Both the Pirates and Expos aspired to break the Philadelphia Phillies’ three-season National League East Division stranglehold in 1979. Pittsburgh had finished second from 1976 through 1978, annually chipping away at double-digit deficits before running out of steam or time.1

Several prominent Pirates – including first baseman Willie Stargell and right fielder Dave Parker – had been fixtures since Pittsburgh’s 1970-75 run of five division titles in six seasons.2 High-profile trades in hopes of unseating the Phillies had added veterans like Blyleven and third baseman Phil Garner to a largely homegrown core.3

The Expos, still without a winning season since their 1969 debut, were trending upward under manager Dick Williams, improving from 55 wins in 1976 to 76 in ’78.4 Williams’s Opening Day lineup included six players aged 25 or younger: center fielder Andre Dawson, second baseman Rodney Scott, left fielder Warren Cromartie, right fielder Ellis Valentine, catcher Gary Carter, and third baseman Larry Parrish. A national poll of editors and writers pegged the Pirates as runners-up to the Phillies once again, with the Expos third.5

It was a wintry 31 degrees with brilliant sunshine when Blyleven, celebrating his 28th birthday, delivered the season’s first pitch. Thirty-five MPH wind gusts nipped at the often-disorderly6 crowd of 36,141 and stirred hot-dog wrappers and popcorn boxes into what a reporter labeled “miniature funnel clouds of swirling trash.”7

Major-league umpires were on strike; three local umpires manned the bases, and Dave Pallone, a minor-league arbiter since 1971, called balls and strikes.8 Pittsburgh’s new mascot, the Pirate Parrot, danced to disco music during inning breaks.9 A double play kept Montreal scoreless in the first.

Rogers was having a career-best season in 1978 when an elbow injury sidelined him in September.10 Dr. Frank Jobe removed bone chips later that month, and Rogers’ smooth rehabilitation ensured his fourth consecutive Opening Day start.11

Working in the cold for the first time since surgery, the 29-year-old right-hander faced an early challenge. Leadoff hitter Frank Taveras blooped a single, stole second, and took third on center fielder Omar Moreno’s sacrifice.

Three pitches in, the Pirates had a swift runner 90 feet from home – and their most formidable hitters up in Parker, the NL’s 1978 MVP and reigning two-time batting champion, freshly signed to a landmark five-year contract and pictured on the covers of that week’s Sports Illustrated and Sporting News,12 and Stargell, whose 28-homer season in 1978 earned him NL Comeback Player of the Year honors.13

But Rogers caught Parker looking at a two-strike pitch, then fanned Stargell. Rogers’ first-inning command and repertoire so impressed Pallone that the umpire’s 1990 autobiography cited them as illustrating the difference between the majors and the minors.14

Both starters reigned in the early innings. Rogers retired seven in a row after Taveras’s hit. Sharp defense from Moreno, battling the wind to haul in three fly balls in the second, and Garner, knocking down Dawson’s grounder and throwing across the diamond for the final out of the third, backed Blyleven.

The Pirates had an opportunity in the fourth when Moreno, whose 71 steals had topped the majors in 1978, led off with a single. Rogers peppered the Panamanian with pickoffs; his sixth throw over trapped Moreno for an out, and Pittsburgh again failed to score.

Montreal struck in the fifth. Carter drove Blyleven’s fourth pitch of the inning over the left-field wall for a 1-0 lead.

Parrish followed by fouling off four full-count pitches, then singling. He took second when second baseman Rennie Stennett snared Chris Speier’s grounder near the right-field foul line and threw off-balance to Blyleven for the out at first. Stennett denied Rogers an RBI with a leaping catch of the pitcher’s liner.

But Dawson lined a fastball to left for a single. Bill Robinson’s throw sailed too high for the cutoff man and too short to catch Parrish at the plate.15 Montreal’s lead was 2-0.

The Pirates answered in the bottom of the inning. With one out, catcher Ed Ott hit a changeup over the wall in right center, cutting the deficit to 2-1.16

Pittsburgh’s defense, outstanding so far, began to fray in the sixth. Cromartie led off with a bouncer behind second and beat Taveras’s throw to first; it was scored an error on the Pirates shortstop.

Valentine hit a fly ball to right. Parker slipped on the turf and fell, then got up and caught the ball – only to drop it onto the warning track.

As the play continued, however, Montreal returned the favor with some misadventure of its own. Dashing toward second, Valentine saw Cromartie had stopped there. He attempted to return to first but was tagged out in a rundown.

Garner’s backhand stop of Tony Pérez’s grounder and Carter’s strikeout left Cromartie on second and kept it a one-run game.

When Taveras led off the bottom of the sixth with a two-strike single and Moreno sacrificed him to second, the Pirates, as in the first, had Parker and Stargell coming up with a runner in scoring position and one out.

But Rogers again quashed the threat, striking out Parker – who drew boos from the crowd17  – and getting Stargell to foul out.

Ott’s single with two outs in the seventh gave the Pirates another chance. Manager Chuck Tanner sent in Matt Alexander to run for Ott.

With Alexander – predominantly a pinch-runner during his nine-season major-league career – taking a big lead, the Expos pitched out, and Carter threw to first after another ball. Before delivering the next pitch, Rogers picked off Alexander for the third out.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Rogers said of his two pickoffs.18 “Alexander was a bit over-anxious. Moreno was trying to time me, and I timed him.”

Offseason trade acquisition Enrique Romo took over for Blyleven after seven innings and 102 pitches.19 Romo walked two Expos in the eighth, but Garner continued his strong game at third, fielding Pérez’s bouncer, stepping on the bag, and throwing to first for the double play.

Rogers, who had thrown 80 pitches in seven innings, opened the eighth with two strikes to Garner, then yielded a line-drive double to right-center.

“That ball was supposed to be inside and on his shoetops,” Rogers said.20 “It was up too high. It was a bad pitch.”

Mike Easler, batting for Romo, pushed Garner to third with a groundout. Tanner went to his bench again, and veteran John Milner pinch-hit for Taveras. Milner hit a high chopper to Scott, who took the out at first while Garner held third.

Pittsburgh was on the verge of squandering another opportunity, but Moreno hit a high bouncer up the middle and beat Speier’s throw to first for a single, as Garner scored the tying run.

Tanner’s pinch-hitting surge necessitated more moves in the ninth. With Taveras out and Dale Berra’s range limited by a hamstring injury, Garner shifted to short, and Berra came in at third.21

Carter tested the new alignment by grounding Kent Tekulve’s second pitch to Garner, who bobbled the ball for an error. But Tekulve picked up Garner, fanning Parrish and Speier and getting pinch-hitter Tony Solaita to fly out.

Elias Sosa, signed after a strong season with the Oakland A’s, was Montreal’s new pitcher,22 and Stargell led off the ninth with a line-drive single to center. He continued toward second when the ball bounced off Dawson’s glove – but it caromed directly to the rocket-armed Valentine, whose throw to Speier beat the 39-year-old Stargell by 10 feet.

“When I rounded first base, I thought I had made it,” Stargell said. “Then I saw a cannon coming from right field.”23

The Pirates went scoreless, and the game moved to extra innings. Tekulve hit Dawson in the back with a pitch to start the 10th. One out later, Tekulve’s pickoff throw, obscured by the setting sun,24 got past Stargell and rolled down the first-base line; Dawson moved to second on the error.

Pittsburgh’s pitching and defense – and a Montreal baserunning mistake – had overcome the earlier fielding lapses. The Pirates edged closer to wriggling free when Stargell turned Cromartie’s bouncer into an out at first, while Dawson went to third.

Valentine then hit a chopper to the left side of the infield.

“I was just trying to make contact and hope someone falls down,” he said.25

Cutting in front of Garner, Berra bobbled the ball and had no play. Dawson scored the go-ahead run on Pittsburgh’s fifth error of the game.

Sosa closed out the 10th to secure Montreal’s win. “There was no game-winning hit,” announced the official scorer.26

The clubs split two more one-run games in the next two days.27 They reconvened in Pittsburgh during the season’s final week in September. By then, Montreal was long since assured of a winning season, and both clubs were well ahead of everyone else for the best records in the NL.

The Expos led the division by a half-game entering the high-stakes series, but the Pirates won three of four and never trailed again.28 Pittsburgh clinched the NL East on the season’s final day, then beat the Cincinnati Reds for the NL pennant and Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.29

Acknowledgments

 This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks Gary Belleville and Kurt Blumenau for their comments on an earlier version of this article.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. He also reviewed game coverage from the Montreal Gazette, Montreal Star, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh Press newspapers, and a recording of the KDKA-AM Pittsburgh broadcast posted on YouTube by the Classic Baseball On The Radio account.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197904060.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/B04060PIT1979.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMM6z4gN6oY

Notes

1 In 1976 the Pirates turned a 15½-game deficit on August 24 into a three-game spread on September 17 but finished nine games back. Between July 3 and August 5 in 1977, Pittsburgh cut a 10-game margin to a single game; the Phillies wound up winning by five games. The 1978 Pirates had trailed Philadelphia by 11½ games on August 12 but surged to within a half-game by September 5. The Phillies clinched the division title by winning at Three Rivers Stadium on September 30, the next-to-last day of the season.

