Chapter 10

The Hall Calls—and So Does Home

WITH THE SUBJECT OF RACE in baseball still simmering during the winter of 1987-88, Willie Stargell received a call that would change his life. Shortly before 9 P.M. on the night of January 12, Jack Lang—the secretary/treasurer of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America—called Stargell at his home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, to tell him he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and would be enshrined in the magical village of Cooperstown on July 31. “I’ll be forever in your debt,” Stargell told Lang, and then wept. He hugged his son, Willie Jr., and said, “I just wanted to play. I didn’t go out there to be considered great. I just wanted to be consistent.” Stargell became just the 17th player to be elected on the first ballot and the 200th player overall selected for enshrinement. He was named on 352 of the 427 ballots cast by 10-year members of the writers group, or 82.4 percent. Players needed to appear on 321 ballots—or 75 percent—to gain entry to the shrine. “The Hall of Fame was made for players like Willie Stargell,” said Chuck Tanner, Stargell’s boss with the Atlanta Braves and his former manager in Pittsburgh. “It couldn’t be a Hall of Fame without Willie Stargell.”¹

Although Stargell was known perhaps most for his prodigious home runs—the shots that left Dodger Stadium, for example, or the monumental drives in Olympic and Veterans stadiums, that’s not what he was most proud of. “Winning, knowing the formula for winning. That’s what I’m proud of,” he said. “The thing is you have to be daring, you have to take a chance. I can remember Roberto Clemente pulling me aside when I was young and telling me that I could do this or try to do it first. There is a formula for winning, but you have to be sincere about your commitment. Ability will get you there, but your mentality will sustain for any period of time.”²

Stargell was asked the day before the Hall of Fame voting was announced if he’d thought about what it would be like to get the call. “There would be nothing to describe being in the presence of those immortal players,” he said. “It’s tough to imagine being with those people, people I’ve been in awe of, people like Ruth, Williams, Cobb, Wagner, Mays, Aaron.” Still, he knew the very real possibility existed that he would not gain election, particularly given it was his first crack. He flashed back to his MVP voting snubs in 1971 and 1973. “I’ve learned not to get too excited about something that’s out of my hands,” Stargell said of the Hall of Fame voting. “If it doesn’t happen, I’m just as proud to have been considered with all of those players.”³

The day after his election, Stargell appeared in New York for a press conference, where he apologized to the media for his eyes looking “like two cherries in a glass of buttermilk. You think you’re well equipped to handle the moment, but Mother Nature humbles you at the damndest times.”⁴ The next day, he appeared at a luncheon in Pittsburgh to celebrate his election to the Hall and received an unsolicited endorsement for his managerial aspirations from a somewhat unlikely source—Pirates manager Jim Leyland, who spent 11 seasons managing in the minor leagues before getting his big-league opportunity in Pittsburgh. Leyland said that while most men would need to spend time managing in the minor leagues before getting a big-league job, Stargell was the exception because of his knowledge of the game and his ability to relate to people. “Strategy is overrated,” Leyland said. “The key to managing is that it’s a people business. And I expect Willie Stargell will be a successful major-league manager in the near future.” Leyland said he didn’t know Stargell well but that he saw the way people in the game respected him. “There are a lot of players who are heroes to the fans,” he said. “But I’m not sure there are many players who are heroes to other players. I think Willie Stargell is a hero to the players because of what he accomplished and what he stands for.” Stargell talked a bit about managing, saying, “I don’t see where the game is going to be a total stranger to me. I don’t see where it will be all that different [than as a player or coach]. You surround yourself with good people. That makes it easier.”⁵

Stargell’s Hall of Fame election wasn’t the only major development in his life during the winter of 1987-88. The Braves also announced that Stargell, who had served as a first-base coach his first two seasons in Atlanta, would be moving over to coach third base for 1988. Terence Moore, an Atlanta columnist, claimed that was even a more startling development than Stargell’s Hall of Fame election because there had never been an American-born black to hold down that position in major league baseball history. Moore wrote that the Braves’ decision “figures to change baseball’s racist foundation. Finally. The reason Stargell has no black predecessors as third-base coaches is the same reason there are no black managers, no black pitching coaches, no black head coaches in the NFL, few black quarterbacks, centers, middle linebackers and middle infielders. Those are considered jobs for thinking men, and the prevailing powers throughout amateur and professional sports prefer the status quo.” Stargell said when Tanner told him about the switch, his first reaction was that it was an honor—and a “unique challenge.” He acknowledged that the move to third base was another step closer to him attaining his ultimate goal: serving as the manager of a big league club. But he said he was focusing only on putting all his strength and energy into his new coaching job. “When I’ve served my time at third base, hopefully I will have done well enough to have somebody offer me a managerial job. I don’t have ants in my pants.”⁶

He again alluded to his managerial aspirations when the club convened in West Palm Beach, Florida, for spring training in February. He said he viewed the third-base coaching job as a challenge he was eager to take on. “I know what the flip side of coaching third can be, but I look forward to it. I know I’m going to make mistakes, but I’m not afraid to make mistakes. I see this as a step on the ladder. The more I can learn, the more hands-on experience I can get, I will be more prepared to manage when I do go on to that.” Tanner said he was seeking someone aggressive and smart to coach third base. “I want a third-base coach to think ahead, make the decisions early instead of standing there and hoping everything falls into place. It’s a very responsible job. But Willie was a very responsible captain for me. He was a very responsible hitter in the clutch. The big thing is he has to be alert and in the game all the time. There are so many things you have to learn. Willie adjusted his whole career. He can adapt to this.”⁷

But Tanner’s grand plan—which ultimately called for Stargell to succeed him as manager if the former slugger hadn’t already landed a job elsewhere—never materialized the way he’d drawn it up. First, there was an awkward return to Pittsburgh on May 20—a return punctuated by a robust round of booing by Pirates fans when Stargell headed out to coach third base for the first time. The boos were in response to reports by the Pittsburgh media that Stargell had put the kibosh on the Bucs’ bid to hold yet another night in his honor—which would have been the third such event since 1980. The Pirates had flown Stargell back to Pittsburgh in January to announce the ceremony, but the two sides could not agree on appropriate compensation and the event never happened. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Stargell had told the Pirates that an expensive luxury car would be an appropriate gift. Douglas Danforth, the Pirates board chairman, did not address the car request but said, “It’s very simple. We were unable to get together on terms. It was a misunderstanding. There are no hard feelings at all.”⁸

Stargell related a slightly different version to Press columnist Gene Collier, saying he had no contact with the club from his firing in 1985 until early in 1988 when the Pirates proposed a third night honoring him. Stargell said he was convinced that if the Galbreath family had still owned the club, the two sides could have agreed on a suitable way to acknowledge his Hall of Fame election. He also said he found it “intriguing” the way the media made him out to be greedy. “It’s as if they were waiting for an opportunity to unload on Willie,” he said. “Maybe with feelings they’ve been harboring for some time.” Collier, though, characterized Stargell and his agent’s attempts to negotiate the terms and conditions of the failed “Willie Stargell Night” as “another sickening example of arrogance” and said that Stargell or his agent “actually listed the model of luxury car that should be involved.” In retrospect, Stargell told Collier he would have been happy if the Pirates had merely acknowledged his pending trip to Cooperstown. “Just say one of our own is going into the Hall of Fame,” Stargell said. “And then I’d tip my cap and that would be it.”⁹

In addition to booing Stargell when he took the field that night, some of the crowd of 18,880 booed him again when a Stargell video clip was shown on the stadium scoreboard. Tanner was incensed at the crowd’s reaction. He grabbed Stargell after the game and said plainly within earshot of the assembled media, “I want to apologize Willie, for the people who booed you. You never should have been a Pirate.”¹⁰ On Saturday, which would have been “Willie Stargell Night,” the Pirates would not even flash the former slugger’s image on the Three Rivers scoreboard—ostensibly because they wanted to spare the greatest slugger and one of the most beloved players in franchise history further booing.

Things quickly got worse for Stargell, Tanner and the Braves, who finished their weekend series with the Pirates at 12–27. After flying from Pittsburgh to Chicago following the final game of the three-game set on Sunday, Braves general manager Bobby Cox asked to see Tanner, Stargell and the two other coaches he brought from Pittsburgh—Skinner and Tony Bartirome, the old Bucco trainer and minor-league spring training camp mate of Stargell’s—in the team hotel. After a three-hour meeting, all four were dismissed. Tanner was stunned at Cox’s decision to replace him with Russ Nixon—the former third-base coach who was reassigned to an organizational post to allow Stargell to coach third base—in part because he believed the club was improving, despite its 12–27 record. “We were on a program to rebuild,” said Tanner, who had never been forced out of a job during a season in his 18 years as a big league manager. “I wasn’t the one to get it done because they didn’t want me.” Cox explained that it was simply time for a change. “It was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in my life,” he said. “Chuck was great about it, but we had to do something different.”¹¹ Stargell, meanwhile, expressed surprise at the move because—like Tanner—he believed the Braves had been making progress although the club was just 153–208 under Tanner. “I can’t sit here and tell you it’s unfair,” said Stargell, who noted he remained committed to becoming a manager. “When a team decides to make a change, then those are the consequences. I try not to dwell on bitterness. There’s a reason for everything.”¹² Two weeks later, team president Stan Kasten said that Stargell was offered a chance to remain with the Braves organization. When asked if Tanner had convinced Stargell to turn down the job offer, Kasten replied, “No comment.”¹³

Stargell’s next turn in the baseball spotlight came a little more than two months later, when his titanic presence energized the quaint New York Finger Lakes village of Cooperstown while there for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony on July 31. He eschewed a speech he had prepared for the crowd of 10,000 or so—many sporting Pirate gear—and instead chose to improvise. “I can only stand up here and say that you are looking at one proud individual,” said Stargell, who went on talk about growing up in Alameda, California, and finding Pittsburgh to be a very special area. “It wasn’t a fancy place,” he said. “The people were real. If you did what was expected of you and worked hard, you could earn the respect of that town. To the young people, I want to say that I am living proof that hard work earns rewards. There are no shortcuts.” Later, after the applause died down, Stargell talked about getting back into the game—his abrupt departure from the Braves some two months earlier notwithstanding. “I’d like to give a lot back to baseball and I feel like I have a lot to give. I think I can contribute as a farm director, a director of player personnel, an assistant to a general manager or to a field manager, or as one of the game’s ambassadors. Traveling abroad; I’d look forward to that.”¹⁴

On Hall of Fame induction day, July 31, 1988, Willie stands proudly with the plaque that guarantees him baseball immortality (courtesy National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York).

At least one member of the Pittsburgh media on hand for the induction ceremony referred to the bungled Willie Stargell Night earlier that summer. Tom McMillan, a columnist for the Post-Gazette, questioned how Pittsburgh fans should remember Stargell. “Should we remember him as sweet-sounding father figure who promotes ‘humanistic endeavors,’ preaches hard work, and, in a recent interview with a national newspaper, lashed out against materialism? Or should we remember him as a greedy former Pirate who heard about Willie Stargell Hall of Fame Night and wanted payment—specifically, a $70,000 car—in exchange for his participation? Should we remember him as the captain and spiritual leader of the 1979 World Series champions, leader of an astonishing Series comeback, co–MVP of the National League? Or should we remember him as the captain and spiritual leader of a team that would eventually find itself gutted in the most publicized drug scandal in the game’s history?”¹⁵

While McMillan questioned Stargell’s behavior and character at his Hall of Fame induction, one of his media counterparts in Atlanta, Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Roy S. Johnson, used the opportunity to urge the Braves to bring Stargell back to the organization. “The Braves could use Willie Stargell,” Johnson wrote. “As much as Russ Nixon has been able to accomplish in his frustrating effort to steady the sinking Braves, they could use him, badly.... They could use his knowledge, his experience, his love of the game.” Johnson referred to Stargell’s induction speech, where he noted that he wanted to “give something back to baseball because you’ve given so much to me.” The Braves, Johnson wrote, “could use it all.”¹⁶

Four months later, long after the balls and bats of another season had been put away, the Baseball Network reconvened, this time in Atlanta during baseball’s annual winter meetings, to renew the call for greater minority representation. They listened while Commissioner Ueberroth said minority employment in Major League Baseball had risen from 2 percent to 10 percent in two years—and then listened when home run king Henry Aaron—the Braves’ director of player development—described Ueberroth’s speech as “the same old bull, just dressed up a bit.” But Stargell said he was pleased that Ueberroth had reaffirmed a commitment to minorities. “We have some real areas that we need to expound on, decision-making areas,” Stargell said. “I’m excited there’s a commitment because with a commitment in due time something will happen. As far as results, we have a long way to go.” After Ueberroth spoke, members of the Baseball Network huddled for more than an hour with representatives from the commissioner’s office. Stargell called the meeting “very good, really impressive. We all sort of joined hands and reaffirmed our commitment to work together on this thing.”¹⁷

While Stargell remained on the outside looking in, his exile period wouldn’t last much longer. In February, 1989, he agreed in principle to return to the Braves as a roving instructor. The arrangement called for Stargell to split his time at spring training between the Braves’ major and minor league camps, where his duties would include motivation and outfield instruction. Cox listed hitting instruction among Stargell’s responsibilities and indicated a willingness to let Stargell free-lance a bit when it came to his assignments, in part to allow Stargell to take advantage of the additional visibility that his recent Hall of Fame induction provided. “He doesn’t work for anybody else,” Cox said of Stargell. “Willie fits in well with our people and is a great asset.”¹⁸ Stargell would go on to spend another eight productive seasons with the Atlanta organization, working his motivational magic and providing hitting tips for many of the players who would go on to great success with the Braves—players like Ron Gant, Ryan Klesko, David Justice and a sure-fire Hall-of-Famer-in-waiting, Chipper Jones. He served in several capacities, including roving minor-league hitting instructor and special assistant to scouting director Chuck La Mar. Later he was named special assistant for player personnel.

Cox said Stargell was a huge asset to the Braves organization, even if much of his work took place behind the scenes. “Just for our players to be around a guy like that, the motivation he gave the players and the hitting tips—Willie was tremendous. He was great with the younger guys—he put his heart and soul into it. He was a good guy to listen to. It didn’t have to be about hitting all the time—he’d talk about other stuff. But I liked Willie as a hitting instructor. He would talk mechanics and the mental parts and spreading the ball around the field a little bit. I loved Willie.”¹⁹

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 Beach, 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

Stargell never had the opportunity to manage—at any level. But his work in the Braves front office caught the attention of a new regime in Pittsburgh. A new ownership group headed by a young Californian named Kevin McClatchy bought the ballclub in 1996 for $92 million, and it wasn’t long afterward that he began wondering why Stargell was no longer in the Pirate fold. McClatchy talked to Dick Freeman, the team’s former president and chief operating officer, but still couldn’t understand why the broken relationship hadn’t been mended. “So I reached out to Willie,” McClatchy recalled.³⁶ Cam Bonifay, whom the new Pittsburgh ownership had hired to serve as general manager, said one of the things he and McClatchy had talked about after he took the job was to get more former Pirates involved in the organization and particularly in the field operations side. “We wanted to help develop the ‘Pirates way’ of bringing back championships to Pittsburgh,” Bonifay said.³⁷ Toward that end, the Pirates called Atlanta and asked permission to speak with Stargell and ask him to come back to the Pirates. Bonifay and McClatchy envisioned Stargell wearing multiple hats—going to spring training and evaluating some of the minor league players and also serving as a sounding board for what was going on at the major league level. McClatchy said Stargell was surprised that the club would contact him but excited at the prospect. McClatchy asked Stargell to visit in person to discuss the idea. “It was a very emotional meeting,” McClatchy said. “I think he had felt a separation. Obviously it was a powerful moment—a tearful reunion to being asked to come back to the organization that he loved. It meant a lot to him—there was no hesitation on his part to come back once that offer was made. He wanted to be here.”

