gentle bear,” Blyleven called him.

His deep voice stood out above the others in the clubhouse. At 39, Stargell was the final authority on that 1979 Pirate team that captured my attention. And his 32 home runs and 82 runs batted in gave him enough ammunition to back it up.

“We had a fairly young team then,” Lacy said. “Stargell was one of the older guy on the ballclub. He was like a father figure to us young guys, like Omar Moreno, myself, Mike Easler, Jon Milner, Dave Parker.

“In 1979, playing in the World Series, we’re down two games in Baltimore. I remember him coming in the clubhouse. He looked around; we were down and out. He said, ‘You know what, guys? We’re going to win this thing!’ ”

The Pirates came back to take it in seven, with Stargell hitting a single, double and the go-ahead home run in the deciding game.

Not only was Stargell the Pirates’ leader, he was their musical director and fashion coordinator.

It was Stargell who adopted Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” as the team’s theme song. And he had a big say in how the team dressed, getting together with Manager Chuck Tanner before each game to decide on what combination of the team’s mix-and-match, yellow, black and pinstriped uniforms to wear.

He distributed the “Stargell Stars,” to be sewn on a player’s cap after helping the team on or off the field.

These pro athletes were desperate for a simple star, like an Ohio State freshman hoping to win a buckeye sticker for his football helmet if he made a good special-teams play.

“You wanted a star from Willie,” Blyleven said. “That just showed his leadership.”

What Lacy cherishes even more than his stars are some pictures taken of him and Stargell his last year with the Pirates. Stargell arranged for a photographer to come into the clubhouse and shoot the two of them. Later, Stargell inscribed the pictures.

“He wrote down how important it was for me to be in the clubhouse and be happy,” Lacy said. “How, he really truly appreciated me being a Pirate.”

And of course Lacy still has the Sister Sledge song.

“Every once in a while I pop it in and I play it,” Lacy said. “We are fam-i-leee.

“Every time I hear that song, man, I’m in my baseball uniform. It puts me there. When I play it, or when I hear it. It brings back so many memories.”

It brings back memories even for those of us who never met Stargell. It’s nice to know those memories are justified. It hurts to think there was more to miss than I could have imagined.

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Willie Stargell by the Numbers

CAREER STATISTICS

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YEAR AB R H HR RBI AVG. Regular season 7,927 1,195 2,232 475 1,540 .282 League championship series (6) 79 8 20 4 12 .253 World Series (2) 54 10 7 3 8 .315

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* Career highlights: Had 475 home runs, 1,540 RBIs and 953 extra-base hits, all team records, during 21-year career with Pittsburgh. . . . Played in 2,360 games. . . . Hit home runs in all 13 National League parks in 1970. . . . Chosen comeback player of the year in 1978. . . . Shared NL most-valuable-player award with St. Louis’ Keith Hernandez in 1979. Playoff and World Series MVP in 1979 at age 39, the oldest to win the award. . . . Played in seven All-Star games. . . . Hit more home runs than any player in the 1970s.