Stargell 1979 Home Run

Lore & Background

By 1979, Willie Stargell was no longer the young, raw power hitter who had arrived in the mid-sixties. He was a veteran, a leader, a man whose swing had been refined over a decade of Pittsburgh summers. The Pirates' 1979 roster was deep—fueled by a pitching staff and a group of young position players who would carry the franchise through the early eighties—but the lineup still bent around Stargell's name. Managers built their batting orders to protect his at-bats; opponents built their strategies to avoid them.

Three Rivers Stadium in 1979 was a concrete bowl in the shadow of the city's bridges, and the crowd there was a specific kind of crowd: working-class, loyal, and loud. When Stargell stepped to the plate, the noise shifted. It wasn't the electric, popping excitement of a young star; it was a low, sustained hum, the sound of a city that had watched this man hit home runs for over a decade and still expected the next one. When the ball left the bat and the hum broke into a roar, that was the sound of Pittsburgh in the late seventies.

Stargell's career with the Pirates spanned an era of the franchise's most sustained excellence, and his 1979 season was a bridge between the glory of the early seventies and the championship run that would come in 1979's NL pennant race. He was the constant, the anchor, the reason the Pirates' identity as a power-hitting, blue-collar team remained intact even as the roster turned over around him.

In Their Own Story

The lights were buzzing overhead, the kind of fluorescent hum you could feel in your teeth. Stargell stood in the box, hands low, eyes tracking the pitcher's release. The crowd had gone quiet in that particular way—three thousand people holding the same breath, the only sound the distant clack of a bat tapping the plate. The pitch came in. The swing was not fast, not flashy; it was a long, looping arc that seemed to take a full second to complete. Then the crack. Then the silence of the ball leaving the park, the brief pause before the upper-deck crowd erupted. Stargell didn't run immediately. He watched the ball, then started his trot, and the whole stadium rose like a tide. In the stands, a man in a faded black cap was already turning to the person next to him, mouth open, saying the words he'd say for the next forty years.

Reader's Guide

The stakes in 1979 were the kind Pittsburgh knew well: a division race that could come down to a single night, a lineup that still revolved around the man in number seven. Three Rivers Stadium was full, the concrete seats warm from a summer afternoon that had turned to a hazy evening. The crowd was a wall of black-and-gold, and the noise had that particular Pittsburgh quality—less a roar, more a grinding, sustained pressure.

Stargell's at-bats that season had a rhythm. He would load the bat, let it hang, watch the pitcher's eyes. The first pitch, the second, the third. You could feel the lineup behind him waiting, the manager in the dugout leaning on the railing. When the pitch finally came in the zone, the swing was a long, lazy arc that the whole stadium seemed to ride. The crack was different from a young player's crack. It was deeper, more resonant, the sound of a bat that had hit ten thousand balls and still had something left.

The ball went up. The crowd stood. For two seconds nobody breathed. Then the upper deck erupted and the sound came back down through the concrete, through the soles of your shoes, and you knew—without checking the scoreboard, without needing to—that it was over.

That's why it still gets retold. Not the exact game, not the exact count. The feeling. The sound. The way a whole city stood up at once because one man in a black cap decided the night was his.

Did You Know?

• Willie Stargell's number 7 is retired by the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the most honored numbers in the franchise's history.
• Stargell was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988, a recognition of a career spent almost entirely in Pittsburgh.
• The 1979 Pirates were a 97-win team that captured the NL West, making Stargell's power a key ingredient in a championship-caliber season.
• Stargell's nickname, "Poncho," came from the poncho he reportedly wore during spring training, a habit that stuck for his entire career.