McClatchy said it was important to mend that fence—and strengthen it—and bring Stargell back to the fold. “He was the identity of the organization in many ways,” McClatchy said. “He helped with former players; he helped with fans. There was a presence. Getting Dave Parker back would not have evolved if Willie had not reached out to him.” Stargell, officially hired as a senior adviser, also worked with the team’s alumni organization and met with potential sponsors, trying to sell the concept of what would become PNC Park—a brand new Pirate playground that would rise from the banks of the Allegheny River on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, a long Stargell poke from the now-departed Three Rivers Stadium. Stargell was effective in his new role, McClatchy said. “When Willie spoke, people would listen. There was no question that players respected him and would listen to anything he had to say. He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer.” Pirates brass anticipated that Stargell’s presence might have residual positive impacts off the field—and specifically in the black community. Although the club claimed that its minority attendance—pegged at 6.8 percent—had increased by 300 percent, it also looked to capture a more robust share, particularly considering more than one in four city residents was black. Steve Greenburg, the Pirates’ vice president, said he hoped Stargell’s return to the organization could translate to an upward tick at the gate among minority residents. “If it shows a prominent minority presence in Pirates baseball and in baseball in general, it’s going to be a big plus,” he said. McClatchy said he had spoken to some members of the black community, and they were very excited that the hiring of Stargell could help in that area. “But we have a lot more steps to take to get the black community back to the ballpark. I’ve done a lot of speaking there and a lot of our employees have been involved, but they need to see us there more and they need to know we’d like them here. I think part of it is that it’s a little intimidating to go to a baseball game where 99 percent of the people are white.”³⁸

At a February 11, 1997, press conference announcing Stargell’s return to the club, he said he was surprised when the Braves had told him that the Pirates had called to ask permission to talk with him. “I felt good, yet I felt kind of strange because I hadn’t entertained it. I had almost forgotten about the idea of coming back.” Bonifay was excited about the prospect of having Stargell around to help evaluate players at all levels of the system. “He will be a man that I will count on,” Bonifay said. “He will be a man I will use in a lot of different ways.” Stargell said one of the reasons he was willing to return to the organization was because it seemed committed to building a championship-caliber club. But he said that wouldn’t be done quickly—just as it wasn’t in Atlanta or in Cleveland, where the long moribund Indians franchise had been resurrected in the mid–’90s. There, he said, the organizations asked fans to be patient. “As a result, they have brand-new stadiums and great atmosphere within the community,” Stargell said.³⁹

Looking back nearly 15 years later, Bonifay said Stargell’s role with the club was a meaningful one and his presence certainly was a boon to the organization. During spring training, Stargell would observe both major and minor league players and mingle with them to share what he had learned during his life in the game. “The amount of knowledge and the amount of information he gave our younger players, and the suggestions he made in the development of our younger and older players, was very positive,” Bonifay said. “We were very happy to have him as a member of our staff. There’s no question he had the background and knowledge to talk to our younger players about specific things they needed to become successful players. The knowledge of what it took to prepare to be a major-league player while still in the minor leagues—the things that have to be accomplished, the individual skill sets necessary to become an improved player. Those kinds of things were the most important aspects he offered our organization at the time.” Although Stargell was nearly 60 by this time, he had no problem relating with younger players—and vice versa. “When it came to hearing his expertise, they were open and willing to listen,” Bonifay said. “He had a very good way of talking to and relating to younger players. He was not overbearing. He could describe and teach and break things down in a very simple manner, without being over-mechanical. He had a very simplistic way of giving young players knowledge and being able to have them understand what he was saying. He was very good in that regard.”

Smizik said it was apparent that the Pirates brass greatly appreciated Stargell’s skills and his opinions. “I don’t think he was a figurehead—I think he knew talent and Cam [Bonifay] had a lot of respect for Willie’s opinion,” he said. “And Willie got his role with the Pirates. He was a very perceptive baseball guy. Lots of times good hitters don’t get the credit they deserve. Ralph Kiner had a brilliant knowledge of hitting. Hal McRae had a brilliant knowledge of hitting. I can’t speak to Willie’s days as a hitting coach but talking to him and knowing how people regarded him, his word was tremendous.”⁴⁰ Frattare said Stargell’s return in 1997 was a boon to the organization. Just to have him watch the younger players take batting practice was a major benefit. “He wasn’t going to push himself on anybody because that wasn’t his style,” Frattare said of Stargell. “But he had an opportunity to sit on the bench and watch. And he knew how much the mental approach was important to players, particularly younger players trying to figure it out. His time was extremely memorable from that standpoint.”⁴¹

In his first spring training with the club, Stargell said he just tried to pass along things that had been passed on to him. “It’s nothing I invented,” he said. “But it’s things that I know work.” He said he was looking for “uniqueness” and finding plenty of it. He compared it to the situation that existed when he first arrived in Atlanta. “They were struggling but they had a lot of young talent in the minor leagues. Same here. It’s like being in Africa in one of those diamond mines. You see a rock that’s all muddy, but it has a little tiny speck that’s glittering and you know there’s something there. It just takes somebody to get that prize jewel out and mold it so it can have the brilliance and color it should have.”⁴²

