Willie Stargell 1940-2001

        Wilver Dornel Stargell -- known as "Pops" to his teammates, Willie to the world and as the man with the booming bat who carried the Pittsburgh Pirates to two World Championships -- died early Monday after a long battle with a kidney disorder. He was 61.
        Stargell, one of the greatest home run hitters in baseball history both in terms of both quantity and quality, hit 475 career homers in a 20-year career with the Pirates that ended when he retired following the 1982 season.
        Incredibly strong at 6-foot-4 1/2 and 230 pounds, Stargell was known for his towering home runs that rattled pitchers' confidence and rallied his team with one whip of his 42-ounce bat. "He sparked us to the World Series with the tail end of his career," said Chuck Tanner, who managed the Pirates during Stargell's final six seasons. "Having Willie Stargell on your team was like having a 10-carat diamond on your finger."
          His trademark-batting stance was at times enough to intimidate opposing pitchers. The left-handed hitting Hall of Famer would step in to the box and begin "wind milling" his bat in slow circles, speeding up slightly until just before the pitcher began his delivery. And when the big first baseman uncoiled on a pitch the result was often a tape measure home run.
            Stargell was the Pirates' cleanup hitter who led the team to World Series Championships in 1971 and '79 and six National League East Division titles during 1970-79. He was also a father figure who handed out stars to teammates for extra effort.
            "They loved him. White, black, Hispanic, it didn't matter, the love for Willie Stargell crossed all racial barriers in that clubhouse," said Hall of Fame broadcaster Milo Hamilton, who was the Pirates play-by-play man during part of the Stargell era. "He was the great common denominator. And I believe he was as special in his ability to help people, as he was to play baseball. He was a star on the field and an even greater star for the charitable works he did off the field."
             Stargell never achieved the level of fame that contemporaries Hank Aaron and Willie Mays enjoyed and was often overshadowed by his Hall of Fame teammate Roberto Clemente. Yet precious few players of his era rivaled Stargell's power. He averaged a home run every 34.9 at bats, which ranked in the top 20 in major league history at the time of his retirement.
              Stargell hit 11 career grand slams and homered off 243 different pitchers in 20 different ballparks. Rookie and All-Star, left-hander and right-hander, Hall of Famer or journeyman, Stargell took just about everybody deep. He hit eight homers off both Tom Seaver and Phil Niekro. There's no way of knowing how many homers Stargell would have had had he not played the first eight-plus years of his career in a park with a right field wall that was 457 feet away. "You have to remember that he played several years at Forbes Field and he played a good portion of his career before they lowered the mound," said Bill Virdon, a current Pirates coach and former teammate of Stargell's and later the Pirates manager ('72-73). "He hit quite a few, but he would have a lot more. But a lot of the (homers) he hit would have gone out of any park." Stargell never hit more than 33 homers in a season when the team called Forbes home, but he hit 48 in his first full year at Three Rivers (1971).
              For nearly three decades Stargell was the only player to hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium, a feat he accomplished twice. He hit seven of the 18 homers over the right field roof at Forbes Field and once held the record for the longest home run in nearly half of the National League parks.
               "He and (San Francisco's) Willie McCovey were probably the greatest left-handed power hitters of their era," said Houston manager Larry Dierker, a former pitcher who faced Stargell during the late '60s and early 1970s. "You figured you did great if you kept them in the ballpark." Said former Dodgers pitcher Don Sutton: "He didn't just hit pitchers, he took away their dignity."
               Stargell enjoyed his best season in 1971, with 48 homers and 125 RBIs. However, he was 0-for-14 in the NL playoffs against the Giants and had only one RBI in the Pirates' 7-game World Series victory over favored Baltimore. He left center stage to the 38-year-old Clemente who turned the postseason into a personal showcase of his grace, talent and determination. Only 14 months later, Clemente was dead. In 1979, it was Stargell's turn to transform the World Series into a one-man act for an aging star. At 39, seemingly several years past his prime, and after knee injuries had robbed him of his mobility and some of his strength, Stargell's postseason performance was every bit as driven as Clemente's. "That was a season none of us will ever forget," Tanner said. "Whenever we needed the big hit, whenever we needed a big play, he was the guy who did it. At 39, it was incredible. We came to expect it from him." He hit 32 homers that memorable season -- "Every one of them was giant," Tanner said -- and added two more as the Pirates swept Cincinnati in the playoffs. When the Pirates fell behind three games to one to Baltimore in the World Series, it was Stargell who rallied them to an improbable come-from-behind victory. He had three homers, including the decisive shot in Game 7 in Baltimore, as the Pirates took the World Series from the favored Orioles. Only months from his 40th birthday, he made an unprecedented three-way sweep of MVP awards, sharing the NL award with Keith Hernandez of St. Louis and winning it in the playoffs and World Series -- a feat still not matched. He remains the oldest player to win an MVP award.
                   "It was a special season by a very special man," Tanner said. "It was one of the most emotional performances I've seen in 56 years of baseball," Hamilton said. "He simply lifted that entire team with his will and determination." A career .282 hitter, in 1988 Stargell became the 17th player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The Pirates retired his No. 8 in 1982. He drove in 1,540 runs during his career and is the Pirates all-time leader in home runs, rbi and extra base hits and also ranks in the top 10 in games, at bats, runs, hits, singles, doubles and total bases. He was a seven-time All-Star. Stargell's best stretch was during 1971-73, when he racked up 125 homers. But injuries cut into his production and he slumped badly in 1976 after wife Dolores developed a blood clot on her brain. He won the comeback player of the year award in 1978 after hitting 28 homers and driving in 97 runs in 390 at-bats.
                    The Pirates fell apart after Stargell retired in 1982. A clubhouse drug scandal and subsequent 1985 federal court trial in Pittsburgh implicated more than 30 major leaguers and badly tarnished not only the Pirates' image, but baseball's as well. Trying to win back their disillusioned fans during that 104-loss season, the Pirates rehired Stargell as a coach but he left again a year later to rejoin Tanner, who was hired by the Atlanta Braves after being fired in Pittsburgh. Despite developing a kidney disorder that required frequent dialysis, Stargell later worked in the Braves' minor league department for 10 years until returning to the Pirates yet again in 1997 as an aide to general manager Cam Bonifay. Stargell, who was divorced from Dolores, continued to live in Wilmington, N.C., with his wife Margaret.
                     During recent years Stargell had returned to Pittsburgh for various functions. Each time he received thunderous ovations. One of the loudest came during the Pirates' final game at Three Rivers on Oct. 1, 2000, several days after it was announced a statue of him would be erected at PNC Park. The Pirates unveiled the 12-foot high statue of Stargell on Saturday. "It's a bittersweet day. You think of all the hard work that's gone into PNC Park and know that it's going to be a special day, and on the same day, you lose a friend and a teammate," said Nelson Briles, a former teammate. "Willie was someone who meant a lot to baseball in this area." Stargell died at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C. "The entire organization, along with the baseball world, is saddened by this news," said Kevin McClatchy, the Pirates' Managing General Partner. "We find it ironic that on one of the greatest days for the Pirate franchise -- the opening of PNC Park -- it's also one of the saddest, losing a great player and friend like Willie. We still believe that his presence will be felt at the ballpark today."