1979 champs: ‘ Family’ back together
If life were a ballgame, most of the 1979 Pirates would be nearing the seventh- inning stretch. Some have been lost along the way, including the patriarch, Willie Stargell. Others have endured major struggles.
Dave Parker, the larger- than- life right fielder, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012. He is 68. Kent Tekulve, the leaner- than- life closer, had a heart transplant in
2014. He is 72.
Which makes you and I how old? “Hard to believe,” Tekulve says, “that it was 40 years ago we were freezing our asses off in Baltimore.”
Father Time has proven to be a tougher foe than those Orioles, but believe me when I tell you this: The 1979 Pirates never, ever go down without a fight. A fair number of them will congregate this weekend at PNC Park for a 40- year reunion, and they remain a feisty, fun- loving crew.
Ten years ago, before the 30- year reunion, I asked manager Chuck Tanner how he was able to keep so many talented players content and engaged.
“I’d tell them, ‘ We’re going to win the pennant, and if you don’t want that, get the hell out of here,’” Tanner said. “I managed for the team.”
That’s the other thing about those Pirates — they defined team as well as any champion in baseball history. They truly were a family, personifying the Sister Sledge hit (“We Are Family”) that became their anthem, and they were the only team of the 20th century to win a World Series without either a pitcher who won 15 games or a hitter who drove in 100 runs.
They were ahead of their time, too. The term “superutility player” hadn’t been invented, but the Pirates had multiple players who could fit that description. And like today’s managers, Tanner would often go to his bullpen early.
“Look at it this way,” Tekulve says. “We went to the last day [ to win the division], so anybody that had anything to do with any oddball win was important. It took every single person.”
That might have been pinch- runner extraordinaire Matt “The Scat” Alexander scoring a big run, or freeagent signee Lee Lacy using one of his 182 at- bats to beat the Cincinnati Reds on a sacrifice fly, or journeyman reliever Dave Roberts pitching four scoreless innings in a 19inning win at San Diego.
Or it might have been Mike Easler — “The Hit Man” — blasting two pinchhit home runs against the New York Mets in May, helping vault the Pirates from a 10- 18 start to an 88- 46 finish.
Tanner told me he would run the club with “one eye and one ear,” meaning he wasn’t exactly Vince Lombardi when it came to cracking down. The Pirates didn’t have team meetings, they had team parties.
“I think if we had a manager like Billy Martin, controlling us and making rules, we wouldn’t have won,” says Steve Nicosia, who shared the catching duties with Ed Ott. “I truly believe the key to everything was Chuck
Tanner. In the back of the plane, guys would be drinkin’ and dancin’ and playin’ music, and Chuck never walked back there or sent someone to check on us. On the other three teams I played on, that happened all the time.
“Guys knew what it was like to be controlled by other managers, and they appreciated Chuck.”
Easler exemplified the 1979 Pirates as well as anyone. He logged just 54 at- bats and snuck in two starts as part of a loaded left- field rotation that included Lacy, Bill Robinson and John Milner. But he was always ready.
He was desperate, too. Already 28, Easler had spent the majority of his career in the minors. With the Pirates struggling in May, he heard the team was going to call up a pitcher and that either himself or Alexander would be sent down.
“I’d already spent enough time in the [ expletive] bushes,” Easler recalled Tuesday as he drove his newly repaired car in the 108degree heat of Las Vegas. “I was getting nervous and scared.”
He boiled over as a May 16 game against the visiting Mets stretched into extra innings.
Did I mention that those Pirates remain feisty? That is the 68- year- old Easler as he recounts the game that changed his baseball fate. He would become a feared hitter in the years to come.
“Oh let me tell you, that game defined my whole career,” he says. “I was [ ticked] off, up in the locker room cursing and hollering because they hadn’t used me. I knew [ Mets reliever] Skip Lockwood was going to bring three- quarters high gas, and I finally said, ‘ Lockwood’s in — get me in there! I’ll win this [ expletive] game!’ Finally, I get a call: ‘ Easler, you’re going to pinch- hit.’ I said, ‘ About damn time.’
“So I get in the batter’s box, and the very first pitch is a high fastball, and I hit that [ thing] so hard, it hit the back of the stadium, that cement at Three Rivers [ Stadium]. I hit that [ stuff] so hard, it bounced back toward second base.
“And that was the beginning of ‘ The Hit Man.’”
Easler, Tekulve, Parker, Nicosia, Ott, John Candelaria, Alexander, Dale Berra, Tim Foli, Phil Garner, Grant Jackson, Lacy, Omar Moreno, Don Robinson, Jim Rooker, Manny Sanguillen and Rennie Stennett are among those scheduled to join the festivities this weekend.
Bruce Kison, Jim Bibby, Tanner and Pete Peterson — the architect of the 1979 Pirates — are among those who have passed since the 30year reunion. Stargell, Roberts, Milner, Robinson and pitching coach Harvey Haddix were among those who preceded them.
A bunch of old Pirates gathered at Kison’s viewing a year ago. The ever- feisty Kison never met a teammate he wouldn’t defend.
“We all remembered,” Nicosia recalls. “We did a lot of crying that day. And a lot of laughing.”
If you’re of a certain age, all the names above elicit a memory or two. Maybe it’s one of Sanguillen, an aging warrior, singling home the go- ahead run in the top of the ninth in Game 2 of the World Series.
Easler wanted to hit there, of course, a fact Sanguillen brings up every time they see each other.
“He says, ‘ I’m the Hit Man! I’m the Hit Man! Chuck used me. He didn’t use you. I’m the Hit Man,’” Easler says, laughing. “I just say, ‘ I remember. You’re right.’”
Tekulve once told me that whenever the 1979 players reunite, they immediately and unwittingly travel back in time and take up their former roles. Which means Parker and Garner will be busting each other’s chops at first sight, and the rest will jump right in.
For a few days, they will be young again.