Once the season started, Stargell would spend stretches of four or five days with minor league teams, then meet with Bonifay and others to discuss his observations. He kept up this arrangement despite needing time to tend to some health issues that would worsen in the coming years and ultimately end his life in April 2001. Bonifay said Stargell was receiving treatment—including kidney dialysis—for medical issues from the time he returned to the organization in February 1997 until he stopped actively working for the club in late 2000. The Pirates gave Stargell all the time he needed for treatment whenever he would require it. “At certain times, he was physically unable to do certain things,” Bonifay said. “But the times he was there and the times he felt well were the times we capitalized on the most.” The treatments that Stargell required, Bonifay said, were just part of his schedule.

After returning to the Pirates organization in January 1997, Willie enjoyed working with youngsters on the finer points of hitting, among other subjects (courtesy Pittsburgh Pirates).

Word of Stargell’s medical situation reached the media in the fall of 1999, and it was widely reported that he was battling serious health problems and had been hospitalized for three weeks. Team officials issued a statement attributed to Stargell in which he thanked his “well-wishing fans for their concern after hearing of my hospitalization. I have, in fact, been in the hospital for three weeks for management of a recent illness.” In the same statement, Stargell refuted media reports that he would be hospitalized for at least three more weeks and said he was expected to be discharged within a few days.⁴³

In February 2000, a Pittsburgh media outlet reported that Stargell had undergone minor surgery in Wilmington, and that he was expected to attend spring training later that month. In March, while visiting the Pirates’ spring training complex in Bradenton, Associated Press reporter Alan Robinson wrote that “for a 60-year-old man who nearly died only a few months ago, Stargell looks very much alive, very much in charge, very much in control.” Stargell concurred, saying, “I haven’t felt this well in a long time.” Robinson wrote that although Stargell had been undergoing kidney dialysis for several years, it was an infected finger—not the kidney issues—that caused him to be hospitalized for six weeks the previous fall. The infection set in after Stargell accidentally cut himself in his kitchen and did not immediately seek treatment. Ultimately a portion of the finger had to be amputated. Although Stargell had not regained his strength—he relied on a golf cart to get around the Pirates’ minor-league complex in Bradenton—he hadn’t lost his touch when it came to evaluating talent. “Willie Stargell knows baseball,” Bonifay said.⁴⁴

Bonifay said Stargell kept working for the Pirates, and his input continued to be appreciated. “He was always evaluating and I always asked him for his evaluations and his opinions—what he saw from different players,” Bonifay said. “I thought he had a very good feel for it. He pointed out things—development issues—in certain players that had to be addressed.” Bonifay said Stargell’s front-office skills were such that if his health had not deteriorated, he would have remained an important part of the Pirates organization for many more years, serving as a mentor for younger players. Bonifay said he didn’t believe Stargell’s effectiveness would have diminished over time and that he would have remained relevant to this day. “One thing you’ll find is that the Hall of Fame transcends every generation,” Bonifay said. “Without question, he was not only a Hall of Fame player but a Hall of Fame individual the way he approached people, how he put them at ease about who he was and what he had to offer. It could be the next generation or three generations down the road and he would have had relevance in terms of what he had to offer.” That’s because, in the end, baseball is not a game of change, Bonifay said. “Outsiders may view it that way, but not the players themselves. It’s still a game of 60 feet, 6 inches and 90-foot bases. That has not changed, pitchers have not changed, hitters have not changed and the ability to do that on a consistent basis is what separates those very good ones from those who do not have very good careers.”⁴⁵

Stargell’s involvement in the organization grew smaller as the 2000 season went along when his health took a turn for the worse. “It was really a struggle for him and his family,” Bonifay said. “He spent a lot of time at home at the end of the 2000 season.” Stargell returned to town for the final home series of the 2000 season—the last games ever to be played at Three Rivers Stadium, which was to be replaced the following campaign by PNC Park. On September 29, the Pirates announced that a 12-foot bronze statue of the slugger would be built near the left-field entrance to PNC Park on Federal Street. He joined former teammate Clemente and Honus Wagner as the only members of the then-114-year-old franchise to have statues made in their honor, although World Series hero Bill Mazeroski would join those ranks in 2010. At a press conference announcing the statue, Stargell fought back tears, saying, “I’m overwhelmed, but I’m also thankful. All I wanted to do was play ball.” However, he added that now that the statue was in the works, “You’d catch hell taking it away from me. It’s special, very special.”⁴⁶

