Pirates Writer Recalls Opening Days in the 1970s

Pirates Fans Were Enthusiastic About Opening Day in 1973

There was palpable excitement about Opening Day, 1973. Even without the great Clemente, their fans couldn’t wait for the next season after falling just one bad ninth inning short of reaching the World Series the previous year. This, even though some foolish position switches, which may have been ordered by the front office, were in the offing.

Manny Sanguillén was moved from catcher to right field. He’d been considered the second-best catcher in baseball behind Johnny Bench. However, the Pirates thought they had baseball’s third-best catcher in Milt May, while Sanguillén’s speed and arm were better suited for the outfield.

A Traffic Cop, a Conspiracy Theorist, and Baseball Cards

Opening Day 1973 wasn’t my first baseball game, but it was my first Opening Day game. I was 15 and don’t remember why, finally, my parents relented and let me skip school for an opener. Maybe it was because my Uncle Al took my brother, me, and our cousins.

Our group boarded a bus through downtown Pittsburgh en route to the stadium. