Oh yeah, Klyd. I remember those Pirate teams VERY well.

I saw Pops hit an absolute moonshot off Seaver when I was still in high school. And coincidentally, Stargell hit the first ever home run at Shea back in '64. Very classy guy.

"When I played, there were 600 baseball players, and 599 of them loved Willie Stargell. He's the only guy I could have said that about. He never made anybody look bad and he never said anything bad about anybody." ------- Joe Morgan

Stargell also hit the farthest ball in the 30+ year history of Veterans Stadium, and the right-field seat where the ball landed was specially painted Pirate yellow. I once sat in the seat and looked at home plate and my jaw dropped when I considered how far that ball was hit. He's also, I believe, the only player to hit a fair ball out of Dodger Stadium...and he did it twice. That windmill batting warm-up in the batter's box must have worked.

Joe Morgan actually wore #8 for his career in admiration of Stargell. I don't think a classier player than Stargell has ever put on cleats. The Pirates and Phillies were fierce rivals in the 70s. And in 77 and 78 they had close finishes for the division. In 78 there was a brawl right before the all-star break and going into the final weekend the Bucs had cut a large Phillie lead to 4 games with a 4 game series in Pittsburgh between the teams. The Pirates swept a doubleheader on Friday with 2 strange walk-off wins, and on Saturday Stargell hit a first inning grand slam off Randy Lerch, who actually hit two homers himself as the Phillies managed to rally to win in a slugfest.

During the televised locker room celebration Stargell came to the Phillie club house and congratulated each player and coach. I was 14 and was stunned by this level of sportsmanship at this moment of a bitter rivalry.

One of my regrets about living in Texas is that I was not in Pittsburgh to participate in the celebratory atmosphere of the city during those glorious days. When I think of the some of the crap that populates the ranks of professional sports these days, I long for the Willie Stargells and Clementes of yesteryear.

Too bad. They really missed you. Rennie Stennett was asking for you and everything.

I actually got with Rennie. When not talking about the Pirates, all he talked about was this guy from Throggs Neck who just would not shut up.

Speaking of the Pirates, my 8 year old & I did a day trip to PNC yesterday. I love going to that stadium. Our seats were in the shade, the Bucs came back after falling behind early, and we had a great day being together. One of my favorite things in life is getting to watch baseball with my son.

PNC is consistently rated as the best ballpark in the country. Of course, living so far away, I haven't gotten to visit it during the season. I think I'll make plans to do so next summer on one of my trips to Pittsburgh.

You can't spend a better day than taking your son to a ball game, goombah. And I said it before that PNC is hands-down the finest park, in which I've seen a game. In a few weeks my son is going to get to see a couple of games there from the GM's box. Lucky bastard.

It's a haul from Ohio, but I would love to visit the Cardinals stadium at some point. I'm fortunate that within 6 hours, these parks are within driving distance for me: Nationals, Reds, Indians, Tigers, Cubs, Whitesox, & Brewers.

For my money, I would have to agree with you Klydon that PNC is the nicest park.

I saw the Clemente statue on the outside. Who was the other statue - Willie Stargell?

Yes, and sadly Stargell died after a long illness on the morning that the stadium opened. His statue was unveiled only a couple of hours after the announcement of his death. It was a very bittersweet day in Pittsburgh.

Honus Wagner.

Completely agree on PNC Park being a great park. I only lived in Pittsburgh for a year, but that was a fun year, and what a great city.

As the Fonz would say: Exactamundo!

There is indeed a great statue of Wagner, and in addition to Clemente and Stargell, perhaps the best statue is Bill Mazeroski, running wildly, arms spread and holding his cap after hitting the walk-off homer to win the '60 series. There are also statues of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, and of course, Pittsburgh icon and devoted fan, Mister Rogers.

Oh my goodness. I knew that Pops passed away, but I did not know the history with the timing of the statue. I always loved watching him, Blyleven, Dave Parker, and Garner play on those late 70s/early 80s teams.

It's been a long time since we posted on this thread even though the sprint to the playoffs has commenced.

Olivant, I've been watching the Pirates, who are losing too many close games. With the Phils buried, I'm pulling for the Bucs, but they can't seem to put enough wins together. Yet they are still in the hunt as Atlanta and Milwaukee have struggled.


My son got to watch a couple of Pirate games last month from the general managers box as a guest of the team. My son had done a paper in his statistics class last year dealing with new ways to collect and evaluate data to get a more precise picture of a player's or team's offensive value, it was sent to the Pirate front office, and as a result he was invited with a couple of other students from other colleges, who did projects of interest.

They got to spend an hour with Andrew McCutcheon, who was on the disabled list. He thought McCutcheon was a very nice guy, who knew an awful lot about the general science of statistics.

Kly, you're right about the Pirates. The same thing happened last season. In addition, they run hot and cold.

Nice experience for your son. Along those lines, when I was a kid my Dad arranged through a friend for me to meet with Bobby Bragan who managed the Pirates. He gave me an autographed baseball. But for the life of me I can't remember if it was autographed by the Pirates or the Houston Colts. He was a coach with the Colts for awhile. In any case, I don't know what happened to that ball, but it would probably be worth a small fortune today.

I think you can put a fork in the Yankees for this year.

At least you can still talk about a 'fork'. My Sox fell apart so badly I could only use a spoon.

You know I'm a Mets fan. I need a ladle.

You can borrow the one I been using since May of 2010

Say goodnight, Gracie.

I hate to say this because in my mind they're still the same hated division rivals they were before realignment. But the Cardinals are the closest thing the National League has to the Yankees as an organization. Classy, competitive every year, the whole nine yards. I hope they win it all this year.

I hope they don't.

Glad to see the Pirates make it for the playoffs in consecutive years. Andrew McCutchen is one of the best players in the game and seems like a good role model. It's also good for MLB to have teams like KC, Anaheim, & Washington all in contention after not being in the postseason last year.

The Pirates have been one of the hottest teams these last few weeks. I hope it carries over into the playoffs. I don't watch baseball as much as I used to, so I don't know how to gauge playoff chances, momentum, etc.

I agree. I like the Cardinals and they're everything you say: classy and competitive every year. Was really disappointed they didn't win it all last year. Wouldn't mind seeing the Nationals or A's make some noise this October either.

I was happy they lost last year . I would really like to see the Nationals or Pirates win.