The statue’s base was to be constructed of stainless steel and granite and was to include a “Stargell Star” that featured his signature. The base also includes the quote from Stargell regarding his initial impression of Pittsburgh, coming through the Fort Pitt Tunnel with Bob Veale, on the way in from Columbus in 1962: “Last night, coming in from the airport, we came through the tunnel and the city opened up its arms and I felt at home.”

Local sports media member Stan Savran said the press conference announcing the Stargell statue was one of the last times he saw Willie. “I did a long TV interview with him about that,” he said. “I have a picture of the two of us doing the interview—I still have it on my bulletin board. He was truly moved—he was moved to tears. That’s how touched he was that they were going to build a statue and put it out in front of PNC Park. Willie was really overcome with emotion.”⁴⁷ At the press conference, Stargell reflected on what it was like to spend his entire playing career in one uniform and talked about how much he valued and respected that uniform. In fact, he said that never once in his career did he toss the Pirate uniform on the floor. “That’s how particular I was,” he said.⁴⁸

McClatchy recalled visiting Stargell in the hospital to look at some photographs that were to be used as a model for his statue. McClatchy said Stargell told him, “I want a picture that shows me just before I was about to hit the shit out of the ball.”

On the night of September 29, Stargell received a standing ovation from the Three Rivers crowd of more than 40,000—and both dugouts—and spoke before the game. “Lots of wonderful things have happened in this stadium,” he said. “I’ll never forget you.” Stargell appeared much leaner than he had been in years, due to his health issues. He would not discuss those issues specifically, saying it was a “personal matter.” But he said he no longer was required to receive regular dialysis treatments and that the infection that had dogged him earlier was no longer an issue. “I’ve been given the green light to travel,” Stargell said. “My destiny is up to me. I do have a lot of fight in me.”⁴⁹

Willie holds an imaginary bat as he scrutinizes a model of the 12-foot bronze statue that would be unveiled in early April 2001 as the Pirates got set to open their new PNC Park on Pittsburgh’s North Shore (courtesy Pittsburgh Pirates).

Two days later, the Pirates played their final game at Three Rivers, losing to the Cubs 10–9 in front of a sellout crowd of 55,351—the largest regular-season crowd in club history. About 30 minutes after the game, the Pirates paid their final tribute to the stadium. More than 20 retired players were on hand to say goodbye to the old yard, which at one time was considered state-of-the-art but had been relegated to irrelevancy by the advent of new baseball-only parks like Baltimore’s Camden Yards. Tekulve, the old submarining right-hander, took the mound and current catcher Jason Kendall stood near the area of home plate. But Tekulve wouldn’t be delivering the final pitch. Instead, the voice of the Pirates late public address announcer, Art McKennan, introduced Stargell, and the sellout crowd erupted. Stargell was helped to the mound, where he was embraced by his former manager Tanner and ex-teammates including John Candelaria, Manny Sanguillen, Grant Jackson and Nellie Briles, and then made his final pitch.⁵⁰

Several of Stargell’s former teammates were unable to attend the final game, including Oliver, who had a prior engagement. But he had a chance to see portions of the ceremony on the news later that night and was chilled by the sight of his mentor, whose health was deteriorating. “When I saw him, I just said, ‘Wow—it won’t be too much longer,’” Oliver recalled.⁵¹ Another former teammate who was not at Three Rivers that night regretted his absence. “I wish I’d been there because I had something really important to say to Willie,” said Bob Priddy, who had played with Stargell in the lowest of the minor-league rungs some 40 years earlier. “I would have said, ‘Hey, Willie, isn’t it amazing that at one time in your baseball career, they wouldn’t even let you sleep in the same hotel as us or eat in the same restaurants as us—you couldn’t go to the same toilets as us or drink out of the same water fountains. And now they’re building a statue for you. Ain’t that something?’”⁵²