2 Their 1971 club also won the NL pennant and defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.

3 Charley Feeney, “Garner ‘Prize Catch’ in 9-Player Buc Deal,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 17, 1977: 14; John Clayton, “Exit Oliver; Enter Blyleven, Milner,” Pittsburgh Press, December 9, 1977: B-10.

4 Prior to 1979, Montreal had won a franchise-high 79 games twice, finishing 79-83 in 1973 and 79-82 in 1974.

5 “Scripps-Howard Forecast,” Pittsburgh Press, April 5, 1979: D-10.

6 “Several times fans jumped onto the field to beg the ballgirls for baseballs, one tough fight broke out, a man dressed as a gorilla ran on the field, kids set off firecrackers in the upper deck and a fan in center field almost hit Moreno with a bottle,” the Pittsburgh Press reported. Dan Donovan, “Expos Leave Punchless Pirates Out in Cold,” Pittsburgh Press, April 7, 1979: C-1.

7 The reporter, Pohla Smith of United Press International, was, along with B.J. Phillips of Time, Laura Collins of the Valley (Pennsylvania) News Dispatch, and Kayleen Cubbal of the New Castle (Pennsylvania) News, one of four women covering the game for various publications after a federal court ruled the New York Yankees could not bar women reporters from the locker room. Pohla Smith (United Press International), “Expos Take Advantage of Buc Errors, Win Opener,” Latrobe (Pennsylvania) Bulletin, April 7, 1979: 10; Vince Leonard, “Windy Opener at Three Rivers: Bucs Lose to Expos; Great Day for Cold Weather Buffs,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 7, 1979: 1; Marino Parascezno, “The Wind Was a Chilling Factor,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 7, 1979: 10.

8 Vito Stellino, “Fans Show Cold Umps Warm Feelings,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 7, 1979: 10. Pallone continued as an NL umpire after the strike was settled in May; he umpired 150 games in 1979 and remained with the NL until 1988. One of the three local umpires, first-base umpire Joe Schratz, had umpired two NL games in 1976; the other two, second-base umpire Ron Hutson and third-base umpire Joe Mrvos, served as major-league umpires during the 1979 strike only. 

9 Jed Weinberger, “Three Rivers Becomes Fun Place, Not Funeral,” Indiana (Pennsylvania) Gazette, April 7, 1979: 7.

10 Ian MacDonald, “Season Ends for Rogers, Dues Under Knife,” Montreal Gazette, September 2, 1978: 41.

11 Mike Boone, “Rogers Hits Early Start to Get His Arm Into Shape,” Montreal Star, February 14, 1979: C3.

12 Charley Feeney, “MVP Parker Ready to Sign Pact: Long-Term Contract in Hands of Pirates’ Owner,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 16, 1978: 24; Charley Feeney, “Parker Signs 5-Year Contract; Now Highest Paid?,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 27, 1979: 1. “Pittsburgh paid me $850,000 a year for five years with deferred payments, making me, all perks and bonuses considered, the first million-dollar-a-year athlete in professional sports,” Parker noted in his autobiography. Dave Parker and David Jordan, Cobra: A Life of Baseball and Brotherhood (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021), 252.

13 “Stargell Wins Comeback,” Pittsburgh Press, November 2, 1978: D-1.

14 Dave Pallone with Alan Steinberg, Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball (New York: Viking: 1990), 103.

15 Phil Musick, “Tanner Forgives Pirates’ Five Errors As Human,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 7, 1979: 9.

16 Rogers indicated afterward that Ott’s home run was on his only changeup of the game. Mike Boone, “Expos Made Opener Extra ‘Special,’” Montreal Star, April 7, 1979: F1.

17 Charley Feeney, “Bucs Drop Opener to Montreal in 10, 3-2: Parker Draws Boos in a Hitless Performance,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 7, 1979: 9.

18 Boone, “Expos Made Opener Extra ‘Special.’”

19 Pitch-count figures based on author’s review of the game’s radio broadcast. “Blyleven threw over 100 pitches,” Tanner said after the game. “It was cold and not the time to force things. It’s too early in the season for that.” Donovan, “Expos Leave Punchless Pirates Out in Cold.”

20 Ian MacDonald, “Steve Rogers Trusses Up Pirates,” Montreal Gazette, April 7, 1979: 91.

21 Musick, “Tanner Forgives Pirates’ Five Errors As Human.”

22 Rogers threw an estimated 96 pitches in eight innings.

23 Feeney, “Bucs Drop Opener to Montreal in 10, 3-2.”

24 Donovan, “Expos Leave Punchless Pirates Out in Cold.”

25 Boone, “Expos Made Opener Extra ‘Special.’”

26 Musick, “Tanner Forgives Pirates’ Five Errors As Human.”

27 Dan Donovan, “Pirates Nip Expos in Ninth, 7-6,” Pittsburgh Press, April 8, 1979: H-1; Mike Boone, “Bullpen Gets Job Done As Expos Take Series,” Montreal Star, April 9, 1979: D2.

28 Dan Donovan, “Miracle Expos Make Bucs Believers in Split,” Pittsburgh Press, September 25, 1979: C-1; Dan Donovan, “Pirates Land a Big One to Take East Lead,” Pittsburgh Press, September 26, 1979: F-1; Dan Donovan, “Pirate Stampede Crushes Expos, 10-1,” Pittsburgh Press, September 27, 1979: C-1.

29 Dan Donovan, “NL East Title Only the Beginning for Bucs,” Pittsburgh Press, October 1, 1979: B-3; Dan Donovan, “Series-Bound Pirates Sweep Reds,” Pittsburgh Press, October 6, 1979: A-4; Dan Donovan, “Whew, It’s Over! Bucs Are Champs,” Pittsburgh Press, October 18, 1979: C-1.

The high-scoring tone of the game was set immediately as the Pirates jumped on Braves knuckleballer Phil Niekro for three runs in the first inning, the last of which came on a solo home run by former Brave Bill Robinson. The Braves returned the favor with a three-run frame of their own off Pirates starter Don Robinson in the bottom of the second inning and captured their first lead with another run in the third inning. Bill Robinson responded with his second solo home run off Niekro to lead off the top of the fourth. That tied the game at 4-4. Atlanta took a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the fourth, but then the Pirates scored three in the top of the fifth to continue the pattern of lead changes and ties that the game would follow into the seventh inning. It was not long, however, before the number of runs scored was not the only aspect of the game to create excitement among the players and the 6,855 fans.

The chaos began in the bottom of the fifth inning as the Pirates were clinging to a 7-5 lead. Pirates reliever Ed Whitson wrapped two walks around one out before the next batter, Niekro, swung at a pitch that hit him on the right shoulder. After a trainer tended to Niekro, home-plate umpire Hank Rountree — an obstetrician turned substitute umpire — awarded him first base because he thought Niekro had been squaring around to bunt when the pitch hit him.

Pirates manager Chuck Tanner stormed out of the dugout and began a fray that lasted more than six minutes during which arguments broke out all over the field. Tanner disputed with Rountree; shortstop Tim Foli argued with first-base umpire Dick Tremblay, the only professional umpire on the crew, and Pirates coach Joe Lonnett took up the issue with third-base umpire Ed Norris. Tanner went into a complete conniption after Tremblay affirmed Rountree’s call and was ejected by Rountree while Norris threw out Lonnett simultaneously.

In his postgame conference, Tanner asked, “If he didn’t swing, how could the ball hit a right-handed hitter on the right shoulder?” He also declared the call a “disgrace” and asserted of Rountree, “He needs glasses.”1

After the tumult over Rountree’s decision had died down, but before the next batter could hit, Lonnett jogged back out to Rountree to inform him that the Pirates were playing the remainder of the game under protest. Two batters later, Gary Matthews hit a grand slam off Whitson that gave the Braves a 9-7 lead.

Once the chaos had begun, it continued apace with the number of runs scored in the game. In the top of the sixth, with one out, Craig Skok walked Phil Garner and pinch-hitter Lee Lacy and surrendered an RBI single to Omar Moreno. Skok then plunked Foli, who had scored runs on passed balls in both the first and fifth innings, to load the bases. The Pirates tied the game when pitcher Bruce Kison, pinch-running for Lacy, scored on a groundball force out at second base. At the same time, Braves manager Bobby Cox lodged a protest of his own after he claimed to have seen both Tanner and Lonnett still standing in the back of the Pirates’ dugout even though they had been ejected.

Both the scoring and bickering continued in the seventh inning. The Pirates retook the lead in the top half of the frame when Robinson scored his third run of the night on Garner’s single off Gene Garber. In the bottom of the inning, second-base umpire Andy Anderson ruled that second baseman Rennie Stennett’s foot had been off the bag on the front end of what would have been a double play and called the runner safe at second. Stennett jumped in front of Anderson to argue the call but accidentally stepped on the umpire’s foot, an unfortunate mishap for which he was ejected. Anderson explained later, “He didn’t have to say anything. He put a hole in my shoe.”

The Pirates held a 10-9 advantage entering the ninth inning when the game spiraled even further into chaos. After Garber recorded a quick out, Ed Ott and Dale Berra reached base on a pair of Braves infield errors. Garber then hit Garner with a pitch to load the bases, and an unlikely single by stringbean Pirates reliever Kent Tekulve scored Ott. Berra was forced out at home on Moreno’s grounder to first, but Foli followed with a two-RBI base hit that extended the lead to 13-9.

Garber’s frustration became apparent when he hit Dave Parker, the eighth Pirates batter of the inning, and again loaded the bases. An incensed Parker charged at Garber and later admitted, “When I started out there I wanted to punch his lights out, but as I got closer I cooled down.” Parker explained that he and Garber had been teammates in winter ball one year and that was why he had just grabbed him and asked, “What’s the matter with you?” Though both benches cleared, a brawl was avoided, but Rountree still ejected Parker. After Matt Alexander entered the game as Parker’s pinch-runner, Atlanta-born John Milner stepped to the plate and hit a grand slam.

Milner’s homer capped the scoring and gave the Pirates a 17-9 lead that belied how tight the game had been up to the final inning, but the hostilities were not yet at an end. In the bottom of the ninth, the Braves’ Barry Bonnell was on second with two outs when a Tekulve pitch brushed back pinch-hitter Rowland Office, who threw off his batting helmet and walked toward the mound as both benches cleared. Once again, a brawl was avoided, and once again a player — Office — was ejected. After walking pinch-hitter Charlie Spikes, who was now batting for the just-ejected Office, Tekulve struck out Jerry Royster to end the 3-hour 42-minute game and its shenanigans.

The “Battlin’ Bucs” had certainly lived up to their nickname on this night. Pirates vice president Harding Peterson approved of the message Tekulve had sent to Office via his ninth-inning brushback pitch, saying, “I was glad to see it. You can’t let other teams throw at our guys and let them get away with it. I was glad to see Tekulve pitch that way.”

After a game that “lacked only sanity,” the consensus among the Pirates was that the umpires had lost control of the game. Stennett remarked, “I wish [Commissioner] Bowie Kuhn [who had been in attendance early in the game] would have stayed and watched that,” and Ott asserted that “It was the worst example of umpiring I ever saw.” Everybody from both the Pirates and Braves may well have concurred with Parker, who said, “I want to donate to help get the professional umpires back.”

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

MLB.com.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Pittsburgh Press.

The Sporting News.

Youtube.com; the bottom part of the fifth inning can be seen at: youtube.com/watch?v=wTscNRd2g3E.

Notes

1 All direct quotations used in this article were taken from Dan Donovan, “Pirates Conquer Braves, Beanballs, Umps,” Pittsburgh Press, May 10, 1979.

The Mets hadn’t won the season series at home against the Pirates since 1973, when they vaulted from last place to first in the last month of the season. The “Ya Gotta Believe” touchstone moment occurred when a seemingly sure Pirates home run hit the top of the wall, caromed to left fielder Cleon Jones, and turned into an out at the plate by the Mets on their way to a division title and NL pennant. That was the distant past as the 1970s drew to a close. The 1979 Mets were terrible, run into the ground by management, and within a year were sold by the husband of original Mets owner Joan Payson, dead since 1975. Drawing the fewest fans at home for a season in their history (788,905), manager Joe Torre’s moribund Mets had to win their last six games of ’79 just to avoid 100 losses. (Yet they still fetched a record price that winter from Nelson Doubleday of the Doubleday publishing empire with local developer Fred Wilpon ponying up 3 percent of the record $21.1 million price.)

Still, the 1979 Mets were feisty against the Pirates. When the teams first met, in mid-May, the last-place Mets came to Three Rivers Stadium with a record of 10-20 and promptly shut out the fifth-place Pirates, who fell to 12-18. The next night the Mets tied Pittsburgh in the ninth on a Gil Flores RBI and pulled it out in the 13th inning on Mike Easler’s pinch-hit home run. The next night the Pirates trailed by a run in the eighth when Willie Stargell, with more homers against the Mets than any other player, launched a two-out, two-run shot off rookie left-hander Jesse Orosco that stood up for a 6-5 Pittsburgh triumph. From that point on, the Pirates had the best record in baseball at 86‑46.

Despite a six-game winning streak begun by Easler’s home run, the Pirates were still under .500 when they arrived at Shea Stadium on Memorial Day weekend. The crowd of 6,611 for the opener, on Friday, May 25, would have been laughable if it hadn’t been larger than two of the crowds in Pittsburgh the previous week against the Mets. And the weather had been just about as lousy as the Mets. May had more days with measured precipitation than any other month in New York in 1979. The mist lingered.1

Former Pirate Richie Hebner, acquired before the season, had made it clear he did not like playing in New York. But he still had just about the most productive bat on a bad team. The cleanup hitter singled home Lee Mazzilli for the first run of the game off lefty Jim Rooker, making his second start of the year after beginning the year on the disabled list.2

Craig Swan, the 1978 league ERA leader, who had tossed a combined shutout with Skip Lockwood for the Mets in Pittsburgh a week earlier, was perfect for four innings. Stargell broke up the early no-hit bid with a leadoff double in the fifth. Pops was promptly picked off second base by catcher John Stearns. Stargell’s double and Dale Berra’s infield single were the only two hits for the Pirates through seven innings.

The game moved along with little action, but in the stands it was a disturbingly different story. Sitting in a front-row box seat along the first-base line, not far from the Mets dugout, Jennifer Davidoff of Manhattan, a 14-year-old ninth-grader at Horace Mann School, was struck in the face by a line drive by the Mets’ Steve Henderson. Ensconced in box seats held by American Express, where her uncle was an executive, the girl was looking at the right-field scoreboard when the ball hit her face. The blow struck her with such force that the stitches on the baseball left impressions on her skin. It shattered her cheekbone, causing a concussion and leaving her legally blind in her left eye. Mets owner and president Lorinda de Roulet, Joan Payson’s daughter, accompanied her to the first-aid station. The girl spent one night at the nearby Booth Memorial Medical Center and 10 at Mount Sinai Hospital.3 The Davidoff family lost a $2.75 million suit against the city and the team’s insurance carrier in the state Court of Appeals in 1984.4

Henderson later said the incident “scared the hell out of me; I thought I killed her.”5 Regardless of how it affected the players who witnessed the scene, there was minimal action until the eighth inning. Lee Lacy singled to begin the top of the inning for Pittsburgh’s third hit of the game, and was still on first with two outs when Easler pinch-hit for Rooker. Easler had spent parts of five seasons in the big leagues and his biggest moment to date in 69 major-league games had been his game-winning home run nine days earlier against the Mets. He had not played the field yet in 1979 and would start just three times all year before becoming a regular. Easler hit Swan’s pitch over the right-field wall and into the growing mist. Omar Moreno followed with a triple to right field and scored when first baseman Willie Montanez threw wild on the relay.

The Pirates had a chance to improve on their 3-1 lead, but they stranded two runners when pitcher Dale Murray snagged Ed Ott’s lineout to end the top of the ninth. Against the ’79 Mets a two-run lead was plenty — one-run was generally a big enough lead as the Mets went 24-35 in those situations. (The ’79 Pirates were 30-26.) But there was something about the ’79 Mets when they faced the Pirates in their pillbox hats and garish uniform combinations.

The Mets’ Joel Youngblood singled to left field to start the bottom of the ninth. Frank Taveras, traded by the Pirates to the Mets for Tim Foli in a swap of shortstops in April, made the first out by flying out to Moreno. But Mazzilli doubled home Youngblood and took third on Moreno’s error. With the tying run 90 feet away, lefty-swinging Hebner did not come through against a southpaw in the ninth as he had in the first. Grant Jackson got him to fly to Bill Robinson in left, too shallow to bring in the tying run. Then came a surprise. Chuck Tanner popped out of the dugout and motioned to the bullpen. The Pirates had already used Kent Tekulve. Enrique Romo was available, but Tanner opted for right-handed starter Bruce Kison, whose last save had come in 1976. Stearns foiled Tanner’s strategy with a single to left to tie the score. It was the third straight Pirates-Mets game in which one of the teams had come from behind in the eighth inning or later.

The night grew murkier, but Henderson was able to catch a fly ball without difficulty in left field the top of the 10th. Dave Parker did the same in the bottom of the inning in right field. Youngblood, who had been moved to second base two innings earlier, caught an infield popup in the top of the 11th. But those watching on TV saw mostly gray as the bottom of the 11th began. The fog had taken over. Robinson complained to umpire Billy Williams, but was sent on his way out to left field.6 His complaint quickly gained merit.

Youngblood’s leadoff fly ball to left off Enrique Romo was routine on any other night, or at any time earlier in the game. It was simply lost in the fog. Youngblood made it to third base as Robinson located the baseball on the outfield grass. Robinson followed close behind his throw, arguing with the umpires he’d warned about the fog just minutes earlier. The umpires pulled the players off the field for a fog delay. One hour and 18 minutes later, with Shea Stadium still shrouded in pea soup, the game was called.7

Exactly one month later the Mets and Pirates replayed the game from the start, as was the longstanding rule for ties then. On June 25 the teams played a twi-night doubleheader at Shea Stadium with the Pirates winning the first game and the Mets the second. Sounds like an amicable way to settle a tie unless you figure that with a runner on third and no one out, the chances of the run scoring and the home team winning are very high — even for the 1979 Mets. And the Mets’ 8-10 record was as good as that of any other National League East team against the Pirates. (The Phillies matched that mark.) Every win was needed in a race that came down to the wire. If the fog had lifted on May 25 and the game resumed, the outcome at Shea could have led to a whole different ending in an NL East race decided the last weekend.

Perhaps October would have had different heroes entirely if not for a foggy night in May.

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 “Historical Weather for 1979 in New York, USA.” weatherspark.com/history/31081/1979/New-York-United-States.

2 Bill Rainer and David Finoli, When the Pirates Won It All: The 1979 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2005), 22.

3 David Margolick, “Girl Hurt at Shea Seeks $2.7 Million and Fan Safety,” New York Times, July 31, 1982.

4 “Girl Hit by Ball at Shea Loses Suit,” New York Times, March 28, 1984.

5 Ibid.

6 Rainer and Finoli.

7 Ibid.

By that same spring Sister Sledge, a band of four sisters, had released two albums that had marginal success but still lost money for its record label, Cotillion.2

After a quiet first inning, a flurry of activity began in the second inning. Pirates starter Ed Whitson, retired the first two batters. An error by third baseman Dale Berra allowed Padres catcher Fred Kendall to reach base. Pitcher Randy Jones singled and Gene Richards walked to load the bases. Ozzie Smith singled to right field, driving in two unearned runs, and right fielder Dave Parker’s error on Smith’s hit allowed the speedy Richards to race home for the third unearned San Diego run. Dave Winfield grounded out to second to end the inning. Enjoying his team’s 3-0 advantage, Jones retired the first two Pirates batters in the bottom of the inning, but Phil Garner tripled to center field, and Steve Nicosia drove him in with a double. Berra flied out to end the inning and San Diego led, 3-1.

The third inning was quiet for the Padres, but the Pirates made it 3-2 when Omar Moreno singled, swiped second, and scored on Tim Foli’s single to left field. Richards hit a two-out single for the Padres in the fourth but was thrown out by Nicosia trying to steal second. In the bottom of the inning an error by Winfield on a fly ball allowed Garner to score, tying the game, 3-3.

In the fifth inning Winfield hit a solo home run to give the Padres the lead again but the Pirates quickly matched it as Moreno walked, stole second again, and scored when Foli singled to center. San Diego manager Roger Craig pulled Jones and replaced him with Dennis Kinney; two batters later Kinney gave up a double to Bill Robinson that scored Foli. After Kinney retired Willie Stargell on a groundout, he was replaced by John D’Acquisto, who got Garner to line out to center. As the teams returned to their dugouts the Pirates had the lead for the first time in the game at 5-4. In the top of the sixth, Pirates skipper Chuck Tanner summoned Enrique Romo to replace Whitson with one out and a runner on first. Romo gave up a single to Broderick Perkins, sending pinch-runner Bill Almon to third, and Richards drove in Almon with a fly ball to right field.

The Pirates were scoreless in the sixth. Star reliever Kent Tekulve took the mound in the Padres seventh and promptly gave the visitors a 6-5 lead with his second home run of the game. The Pirates failed to score in the bottom of the inning.

Neither team scored in the eighth inning. The Padres padded their lead in the ninth inning when Ozzie Smith singled and then scored from first base on a two-out double by Jerry Turner. Tanner and catcher Ed Ott argued with home-plate umpire Jerry Dale that Ott’s sweep tag had connected with Smith. Their arguments failed to convince Dale.3 Turner then scored on a single to center by Kurt Bevacqua. With three outs left in the game, San Diego was leading 8-5, putting the hometown Pirates in a difficult position.

The song “We Are Family” was sung by Kathy Sledge and was about “people leaning on each other for help.”4 It had a big chorus and catchy beat but after some success on the dance and soul charts, by the end of May 1979 it began to stall on the pop charts.

The Pirates needed three runs to tie the game, four runs for another victory to run their winning streak to six games. Pinch-hitter John Milner led off against Padres pitcher D’Acquisto and flied out to center field. Moreno and Foli both singled and there were runners on first and second. Parker, next up, had been booed by the small crowd twice during the game, after making his error in the second inning and again after he struck out in the fifth.5 Parker quickly turned the boos into cheers, swinging at a first-pitch fastball and sending the ball over the center-field fence. The game was tied. Parker had popped up to short off D’Acquisto in the bottom of the seventh so he was sitting on the pitch in the ninth. “You can’t tell me the balls aren’t juiced up this year,” D’Acquisto said after the game. “I kept waiting for Richards to catch Parker’s ball and it just kept going.”6

After Robinson popped out, manager Craig replaced D’Acquisto with Bob Shirley to face Willie Stargell, who singled to center field. The Padres then brought in star reliever Rollie Fingers. Garner doubled to left for his fourth hit of the contest, moving Stargell to third. Ott was intentionally walked with the intention of having Fingers face Berra, who was batting .195. Manager Tanner countered, sending in Lee Lacy to pinch-hit for Berra. Fingers got two strikes on Lacy, but then missed with four straight balls, forcing Stargell home and giving the Pirates a 9-8 victory.

It was “the fourth disaster Fingers has suffered in the last seven games the Padres have played at Three Rivers Stadium,” wrote the San Diego Union’s Phil Collier.7

The come-from-behind victory was one of 25 Pirates comeback victories that season8 and after the game Willie Stargell celebrated the victory by singing the song “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. The team latched onto the song and soon “The Family” was seen stenciled on the dugout roof, T-shirts, and street signs in the area. The song was played multiple times throughout the games at Three Rivers Stadium. At times the players’ wives even disco-danced on the dugout roof during the seventh-inning stretch.9 Years later, when asked about the team being identified with “We Are Family,” manager Chuck Tanner replied, “That’s what we really were. They all fed off one another. … I loved it. That’s what you want — a family. They argued all day in the clubhouse and then went out there like a family and they played to win. That’s what we were like.”10

Kathy Sledge said after the season, “It’s a miracle. We thought the song had made as much noise as it ever would. Then the Pirates came along.”11Both the album and the single sold over a million copies before the end of the year and it finished as the number-two pop song on the Billboard charts for 1979. However, the Pirates using the song was somewhat bittersweet for the Sledges. The sisters were third-generation Philadelphians and Kim Sledge was quick to say, “We appreciate our Phillies. They should have used our song.”12

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 Charley Feeney, “Bucs’ Late Rally Beats San Diego,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 2, 1979: 9.

2 Richard K. Rein, “When the Pirates Hustled to Sister Sledge’s ‘We Are Family,’ the Steel City Went Platinum,” People, November 5, 1979.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Feeney.

6 Phil Collier, “Pirates Cut Padre String, 9-8,” San Diego Union, June 2, 1979: C1.

7 Ibid.

8 Frank Garland, Willie Stargell: A Life in Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishers, 2013), 129.

9 Rein.

10 Garland, 129.

11 Rein.

12 Ibid.

As the Pirates warmed up before the contest at Three Rivers Stadium on Sunday, June 3, 1979, to play the rubber match of a three-game set with the Padres, manager Chuck Tanner’s squad had been playing good ball recently. The Bucs had won six straight games before 40-year-old ageless wonder Gaylord Perry stopped them on four hits in a 3-1 loss the night before. At 24-22, Pittsburgh was in fourth place in the NL East, five games behind Montreal. The 25-30 Padres, perennial also-rans who had recorded the first winning campaign in the franchise’s 10-year history (84-78) the year before under rookie skipper Roger Craig, occupied fifth place in the NL West, trailing Houston by 6½ games.

Scheduled to start for the Pirates was right-hander Don Robinson. Just minutes before the game, the second-year hurler informed Tanner that he couldn’t get loose. The affable Tanner turned to Kison as an emergency starter. “He was rested the most,” said Tanner, who also explained his game plan. “I hoped he could give us a few innings. … [starter] Bert Blyleven volunteered to pitch two or three innings in the middle, and then I would use Kent Tekulve as long as I could and finish up with Grant Jackson or Enrique Romo.”2

Affectionately called Buster by his teammates, Kison started the season in the rotation, but two dismal outings in April, coupled with chronic blisters on the middle finger of his pitching hand prohibiting him from pitching deep in the game, sent him to the bullpen. The ultra-competitive Kison, who was known for his brushback pitches, was no stranger to big games. As a rookie in 1971, he blanked the Baltimore Orioles on one hit in a 6⅓-inning relief appearance to win Game Four of the World Series. Along with his stellar 4-0 postseason record, the 29-year-old right-hander owned a 70-57 record in parts of nine big-league seasons, but had not achieved the success or stardom some had predicted.

The start of the game was delayed by about 10 minutes as Kison rushed to warm up. On a balmy late-spring day with temperatures reaching the 80s in the Steel City, the game drew a scant crowd of 13,370 to Three Rivers Stadium.

After Kison got through the first inning, yielding only a two-out walk to Winfield, who subsequently stole second base, the Pirates wasted no time attacking Padres left-hander Bob Owchinko, who came into the game with a 21-28 record in parts of four seasons. With Foli and Dave Parker on base, courtesy of one-out singles, Bill Robinson spanked a three-run home run to get the Pirates on the board. Seeing action at first base in place of Willie Stargell, the right-hand-hitting Robinson was normally part of Tanner’s platoon system with John Milner in left field.

The offensive fireworks continued for the Pirates in the third. Omar Moreno, better known for his feet than his bat (he led the NL with 71 and 77 stolen bases in 1978 and 1979, respectively), led off with a solo shot to left-center to improve his hitting streak to 15 games. Two batters later, Parker launched one over the fence in right field for his ninth homer and a 5-0 Pirates lead. The next batter, cleanup hitter Robinson, connected for his second blast and his team-high 12th homer of the season to send Owchinko to the showers. “Robinson is having a great year,” said Tanner.3 Reliever Bob Shirley set down eight of the nine Pirates he faced, yielding only a single to Rennie Stennett. Pittsburgh picked up its final run on Lee Lacy’s leadoff homer in the sixth to make it 7-0.

Kison, who had not tossed a complete game since he defeated Montreal 10-2 on June 25, 1977, looked sharp. He whiffed the side in the second, and cruised along, scrapping Tanner’s plan to use Blyleven in the middle innings. “[Kison’s] slider was outstanding,” said batterymate Steve Nicosia. “It was on the outside corner 85 or 90 percent of the time. He threw about 70 percent sliders.”4

Dan Briggs hit what turned out to be the Padres’ only hard-hit ball of the game with one out in the seventh. Parker, en route to winning his third straight Gold Glove Award in right field, made a nice leaping catch to preserve the no-hitter. “I thought that ball was gone,” admitted Kison after the game. “Dave made it look easy, but my heart was pounding.”5

Kison was just four outs away from the sixth no-hitter in Pirates history and the first since teammate John Candelaria held the Los Angeles Dodgers hitless on August 9, 1976, when third baseman Barry Evans, a befreckled 22-year-old batting a miserable .197, stepped to the plate. He did not “fit the spoiler mold,” wrote Phil Axelrod of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but Evans hit a tricky shot to third base.6 According to Charley Feeney, also of the Post-Gazette, third sacker Phil Garner was “playing about eight feet wide of the bag, moved a step, maybe two, and then tried to backhand the ball.”7 The ball hit the tip of his glove and rolled into left field. According to Dan Donovan, the official scorer for the game, all four accredited scorers in the press box, two from each team, agreed unanimously that it was a hit, eliciting moans of disapproval from the spectators.8 Evans reached second base on the play and was credited with a double.

“I thought I had it,” said the versatile Garner, who started games at third, second, and short for the Bucs in ’79. “Then it hit the dirt and kicked off down the line. It just touched the very end of my glove.”9 He also admitted that had the game been close, he would have played closer to the line and would have probably fielded the ball cleanly.10 Evans disagreed. “Even if [Garner] gets the ball,” he said, “he probably has to eat it. I don’t think he would have thrown me out.”11 The Padres third-base coach, Doug Rader, a five-time Gold Glove winner at the hot corner, was emphatic in his evaluation: “A base hit all the way.”12 Bucs backstop Nicosia was less convinced: “It could have gone either way.”13

Visibly upset by the official ruling, Kison regained composure to retire Bill Almon on a fly ball to left for the final out in the eighth and then polished off the Padres in a 1-2-3 ninth to record his third victory of the season.

After Kison’s remonstrations on the mound, he and his teammates retired to the clubhouse. The normally congenial hurler refused to speak to reporters for about 40 minutes, though Tanner was quick to offer praise. “That was the finest I’ve ever seen him pitch,” said the skipper of Kison’s first of two career one-hitters.”14 Tanner, always with the big picture in mind, viewed Kison’s excellent performance in the context of the pitcher’s future. “The no-hitter would have been great,” opined Tanner, “but the big thing is that Bruce didn’t have any problems with his pitching hand.”15

Some members of the Pittsburgh media, upset with the way Kison vilified them, excoriated him in the press. “Instead of being happy, Kison was angry,” wrote Pittsburgh Press correspondent Dan Donovan. “Instead of an extraordinary one-hitter, Kison thought he should have had one of the most remarkable no-hitters in baseball history.” Ultimately the brouhaha led to a significant change. Feeney and Donovan resigned as official scorers and the local press initiated a new policy that prohibited Pittsburgh sportswriters from serving as scorers.

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 Charley Feeney, “Bucs Breeze, 7-0, on Kison’s One-Hitter,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 4, 1979: 9.

2 Dan Donovan, “Donovan No-Hit With Kison After 1-Hitter,” Pittsburgh Press, June 4, 1979: B-5.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Phil Axelrod, “Evans Plays Spoiler Role,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 4, 1979: 9.

7 Feeney.

8 Donovan, the official scorer, reported that there were four writers in the press box at the time who were accredited scorers (himself, Charley Feeney of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and two from the Padres). It would have been highly unusual if there had been more than one “official” scorer.

9 Ibid.

10 Feeney.

11 Donovan.

12 Axelrod.

13 Ibid.

14 Donovan.

15 Feeney.

As hot as the Pirates were, the Astros were just the opposite. They had completed a 20-8 month in June, but had won just five times in 17 tries in July, and had lost four of five before coming into Pittsburgh and losing the first three of a four-game set. But Astros manager Bill Virdon, a former Pirates skipper, still had his team leading the NL West by 3½ games over the Cincinnati Reds.

All the Pirates needed to do to continue their winning ways and extend the Astros misery was get the best of Houston’s All-Star relief pitcher, Joe Sambito, who entered the game with a 0.95 ERA. Since allowing four runs at St. Louis on May1, Sambito hadn’t allowed an earned run to score (and only two unearned runs) in a stretch that covered 27 appearances and 40⅔ innings.

It was 84 degrees with light drizzle when the teams took the field that Saturday afternoon. The Pirates were sending veteran left-handed pitcher Dave Roberts, a one-time Astro, to the mound for his first starting assignment since joining the Pirates on June 28. Two days earlier, Roberts won the first game of the series when he pitched 2⅔ innings of scoreless relief in the first game of a twi-night doubleheader. The Pirates had acquired Roberts and Bill Madlock in a six-player trade with the San Francisco Giants. Roberts was expected to add more flexibility to the bullpen, where the only left-handed reliever had been Grant Jackson.

However, the Pirates’ schedule got in the way. Three scheduled doubleheaders and four that were needed to make up for postponements meant the Pirates had to play 29 games in 23 days after the All-Star break (July 19 through August 10). That forced Tanner to start reliever Roberts twice. (He had been mainly a starter up to the 1979 season.)

Against Roberts, the Astros got their leadoff man on in each of the first two innings and he scored both times. In the first inning, second baseman Julio Gonzalez tripled to center field and scored on a single to center by shortstop Craig Reynolds. An inning later, Enos Cabell doubled to left field and José Cruz knocked him home with a single to right. For the Pirates, Tim Foli had a one-out single in the first but went no farther. With one out in the second, Madlock walked and went to second when catcher Ed Ott singled. They advanced on a groundout by Phil Garner but were left on base when Roberts grounded out to end the inning.

After stranding three runners in the first two innings, Pittsburgh broke through in the third when right fielder Dave Parker drove in Omar Moreno with a grounder and first baseman John Milner hit a two-run homer, his eighth of the season, to right-center off Joaquin Andujar.

The Pirates’ 3-2 advantage did not last long. José Cruz led off the fourth with an infield single and stole second. Art Howe walked and, after Roberts got two outs, Gonzalez who knocked Cruz home with a single to center.

The Pirates immediately grabbed the lead back. With two outs, Moreno singled to center, then stole second, his 41st swipe of the season. Foli sent him home with a double to right field.

Pitcher Enrique Romo took over for the Pirates in the sixth inning and gave up the tying run on doubles by Bruce Bochy and Gonzalez. Romo was also shaky in the top of the seventh but kept the Astros off the scoreboard as catcher Ott gunned down two Houston runners attempting to steal. In the eighth Cruz got his third hit, a single to shortstop, went to second when Romo threw a wild pitch, then stole third, his second stolen base of the game and his 25th of the season. Howe walked and Bochy struck out. Denny Walling pinch-hit for Astros starter Andujar and singled to left, plating Cruz. Left fielder Bill Robinson fielded Walling’s hit and threw it to relay man Madlock, who fired it to Phil Garner to get Walling at second. Romo got Gonzalez on a foul fly to left field for the third out, but the Astros were up 5-4.

The stage was set for heroics by the Pirates. Joe Sambito entered the game in the bottom of the eighth and Bill Robinson greeted him by hitting a two-strike pitch over the wall in right-center field for his 20th home run of the season. Sambito got Madlock and Ott, but with two outs, Garner hit his third homer of the series and sixth of the year.

The Pirates weren’t out of it yet. Grant Jackson came on in the top of the ninth to close out the game and pinch-hitter Jesus Alou, leading off, got aboard on a hit to shortstop. Pinch-runner Jimmy Sexton went to second on a groundout by Terry Puhl. Enter Kent Tekulve, who got the final two outs, striking out Jeffrey Leonard and getting Enos Cabell to ground back to him. It was Tekulve’s 14th save of the season. Up to this point he and Jackson had split the closer role. However, for the rest of the season, Tanner made Tekulve the primary closer. Jackson had 11 saves coming into the game but got just three more the rest of the season while Tekulve finished with 31. As for Enrique Romo, despite throwing a wild pitch, committing a balk, walking one batter, and giving up two runs on six hits while facing 13 batters during his three innings of work, he got the win and his record improved to 5-3.

Sambito’s record fell to 4-3 with the loss and the two runs he surrendered pushed his ERA up from 0.95 to 1.24. (At season’s end it was 1.77.) Philosophical about it all, he said, “When I lose, I lose in style.”2

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197907210.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/B07210PIT1979.htm

Notes

1 Ron Cook, “Confident Pirates Eyeing First Place,” Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Times, July 22, 1979.

2 Ron Cook, “Astros’ Honeymoon is Over,” Beaver County Times, July 22, 1979.

As the Pirates took the field at Three Rivers Stadium on Sunday, August 19, 1979, they had many reasons to be excited. Since Madlock’s first game, on July 2, they had transformed a 6½- game deficit into a two-game lead over the Montreal Expos in the tense NL East Division race, and had won 17 of their previous 25 games. They also had cause for concern. They had just lost the first two games of a three-game set with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and their inspirational leader, Willie Stargell, would miss his third consecutive start with an infected finger.

The two-time reigning NL pennant-winning Los Angeles Dodgers were in an unaccustomed position. At 57-65 (and en route to their first losing season since 1968), they were in third place, 12½ games behind the Houston Astros in the NL West. However, they were playing their best ball of the season, riding a five-game winning streak.

The pitching matchup featured two of the NL’s top starting pitchers. Pittsburgh’s 25-year-old southpaw John Candelaria had won 20 games and led the NL with a 2.34 ERA in 1977, and entered the game with a sparkling 67-37 record in five seasons. At 6-feet-7, he relied on pinpoint control and movement instead of a power game for his success. Los Angeles’s 29-year-old hurler, right-hander Burt Hooton, was noted for his mesmerizing knuckle curve. He had enjoyed a career year in 1978, winning 19 games, and had amassed a 105-91 record since his debut with the Chicago Cubs in 1971. Both of these veteran starters had a no-hitter on their impressive major-league résumés. Hooton in 1972, and Candelaria in 1976.

A crowd of 28,382 at Three Rivers Stadium witnessed one of the best pitched and most exciting games of the year. Candelaria held the Dodgers scoreless on just four hits through eight innings. His only trouble was in the fourth inning when shortstop Bill Russell led off with a single. A walk to third sacker Ron Cey and a wild pitch put runners on second and third with one out, but “Candy” induced left fielder Dusty Baker to pop out to Omar Moreno in short center with Russell holding at third, and catcher Joe Ferguson to fly out to right.

On the heels of an impressive two-hit shutout against the St. Louis Cardinals in his previous outing, Hooton increased his scoreless streak to 17⅓ innings by blanking the Pirates through eight innings. He permitted as many as two baserunners only in the sixth inning, when right fielder Dave Parker lined a two-out double to center field and John Milner, subbing for Stargell at first base, walked. Hooton then fanned left fielder Bill Robinson to end the threat.

“The Pirates may win the National League East pennant,” wrote Pittsburgh sportswriter Phil Musick, because “the Pirate bullpen is in toto the game’s best.”3 Bucs skipper Chuck Tanner leaned on his relievers more than any other manager in the club’s history. A trio of 30-somethings, Grant Jackson, Enrique Romo, and Kent Tekulve, would appear collectively in more than 250 games. The affable manager had no second thoughts when he interrupted Candelaria’s shutout bid by sending Mike Easler to pinch-hit for him to lead off the bottom of the eighth in a scoreless game. “I wasn’t at all anxious about that [decision],” said Tanner. “You’re trying to win a ballgame. You have to have faith in other guys.”4 Rail-thin closer Tekulve, en route to a franchise-record 94 appearances, pitched a 1-2-3 ninth. “If we can stay even for seven, we have the advantage because of our bullpen,” said “Teke.” “We have a lot of money players. They just don’t press, get tight in a game like this.”5

Parker, who had captured the last two NL batting titles, led off the ninth with what Tanner called the “hardest ball hit this season.”6 According to Charley Feeney, Parker “crushed a line drive toward the mound. In self defense, Hooton speared the ball with his glove hand against his left shoulder”7 After Milner doubled and Robinson struck out, Madlock came to the plate with the game on the line.

“I’ve always hit well against the Dodgers,’ said “Mad Dog” after the game. “I’ve had pretty good success against Hooton. I was surprised they pitched to me.”8 Madlock swung at Hooton’s first pitch and connected for his third hit of the day, a game-winning two-run home run to center field. “It was a fastball up and away,” he said of his first career walk-off round-tripper.9 “Why didn’t I walk Madlock?” rhetorically asked a dejected Tommy Lasorda, wondering why he did not choose to face the next batter, catcher Ed Ott, in that situation. Ott had been 0-for-3 with a strikeout, and had not hit the ball out of the infield during his at-bats.

As an elated Madlock rounded third base in his home-run trot, Hooton gave him a friendly pat on the back. “Burt and I have been friends for a long time,” he said. “We went through some struggling times together [in Chicago] and we’re pretty close.”10 Madlock relished competing in the first pennant race of his career, and batted a team-high .328 in 85 games after his trade to the Pirates. He fit in seamlessly with the “We are Family” team. “It is easy to be loose around here,” he said.11

With the victory, the Pirates improved their record to 71-51 and maintained a two-game lead over the Expos in the NL East while the Dodgers fell to 57-66, still in third place, 12½ games behind the Astros.

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Pittsburgh Press.

SABR.org.

The Sporting News.

Baseball-Reference.com: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197908190.shtml

Retrosheet.org: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/B08190PIT1979.htm

Notes

1 The Sporting News, July 14, 1979: 40.

2 Dan Donovan, “Madlock Provides Another Good Bat,” Pittsburgh Press, June 29, 1979: B-6.

3 Phil Musick, “Tekulve’s Job Isn’t That Easy,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 20, 1979: 11.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Charley Feeney, “Ninth-Inning Blast Lifts Bucs to 2-0 Win,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 20, 1979: 11.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Phil Axelrod, “Madlock’s Home Run Saves Pirates’ Day,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 20, 1979: 11.

10 Associated Press, “Dodgers’ Winning Streak Axed at 5,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, August 20, 1979: 20.

11 Ibid.

The Padres were heading in the opposite direction. Hopes were high after the 1978 season, when San Diego posted its first winning record ever. But 1979 was disappointing. Going into tonight’s game, the Padres, at 55-74, were in fifth place, 17½ games behind the first-place Houston Astros in the NL West. The day before, Padres owner Ray Kroc gave up his control of the team to his son-in-law, executive vice president Ballard Smith. “Baseball can go to hell. … There’s a lot more future in hamburgers than baseball,” said Kroc, the architect behind the rise of the McDonald’s fast-food chain.1

The game featured a matchup of two of the season’s best pitchers. For the Pirates, it was 28-year-old ace Bert Blyleven, 10-4 with a 3.71 ERA. His mound opponent was reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Gaylord Perry, three weeks from his 41st birthday, 10-11 with a 3.29 ERA, and the loser of his last five starts.

At just after 7 P.M. under clear skies, with the temperature in San Diego 75 degrees and a crowd of 14,607 on hand, the Pirates’ Omar Moreno led off by grounding out to second baseman Bill Almon, who was getting another start over regular second baseman and former Pirate Fernando Gonzalez. Perry then gave up singles to Tim Foli and Dave Parker (the only Pirate on the ’79 All-Star squad) before getting Willie Stargell to ground into a 4-6-3 double play.

Blyleven got his first two outs quickly, a strikeout of Gene Richards and a groundout by shortstop Ozzie Smith, before giving up an infield single to Paul Dade and walking Gene Tenace. He struck out Jay Johnstone to end the threat.

In the second inning John Milner reached Perry for a leadoff single, but Bill Madlock hit into a 6-4-3 double play and Ed Ott flied out. Blyleven gave up a leadoff triple to rookie center fielder Jim Wilhelm in the bottom of the second. After a groundout and a walk to Bill Almon, Perry bunted. Almon went to second but Wilhelm could not score as Stargell charged in to field the bunt and tagged Perry out. Richards’ groundout to second retired the side.

Blyleven yielded two runs in the bottom of the third inning. He gave up a leadoff double to Ozzie Smith, who continued to third base when left fielder Milner misplayed the ball in the corner. With Dade up, a wild pitch by Blyleven allowed Smith to scamper home for a 1-0 Padres lead. After Dade struck out, Tenace smacked a double to left and advanced to third on another error when Milner fell down at the warning track.2 He scored when second baseman Phil Garner bobbled Johnstone’s grounder. Almon flied out to right to end the inning with a 2-0 Padres lead after the three defensive miscues by the Pirates.

Perry continued his mastery, while Blyleven settled down. Perry did not give up another hit until the top of the seventh, when Stargell led off with a single, but the Pirates couldn’t score. In the top of the eighth, Perry surrendered another leadoff single, to Ed Ott, but retired the next three batters. Blyleven, meanwhile, yielded only two hits from the third to the seventh before being lifted for pinch-hitter Mike Easler in the top of the eighth.

In the bottom of the eighth, Enrique Romo held the Padres scoreless. If Perry could hold the Pirates in the ninth, Pittsburgh would be 0-5 in San Diego for the season. But Parker smacked a one-out double and advanced when Stargell grounded to second. Perry walked Milner, placing runners at the corners with two out. Madlock singled to left to score Parker and advanced to second on the throw as pinch-runner Matt Alexander went to third. Padres closer Rollie Fingers, who had a career-high 37 saves in 1978, relieved Perry. With Ed Ott batting, Padres catcher Bill Fahey had one of his three passed balls that season, and Alexander scored the tying run. Ott was intentionally walked and Fingers gave up another walk, to Phil Garner, loading the bases. Padres manager Roger Craig pulled Fingers for reliever Mark Lee, who struck out pinch-hitter Bill Robinson to end the inning. The blown save for Fingers, who was struggling with a sore right elbow, was his 10th of the 1979 season, and his pitching appearance was his last of the season.

Neither team scored in the 10th or 11th. In the Pirates’ 11th, manager Chuck Tanner and Bill Madlock were both ejected. Madlock had struck out looking and tossed his helmet, earning him a trip to the showers. Tanner then charged out to defend his player, and he too was tossed by home-plate umpire Dave Pallone. Coach Bob Skinner managed the rest of the game, although Roger Craig accused Tanner of managing from the dugout runway.34

In the top of the 12th, Padres reliever Eric Rasmussen gave up a double to Garner, walked Bill Robinson, and yielded an RBI single by Moreno to give Pittsburgh the lead. Foli grounded into a double play to end the inning. In the bottom of the inning, Don Robinson, normally a starter, pitched his second inning of relief. Robinson got leadoff batter Jerry Turner to ground out, but gave up a single to Fahey and walked Dave Winfield. Pinch-hitter Fred Kendall (father of future Pirates catcher Jason Kendall) grounded into a force out. With the Padres down to their last out, Dan Briggs singled home Winfield from second to tie the score. Robinson got Ozzie Smith to fly out, ending the inning.

The story of the rest of the game was Pirates reliever Dave Roberts. Roberts, who was with San Diego from 1969 to 1971, pitched the final four innings and earned the win after getting out of bases-loaded jams in the 16th and 17th.

In the bottom of the 16th, the bases were full on a single by Jay Johnstone and two intentional walks. Pitcher John D’Acquisto, batting because the Padres were out of bench players, ran the count to 3-and-0 before taking three straight strikes. Winfield tried to rattle Roberts from second base by taunting him and making the “choke” sign. “I won’t forget what he was saying to me,” Roberts said after the game.5

The bottom of the 17th was even more for Roberts and the Pirates. A bunt single by Smith, a hit by Dade and an intentional walk to Gonzalez loaded the bases with no outs. Roberts got Jay Johnstone on a called third strike that Johnstone argued was not a strike. “It was a curveball across my eyes. I just didn’t think it was a strike,” Johnstone said later. Manager Craig had to tackle Johnstone to keep the center fielder from being ejected. Craig’s bench was only two pitchers, so he could not afford to lose a position player.6 The next Padres batter, Jerry Turner, hit a grounder that forced Smith out at home. Fahey then grounded out to end the threat.

The top of the 19th inning started off uneventfully as Ott struck out and Garner flied to right. Then Bill Robinson, who had entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the ninth, doubled and Moreno was intentionally walked. Foli, 1-for-6 to this point, rapped a single to center, scoring Robinson. The Pirates had the run they needed. Smith led off the Padres’ 19th with a single and was sacrificed to second, but Roberts got two fly balls to end the game. The Pirates had outlasted the Padres, 4-3. About 1,000 fans were still there when the game ended at 1:20 Sunday morning Pacific Time (4:20 in Pittsburgh).7

Each team had used 21 players. Other notable statistics from the combined 161 plate appearances: The teams combined to leave 40 runners on base; the 26 left on by San Diego were one short of the major-league record. The Pirates made four errors and hit into six double plays, but and still managed to win. The two teams batted .111 (4-for-36) with runners in scoring position. Nine of the game’s 24 walks were intentional.

Bill Fahey, who caught all 19 innings for the Padres, said “[t]he game was always on the line … real exciting.” Ed Ott also caught the entire game for the Pirates, as Manny Sanguillen and Steve Nicosia were used as pinch-hitters. At 6 hours 12 minutes, the game set a Padres record that was broken a year later, when they lost to the Houston Astros, 3-1, in 6:17 on August 15, 1980, during a 20-inning affair. For the Pirates, the game was the longest until they were beaten by the Braves 4-3 in 19 innings in 6:39 on July 26, 2011, in Atlanta. The Pirates finished the 1979 season at a 24-11 clip, including a convincing win the afternoon after the 19-inning marathon.

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN197908250.shtml

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/B08250SDN1979.htm

Notes

1 John Schumacher, “Kroc Gives Himself a Break — From Baseball,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1979.

2 John Schumacher, “Padres and Pirates Go Into 14th Inning in a 3-3 tie,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1979.

3 Charles Feeney, “Kison Rips Grand Slam, Bucs Win,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 27, 1979.

4 There is discrepancy regarding Madlock’s ejection. The Post-Gazette said he was ejected after a third strike, but some records of the game do not indicate that he struck out in the game. Retrosheet’s David Smith said, “[w]e have three scoresheets for that game. Two say that Madlock popped out to first in the 11th and one says he flied out to left. Our account chose the fly to left because that scorer proved to be more reliable over the season. However, none of these showed him with a strikeout. In fact, the official records on microfilm at the Hall of Fame (we have a copy) show Madlock with no strikeouts. The newspaper story was clear that he threw his helmet after a called strikeout. … I am very confident that Madlock did not strike out in this game and I cannot explain the newspaper story.” Smith indicated that one scoresheet indicates Madlock and Tanner were both ejected, but there is no authoritative record that this occurred in the 11th as the Post-Gazette article indicated.

5 Ibid.

6 Associated Press, “San Diego Strands 26 in 19-Inning Defeat,” August 27, 1979.

7 John Schumacher, “This Time the Pirates Don’t Need 19 Innings,” Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1979.

As the Pirates prepared to play the Cubs on Sunday, September 23, manager Chuck Tanner might not have shown any outward concern for his “We Are Family” ballclub, but he must have been nervous. Three days earlier, the Pirates lost their second straight game to the Philadelphia Phillies to fall out of first place for the first time since they claimed sole possession of the top spot after winning a doubleheader on August 5. A third consecutive loss followed — a four-hit, 2-0 shutout at the hands of Lynn McGlothen in the first game of a three-game set at Wrigley Field to drop the Pirates a full game behind the Expos. Pittsburgh finally stopped its longest losing streak since dropping four straight July 23-26, when Bruce Kison scattered four hits while Kent Tekulve closed out to subdue the Cubs, 4-1, to pull within a half-game of Montreal (92-61). The Pirates had their work cut out for them. The Expos, the hottest team in baseball, having won 28 of their last 36 games, seemed destined to capture their first-ever division crown since the expansion franchise started play in 1969 in the newly formed National League East.

Fireworks began even before the game started. The Cubs, who were a half-game out of first place on July 27, had lost 22 of their last 33 games and had fallen to fifth place in the NL East (78-76). Manager Herman Franks, a baseball lifer, had had enough. With rumors about his eventual firing at the end of the season, Franks lambasted the front office and his club to the AP’s Joe Mooshil in the clubhouse. “I know it and they know it,” said Franks of his fate. “I don’t know what they are waiting for. I’ve had it up to here [his hand going to this throat]. Some of these players are crazy.”2 Franks whipped out his wallet and showed a check for $24,000 made out to a country club in his offseason home in Salt Lake City to prove he was serious. As can be expected, Cubs players did not react warmly to their skipper’s comments. “If we’re crazy, what does this make him,” said an unnamed player. “He’s 65, worth millions of bucks, but he wants to waste the last three years being a lousy manager on a lousy team.”3 Cubs reliever Dick Tidrow, known for his own antics, mused, “Crazy? I don’t think we’re crazy enough.”4

The pitching match-up featured two big, rugged right-handers. Eight-year veteran Jim Bibby, a 34-year-old journeyman with his fourth team, signed with the Bucs as a free agent in 1978 spring training. Serving as a swingman that season, Bibby had been used primarily in relief in 1979 until he was moved into the starting rotation on July 10, winning his first six decisions. Despite a nifty 10-4 record and 3.16 ERA, the stout North Carolinian had been clobbered in his last two starts, surrendering nine runs in 7⅓ innings. Rick “Big Daddy” Reuschel toed the rubber for the North Siders. Since breaking in as a 23-year-old rookie in 1972, Reuschel had proved to be one of the NL’s most consistent workhorses, averaging 14 wins and 244 innings for mainly poor Cubs teams over the previous six years. With a record of 18-10 and two starts remaining, Reuschel was aiming to reach the 20-win plateau for the second time in his career.

Before many in the afternoon crowd of 24,571 spectators at Wrigley Field on Fan Appreciation Day had a chance to settle in their seats and sip their Old Style, the Pirates got on the board in the first inning. Tim Foli was hit by a pitch, moved to second on Dave Parker’s single, and then scampered home on John Milner’s single to left. Little did the Pirates know that that was the only run they would need.

Ed Ott, Phil Garner, and Bibby led off the second with consecutive singles, the last of which made the game 2-0. Omar Moreno, who entered the game mired in a 2-for-21 slump in his last five games, hit a grounder to third base, but according to Charley Feeney, third sacker Steve Ontiveros failed to tag Garner as he slid back into third on a fielder’s choice, filling the bases. (No error was charged.) Foli followed with a sacrifice fly deep enough to center field to drive in Garner, who barreled over catcher Barry Foote. Center fielder Scot Thompson’s throw home enabled Bibby and Moreno to each move up a base. Playing the percentages, the Cubs had Parker intentionally walked to load the bases and play for a twin killing with the slow-footed Willie “Pops” Stargell at the plate. The 39-year-old charismatic leader of the club derailed that plan by smacking a double to deep right, knocking in Bibby and Moreno. Reuschel intentionally walked Milner (who had managed only three hits in his last 20 at-bats entering the game) to face former Cub and two-time NL batting champ Bill Madlock and again hope for a double play. “Mad Dog” Madlock, whose acquisition from the San Francisco Giants in a blockbuster trade on June 28 stabilized the infield and added yet another dangerous bat to the lineup, chopped a grounder to third for what appeared to be an easy inning-ending double play. Ontiveros booted the ball, allowing Parker to score the Pirates’ fifth run of the inning. Reuschel’s worst outing of the season (1⅓ innings, six hits, six runs, all earned) was over. Left-hander Dave Geisel, a mid-September call-up, retired Ott and Garner to end the frame.

