Sport: The Full-Tilt Boogie Buccaneers

For the National League champs, getting there was half the fun

“All season long, it seemed like we never could win a ball game the easy way,” Pittsburgh Pirates Second Baseman Phil Garner said after a tenth-inning victory over the Cincinnati Reds in the second game of the National League championship playoff. He frowned, pursed his lips in remembrance of a grueling pennant race that was not decided until the season’s final day, then broke into a grin. “But my, how time flies when you’re having fun.”

Easy or not, getting to the World Series has seldom seemed more enjoyable for anybody than it has for the 1979 Pirates. Known for maintaining the most boisterous clubhouse in baseball, the Pirates proved as irrepressible on the field as in the locker room. They swept Cincinnati out of the playoff with the same gusto, twice fighting through extra innings to beat the Reds. In the final game the Pirates crushed Cincinnati 7-1 under a barrage of hitting and Bert Blylevin’s seamless pitching. It took four Reds pitchers to withstand the first four innings, as First Baseman Willie Stargell and Third Baseman Bill Madlock hit home runs and Stargell added a two-run double to settle matters. Stargell, at the vintage age of 38, hit .455 with two home runs and six RBIs and was the unanimous playoff MVP.

Heroics and histrionics marked Pittsburgh’s year. Theirs was a disco-inferno season, a full-tilt boogie race for the pennant punctuated by the psyching-up war whoops of All-Star Rightfielder Dave Parker, the ego-deflating insults of Garner and the popping of corks by Team Captain Stargell, the oenophile first baseman. Typical play: a Pirate crashes a three-run home run to win an eleven-inning game. Typical congratulatory byplay: “Way to go, [bleep]!” “Thank you, [bleep]!” Other teams may deem it necessary to fine players to ensure promptness at the ballpark; the Pittsburgh locker room throbs with athletes joining the badinage hours before game time. The party does not end at the door. Pirate pitchers have been known to play Frisbee in the bullpen.

Unfortunately for the opposition, the Pirates romped on the field as well. Pittsburgh came from behind to win 41 games, and 25 times they scored the winning run in their final turn at bat. After a seesaw division-title fight with the astonishing Montreal Expos (the two teams swapped the lead nine times in the last 20 days), the Pirates finished with 38 wins in their final 52 games, compiling the second best record in the major leagues.* Says Stargell: “We have a very special feeling for each other on this team.”

The Pirates did it with more than emotion, however. Traditionally a team of big sluggers and uncertain defense, they anchored their erratic infield with trades for Madlock and Shortstop Tim Foli. A succession of injuries left the Pirates without a regular starting rotation for the entire season, so the pitching staff needed all the help it could get. Manager Chuck Tanner juggled frantically to fill the gaps; the top three Pirate relievers, Kent Tekulve, Grant Jackson and Enrique Romo, set a major league record by appearing a total of 250 times. Among the regulars, Stargell had his best season since 1975, hitting .281, pounding 32 home runs and 82 RBIS. Centerfielder Omar Moreno batted .282, a full 41 points above his life time average, and led the league in sto len bases with 77. Garner (.293) and Foli (.288) had the best years of their lives as hitters. Parker (.310) and Madlock (.328 since arriving from the Giants in mid year) had seasons most players only dream about. John Milner and Bill Robinson alternated in leftfield and between them piled up 40 home runs and 135 RBis.

Like Baltimore Manager Earl Weaver, the Pirates’ Tanner saw to it that no one maundered on the bench. Aside from the usual parade of pitchers, he shuttled pinch hitters and runners through the lineup as if it were a revolving door.

Matt (“the Scat”) Alexander, for example, filled in on the base paths so often that he scored more runs for other Pirates than he had official times at bat.

In the process, he developed baseball’s equivalent to spiking a football: whenever he reached home plate, he would turn around and dance across it backward.

Each time he earned applause from his teammates and an understanding smile from Tanner. “Just because you play baseball for a living doesn’t mean it has to be a job,” he says. “You ought to have fun playing in the big leagues just like you did when you were a little kid, be cause the more you enjoy it, the better you play.” He paused to listen to the laughter of the National League champions and added, “Now, our guys — they have fun.”

*Pittsburgh won 98 games and lost 64, a .605 winning percentage; the Baltimore Orioles, runaway champions of the American League East, were 102 and 57, for a .642 percentage.