Willie Stargell’s 1979 campaign was full of individual and team accolades, netting him a lot of hardware to showcase on his mantle.
What makes it even wilder is that Stargell had been waiting his entire career for a moment like this. He spent nearly two decades producing at the plate without a single MVP trophy to show for it, and then, at 39 years old, he didn’t just win one — he swept the board.
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Willie Stargell’s Triple-MVP Season
Willie Stargell accomplished a lot during a Hall of Fame career. He spent all 21 of his big-league seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and his 475 home runs are the most in franchise history.
Before the 1979 season started, one of the few things missing from his resume was an MVP Award. It’s not that he didn’t come close, though. Between 1962 and 1978, Stargell finished within the top 20 of NL MVP voting nine times. This included six top-10 finishes. He even finished second, third, and second in three straight seasons (1971-73).
But the tide finally turned during his age-39 campaign. He was named Co-NL MVP with Keith Hernandez after hitting .281/.352/.552 with 32 home runs and 82 RBI in 480 plate appearances.
The Pirates went on to win the World Series, and they couldn’t have gotten it done without Stargell. He won NLCS MVP honors after posting a 1.753 OPS in 14 plate appearances. That was followed by taking home World Series MVP honors after posting a 1.208 OPS in 32 plate appearances.
Willie Stargell Home Runs to Enjoy From the 1979 Postseason
10/2/1979: This home run helped the Pirates get a lead in the 11th inning of NLCS Game 1.
10/10/1979: Stargell got the Pirates within a run of the Baltimore Orioles in World Series Game 1 with this dinger.
10/17/1979: Facing a winner-take-all Game 7 in the World Series, Stargell slugged a go-ahead homer to help power Pittsburgh toward a title.
How ‘Pops’ Became the Heart of ‘The Family’
You can’t talk about the 1979 Pirates without talking about the nickname. By that point in his career, Stargell had become “Pops” to a clubhouse full of teammates who leaned on him as a leader as much as a hitter. He’d hand out gold stars — the famous “Stargell Stars” — for anything from a big hit to a great defensive play, and players wore them proudly on their caps all season.
Pair that with Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” as the team’s unofficial anthem, and you’ve got a beloved team in baseball history, with Stargell as its emotional center.
Pirates manager Chuck Tanner put it about as well as anyone could: playing with Stargell, he said, was like wearing a diamond ring on your finger. That kind of respect from a manager, paired with an MVP season at age 39, is what turns a great player into a franchise legend.
A Cooperstown Lock
Stargell’s career numbers made his Hall of Fame case an easy one. He got in on the first ballot in 1988, earning 82.4% of the vote. He was the only player enshrined that year, so all the attention was on him. The Pirates retired his No. 8 in 1982, and he’d already picked up the Roberto Clemente Award back in 1974 for his work in the community, on top of everything he did on the field.
He also has one of the great power-hitting legends attached to his name. Stargell is credited with some of the longest home runs ever recorded, including blasts that cleared the roof at Forbes Field and one at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia that’s still marked today.
Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton once said Stargell didn’t just beat pitchers, he took their dignity. I’m not sure how Stargell felt about that comment, but if a pitcher said that to me, it’d feel like the greatest compliment ever from an opponent.
Willie Stargell’s Place on the Pirates’ HR Leaderboard
Stargell is the Pirates’ all-time home run leader with 475 taters. His place on the leaderboard is safe for a while — Ralph Kiner is in a distant second with 301 homers. The closest active player is Andrew McCutchen, who has hit 248 homers as a Pirate, and he’s no longer with the organization.
While Kiner has the single-season home run leaderboard covered quite well, Stargell found a way to get himself on there. The Hall of Famer drove in a career-high 125 RBI during the 1971 season, which is still the fifth-highest single-season total in franchise history.
As we can tell from his postseason hardware, October was a good time of the year for Stargell, too. His seven playoff home runs are currently the most ever by a Pirate.
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