While the Pirates cruised the rest of the game, and connected for only four more hits in the final seven innings off Geisel and Doug Capilla, Bibby mesmerized the Cubs with an assortment of fastballs, curves, and sliders. He yielded only three hits and issued a walk; only one batter advanced as far as second base (Ivan De Jesus doubled in the third.) Bibby whiffed Thompson to record his seventh punchout and complete the game in 2 hours and 22 minutes.

Bibby’s shutout, the 16th of 19 in his career, evened his record at 80-80. But more important than personal accomplishments, Bibby’s complete game allowed Tanner to rest his overworked bullpen. While Pirates starters completed only 24 games and hurled only two shutouts in ’79, a trio of relievers led by Kent Tekulve, Enrique Romo, and Grant Jackson made a collective 250 appearances and logged 345⅔ innings.

The mood in the Pirates clubhouse was reserved after the victory. The players had no time to savor the crucial victory and recognized that a four-game set with Montreal beginning the next evening at Three Rivers Stadium would probably determine their season. “The potential is there,” opined beat writer Charley Feeney. “Many Pirates, including their manager, Chuck Tanner, say they are entering the most exciting week of their career.”5 The club often looked to Willie Stargell to provide some levity to the situation, but even he revealed that this coming series got him anxious. “I get butterflies and goose bumps just like anybody else,” said Pops. “It’s just that if things don’t develop like we want, I’m not going to jump off the Hancock building.”6 But Stargell, en route to sharing the NL MVP with Keith Hernandez of the St. Louis Cardinals, also exuded the confidence that the Pirates felt as a team. “We’ll be ready for the [Expos],” he said. “It’s a thrill just to be out there. We’re doing something that a lot of clubs wanted to be doing back in spring training. Now we have to meet the challenge.”7

The situation in the Cubs locker room was equally tense, but for all the wrong reasons. Still smarting from their manager’s comments before the game, many players wondered if Franks would be their skipper the next game. They didn’t have to wait long. The Cubs fired him the following morning and named bench coach Joey Amalfitano interim skipper.

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Notes

1 Charley Feeney, “Bucs Tops Cubs, 6-0, Face Expos Tonight,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 24, 1979: 11.

2 Bob Verdi, “Frank cries foul after saying ‘I quit’,” Chicago Tribune, September 24, 1979: C1.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Feeney.

6 Ibid.

7 United Press International, “Pirates, Expos to Clash,” Pharos Tribune (Logansport, Indiana), September 24, 1979: 9.

Ten weeks earlier, struggling to play .500 ball in early July, the Pirates seemed like unlikely candidates for a division crown. But propelled by timely hitting, boosted by the late-June acquisition of third baseman Bill Madlock, and supported by the league’s deepest pitching staff, the Pirates went on a 23-8 run that transformed a seven-game deficit into a half-game lead on August 5. Pittsburgh increased its cushion to four games on August 16, but could not pull away from Montreal. Expos skipper Dick Williams, seemingly destined for another “Impossible Dream” performance like the one when he piloted the 1967 Boston Red Sox in dramatic fashion to their first AL pennant in 21 years, led the Expos on a 30-9 surge to take first place by a half-game on the eve of a dramatic four-game series with the Pirates in the last week of the season. The Pirates took three of four from the Expos in Pittsburgh, and then had the chance to clinch the division title in the next to last game of the season. But the Pirates’ inspirational leader, Willie Stargell, made a costly throwing error in the 13th inning of a tied game to allow the Cubs to score and win the game, 7-6. A dramatic stage was set for September 30, the final day of the season.

Three Rivers Stadium was packed with 42,176 spectators who were all anxiously watching the scoreboard — not just because their beloved Steelers were en route to an expected loss at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles, but rather to see the results of the Expos-Philadelphia Phillies game taking place at the same time in Montreal. The Pirates needed a victory and a loss by the Expos to capture the title outright.3 “We were upset with the guy operating the scoreboard because he was making us stop the game when we were going,” said “Mad Dog” Madlock. “We called upstairs and told him not to do it.”4 The operator obliged, and in the days before cell phones, the lack of knowledge about the Expos-Phillies game only increased the dramatic tension at the park.

Bruce Kison got the start for the Pirates. The 29-year-old righty was best known for his spectacular outing in Game Four of the 1971 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles as a rookie (6⅓ innings of scoreless relief to pick up the win), and had quietly carved out a reputation as excellent late-season pitcher, picking up 23 of his 81 career wins in September. Lacking his best stuff in this game, Kison gave up two singles in the first, third, and fourth innings. But the Pirates infield, underrated defensively, squelched each scoring opportunity with inning-ending double plays. Pittsburgh turned its fourth double play in the fifth inning, erasing a leadoff walk. With two outs in the sixth inning, Kison surrendered his first and only run on Dave Kingman’s league-leading 48th round-tripper.

The Pirates struck quickly against the Cubs starter, 29-year-old Lynn McGlothen. With one out in the first inning, Tim Foli walked, moved to third on Dave Parker’s single, and then scored on Stargell’s sacrifice fly to center field. The Pirates increased their lead to 2-0 in the fourth inning when second baseman Phil Garner singled just beyond Cubs second baseman Steve Dillard to drive in left fielder John Milner from third base. The Pirates tacked on another run the following inning when Stargell connected for a solo shot, his 32nd home run of the year, off McGlothen. He also moved past Pittsburgh Hall of Famer Honus Wagner to become the Pirates’ all-time leader with 1,476 RBIs.

Nursing a precarious 3-1 lead, Kison had developed blisters on his middle finger (a chronic problem) making it difficult to throw his slider, and yielded to the Pirates bullpen, by far the busiest in the major leagues, to begin the seventh inning. Dependable side-arm closer Kent Tekulve, appearing in his 19th game of the month and league-leading 94th for the season, hurled the final three frames to earn his 31st save, but not before testing everyone’s resolve by surrendering a run in both the seventh and eighth innings.

The “decisive hit” of the game, according to Jim Naughton of the New York Times, occurred in the bottom of the seventh with the Pirates leading, 3-2.5 With two outs and the bases full, left fielder Bill Robinson lined a single to right field off reliever Dick Tidrow to drive in center fielder Omar Moreno and Foli and give the Pirates a commanding 5-2 lead. “[That hit] was the ballgame,” said Madlock after the game.6

In a 1-2-3 ninth inning, Tekulve induced the final batter, catcher Bruce Kimm, to pop up to Madlock. “A soon as it went up,” said shortstop Foli, “I knew it was over.”7 Just about 15 minutes earlier, the raucous crowd had learned from the PA announcer that the Expos had lost to the Phillies, 2-0. The victory gave the Pirates their sixth NL East crown in the decade.

As the Pirates celebration moved from the field to the clubhouse, players and coaches were overcome by a combination of excitement, emotion, and relief. Willie Stargell, a goat the day before but one of the heroes this day, was moved to tears. “We don’t have many .300 hitters and we don’t have any 20-game winners; what we have is 25 guys who play hard,” said the team captain. “What we have is a lot of junkyard dogs.”8 The close-knit, racially integrated “We Are Family” Pirates, whom Bob Verdi of the Chicago Tribune called “as much machine as it is a melting pot,” was noted as much for its competitive and team-oriented approach to the game as it was for its down-home and relaxed nature.9 “We aren’t very pretty, we make a lot of noise, and we make fun of one another,” said “Scrap Iron” Garner. “But when we go out on that field, we’re all business.”10

This article appeared in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. To read more game stories from this book at the SABR Games Project, click here.

Sources

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT197909300.shtml 

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1979/B09300PIT1979.htm

Notes

1 Charley Feeney, “Pirates Climax Tense Finish — NL East Champs,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 1, 1979: 1.

2 Dan Donovan, “’79 Pirates Gave It Their All and Then Some,” Pittsburgh Press, October 1, 1979: B1.

3 While the Pirates were playing their 162nd game, the Expos were playing their 160th due to rainouts. Had the Expos beaten the Phillies, they would have played a doubleheader in Atlanta. If they had won those two games, they would have forced a one-game playoff with the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh won the season series with the Expos, 11-7.

4 John Clayton, “ ‘Ganghouse’ Pirates Play It Cool,” Pittsburgh Press, October 1, 1979: B4.

5 Jim Naughton, “Pirates Win Division By Defeating Cubs, 5-3,” New York Times, October 1, 1979: C1.

6 Dan Donovan, “NL East Title Only the Beginning for Bucs,” Pittsburgh Press, October 1, 1979: B3.

7 Naughton.

8 Phil Musick, “Stargell’s Brilliance Drives Pirates to Top,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 1, 1979: 9.

9 Bob Verdi, “Pirates Win the Title with a Loaded Deck,” Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1979: E1.

10 Ibid.