Staub, slugger who played 23 seasons, dies
Instantly recognizable for his fiery orange hair and gregarious personality, the outfielder who charmed baseball fans in the United States and Canada during an All-Star career that spanned 23 major league seasons died Thursday. He was 73.
Staub died after an illness in a hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, hours before the start of the baseball season, the New York Mets said in a statement. The team learned of his death from friends of Staub who were with him at the hospital, a spokesman added.
Affectionately dubbed “Le Grand Orange,” Staub was a six-time All-Star and the only player in major league history to have at least 500 hits with four teams. Popular with fans and teammates in two countries, he was most adored in New York and Montreal.
“He could be as tough as hell and as soft as a mushroom,” said Mets teammate and close friend Keith Hernandez, who choked back tears as he spoke about Staub at Citi Field before New York hosted the St. Louis Cardinals.
A savvy, reliable slugger with left-handed power and a discerning eye, Staub played from 1963 to 1985 and finished 284 hits shy of 3,000. He had 3½ great seasons with the Detroit Tigers and batted .300 for the Texas Rangers in 1980.
He broke into the majors as a teenager with Houston, lasted into his 40s with the Mets as a pinch-hitter deluxe and spent decades doing charity work in the New York area.
“There wasn’t a cause he didn’t champion,” the Mets said.
Staub, who would have turned 74 on Sunday, survived a 2015 heart attack on a flight home from Ireland. Years earlier, the gourmet cook owned and operated a pair of popular restaurants in Manhattan that bore his name. He also authored a children’s book titled “Hello, Mr. Met!”
“What a unique personality he was. I never met anyone like him,” former Mets pitcher Ron Darling said . “He was a renaissance kind of man.”
The Mets saluted Staub on the stadium video board before Thursday’s season opener. The number 10 he wore during some of his time with the team (he also wore No. 4) was painted in white on the back of the pitcher’s mound.
“Rusty was a superb ambassador for our sport and a generous individual known for community efforts,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.
Staub was the first star for the expansion Montreal Expos in 1969, embraced by French-Canadian fans at Parc Jarry who appreciated that he learned their language.
He made three straight All-Star teams with Montreal and hit a career-high 30 home runs for the last-place Expos in 1970. Though he spent only three full seasons in Montreal, plus a 38-game reunion in 1979, his No. 10 became the first uniform jersey retired by the club in 1993.
Long after the Expos moved to Washington and were renamed the Nationals before the 2005 season, he remains one of the most beloved players in franchise history.
“He gave his heart and soul to the franchise and to the city of Montreal. He immersed himself in the city’s culture as much as any Expo and the fans loved him for it,” Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame director of operations Scott Crawford said in a statement. “We’ll miss Le Grande Orange, but we’ll never forget him.”
Staub was traded to the Mets in 1972 and one year later helped lead them to a surprising National League pennant. Spurred by a now-famous rallying cry from reliever Tug McGraw— “Ya Gotta Believe!”—the Mets upset heavily favored Cincinnati, with Staub socking three home runs in the first four games of their bestof-five NL playoff.
Staub separated his right shoulder when he crashed hard into the outfield wall to make a fantastic catch in the 11th inning of Game 4. He sat out Tom Seaver’s decisive win in Game 5 and missed the World Series opener against Oakland, yet returned to the lineup the following game.
Barely able to make weak, underhand throws during the Series, he still batted .423 with a home run, two doubles and six RBIs as New York lost in seven games. In all, Staub hit .341 with 11 RBIs in his only postseason, a clutch and gritty performance that endeared him to Mets fans forever.
In 1975, he became the first Mets player to drive in 100 runs in a season, setting a club record with 105 that wasn’t broken until 1990.
New York traded Staub to Detroit in December 1975 and he made his final All-Star team with the Tigers in 1976. He had 121 RBIs and finished fifth in AL MVP voting in ‘78, becoming the first major leaguer to play all 162 games in a season at designated hitter.
Staub re-signed with the Mets before the 1981 season and was a player-coach for them in ‘82. Late in his career, often sporting black batting gloves and choking way up on the bat, he became one of baseball’s best pinch-hitters, tying an NL record in 1983 with eight consecutive pinch-hits and equaling a major league mark with 25 pinch-hit RBIs.
His final season was 1985, one year before the Mets won the World Series. After spending nine seasons with New York, he was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in ‘86 and when he was honored at Shea Stadium, smiling ex-teammates such as Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry wore long, orange wigs for the on-field ceremony.
“Rusty was good at everything,” Darling said. “He just had a connectivity to people.”