Baseball

The Polack MSgt

(13,201 posts) Sun Aug 13, 2017, 01:32 PM Aug 2017

A fantatic essay from a friend - He's always worth a read

https://thingsamicthinksabout.wordpress.com/2017/08/13/september-1-1971/

The 1971 Pirates weren’t just my heroes, they were my companions on many a summer day and night. I can still, to this moment, recite the everyday lineup from memory. Manny Sanguillen catching. Bob Robertson at first. Dave Cash at second. Jackie Hernandez, who’d come to the team in a trade the year before, at short, subbing for the injured Gene Alley. Richie Hebner at third. In the outfield, Stargell in left, Oliver in center, and, of course, the Great Roberto in right. Every day, whether I watched the game, listened to the game, or simply read about the game in the paper the following day, I followed the Buccos, followed as they slowly pulled away from the field in the NL East, followed and began thinking about another chance to win the NLCS, which the team had lost to the Cincinnati Reds the year before.

And, I wasn’t the only one. Lots of the guys I hung around with followed baseball and the Pirates, and they all loved the team. A lot of them collected baseball cards like I did and prized their Pirates. A lot of them chose various Pirates to portray during our endless summer whiffle ball games. (Nobody could be Clemente if John Stumpf was playing. John was ALWAYS Clemente, and any attempt to change this would devolve into a near fist-fight until someone would yell, “Oh, let him be Clemente and let’s PLAY!” Every. Single. Time. It got to the point where no one would be Clemente even if John weren’t playing, on the off chance he’d show up and join the game in progress. Yep. Digressing again.) So, you can imagine my surprise when, one fine day as school approached, as our time playing whiffle ball and football on the street were about to be reduced to weekends and as much time as we could steal after school, some folks began talking smack about the Buccos. A few of the guys, the guys who’d been pulling for the fans and portraying various Pirates in our games all year said they’d never root for them again.

Now, fans turning on their team is something that happens in sports. The main culprit is usually a long period (or, in the case of some fans, a short period) of losing. Other things can have an effect, too, though. Some Packers fans turned on the team after it parted from Brett Favre. Some Cowboys fans did the same after Tom Landry was fired. Some Browns fans never returned to the team after it left Cleveland for Baltimore. (Those, by the by, are the LUCKY Browns fans.) The Pirates saw the city turn on them twice in recent decades, once in the 80s with the drug trials and again during the 20-year losing streak. So, it happens. But, what happened here was a different animal.

The 1971 Pirates weren’t losing. They were in the process of winning 97 games. They weren’t leaving town or involved in a scandal, and they weren’t parting with a popular player or manager. No, the Pirates transgression was different. See, Robertson and Hebner weren’t available on September 1, 1971. So, the team moved Cash to third base and slotted Rennie Stennett in at second. Meanwhile, Oliver moved to first to replace Robertson, and, with left-handed Woody Fryman pitching for the Phillies, Gene Clines got the start for Al in center. Doc Ellis started the game on the mound for the Pirates. Now, if you don’t know those Buccos like I do, you may not understand the significance of those moves. If you do, you know. The Pirates became the first team in the history of major league baseball, which went back exactly 100 years at that point, to start nine black players. And, that was enough for some people to start hating them…even though the starting nine played exactly one and one-third innings. (A wild Ellis walked four and was pulled for Bob Moose in the second. The other eight guys, however, were doing plenty of damage, blasting out Fryman and scoring nine runs in the first three innings.)

To say I was shocked at some of the stuff I was hearing about my team would be an understatement. At the dinner table, I brought it up to my father, who was quite the baseball player in his day and instilled in me my love of the game. “Some guys say they hate the Pirates now, because they played nine black guys yesterday.” Dad: “Yes, and they won the game. I hope they play nine black guys tonight, too.”

- SNIP -

I can still picture the team. Sangy. Robertson. Cash. Hernandez. Hebner. Willie. Scoops. The Great Roberto. And, I can still picture that other team, too. The one that played only an inning and a third together, and found out that’s all the longer it took to make history. I can also still see my Dad at our table. “I hope they play nine black guys tonight, too.” Because, no matter how old you get, you don’t forget your heroes.