, Erie Times-News
Contributing writer
Contributing writer
June 9, 2013
I hold a warm memory of my dad from the '70s that feels, as the years go by, more like something I dreamed about.
In my memory-dream, it's always late summer. My dad, who died in 1998, and I are sitting in the kitchen, listening to a Pittsburgh Pirates game on the radio. It's hot. Fans are set on high, blowing right in our faces but producing nothing but a loud whir. And it's late. The steamy night has stretched long past midnight.
No matter. Our attention is riveted to the small, orange box on the kitchen table. Bob Prince is doing the play-by-play: Score tied, Pirates 8, St. Louis Cardinals 8. For some reason, it's always the Cards and it's always in St. Louis and it's always deep into extra innings.
We fight sleep but, hey, it's the Pirates, and they're fighting for first.
My dream distinctly recalls that it's always Al Oliver, my favorite Pirate, who hits the game-winning home run. But my memory, relentlessly and unbendingly tied to reality, tells me it was always Willie Stargell.
Invoking names like Stargell and Oliver, Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski can strike powerful nostalgia in the hearts of Pirates fans of a certain age. That happens a lot in Frank Garland's new biography, "Willie Stargell: A Life in Baseball."
But why Stargell? Why now?
It was 2005 when Garland -- a Pittsburgh native and currently Gannon University's journalism communications program director -- visited the bookstore at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. In that "sea of books," as he puts it, he found only one afloat about Stargell -- his 1984 autobiography written with former Erie author Tom Bird. (By this time, Bob Adelman and Susan Hall's controversial tell-all, "Out of Left Field," was long out of print.)
A lot has happened since 1984; for one, Stargell died of complications from heart and liver failure on April 9, 2001, a bittersweet day for Pirates fans who saw the opening of PNC Park on that same day. A birth celebrated; a death mourned.
"I felt fortunate to read Stargell's story through his own eyes," Garland writes about the autobiography. "But I wondered how others saw the special slugger -- how did he influence their careers and their lives?"
To find out, he spent the next seven years interviewing more than 80 people who knew Stargell intimately -- from former Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy to Stargell's beloved sister, Sandrus Collier, to the guy who delivered Stargell's newspaper in Alameda, Calif., when they were both 12.
It's from them -- and other resources -- that we find out how far Stargell could hit a ball:
"I couldn't believe (how far the ball traveled). That's a $25 cab ride." -- Richie Hebner, former Pirates third baseman.
"It was like trying to watch a tracer bullet." -- Wayne Twitchell, former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos.
"He'd hit the ball and, geez, they're still going." -- Ron Brand, former catcher for the Pirates, Expos and Houston Astros.
And what a prankster Stargell could be:
During the 1977 season, Pirate pitcher Jerry Reuss records his 1,000th career strikeout against the Chicago Cubs' Gene Clines, a former Pirate. The next day, Clines receives a baseball from Reuss and this message: "Gene, this was my 1,000th strikeout ball. Would you please sign it?" The day after that, Reuss gets his wish, an autographed baseball: "(Expletive deleted) you, Gene Clines."
Vintage clubhouse humor -- except Reuss never sent Clines a ball to sign. Eventually, both of them figured it out around the same time: Willie!
And how Stargell treated people:
"When he talked to you, he made you feel special, and it didn't matter if you were the guy emptying the trash or cleaning out the bathrooms or the president of the United States. ... That's how he treated everybody. That's how he became so revered. People just loved the guy." -- Steve Nicosia, former Pirates catcher.
"I Can -- I Will -- I Am." -- mantra from Stargell that Ron Gant, former left fielder for the Atlanta Braves, wrote under the brim of his hat.
In his chapter notes, Garland sources more than 430 footnotes, more than a quarter of them original material derived from his interviews. The rest is all of the gumshoe research Garland did in Pittsburgh, Cooperstown, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Davis, Calif. After all, what's a sports book without a wheelbarrow full of stats?
But it's those fresh interviews that tell the story of a man who turns out to be surprisingly hard to pin down on the page.
I don't think we really find him in his own autobiography, which was written with Bird. Too many sentences don't sound like Willie Stargell to me: "I think human instinct is as obvious as the baby kangaroo's." And of breaking into a stolen vat of ice cream: "Soon the lid was off and hungry hands gouged into their icy prey."
Stargell and Bird also favor using nicknames instead of real names, so the second half of their book is largely about the exploits of Dog, Foots, Nic, Candy, Gunner and Scat. And I thought I was a Pirates fan!
I don't think we find the real guy in Richard "Pete" Peterson's brand new "Pops: The Willie Stargell Story," either. That's not to say this isn't a thorough effort; it's just that Garland's is more so.
Peterson, a regular contributor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, depended on Sally O'Leary, of the Pirates Alumni Association, and Altoona sports talk-show host Joe Shuta for lining up his interviews of Stargell's former teammates. There's also little here about the star's upbringing and still less about his family.
Garland does far better, especially in his final chapter, "The Real Family." It's here, from his sister and his only son, Wilver Jr., that we get a glimpse of the price Stargell paid to win two World Series titles, the Most Valuable Player title, Comeback Player of the Year title and become what one 11-year-old called him, "Mr. Pittsburgh."
There's still plenty we don't know about the guy, and it's a pity that other members of his family withdrew the content of their interviews with Garland.
Apparently, the Pittsburgh hero played the field even after he played the field -- and there were allegations of drug improprieties, which he was eventually cleared of by the baseball commissioner. Yet he was also a humanitarian, a champion of good causes, a cool head during times of racial strife and, as Garland describes him, "a kind soul."
Not only did Wilver Dornell Stargell live life large, but he tended to drag it around with him wherever he went. I was going to criticize Garland for typical sports hype when he described Stargell's "titanic presence" at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
But I won't. Maybe he wasn't that far off.
DOUG RIEDER is the former editor of the book page. He misses both his dad and the Pirates fighting for first.
"Willie Stargell: A Life in Baseball"
By Frank Garland
McFarland; 263 pages; $29.95
No comments:
Post a Comment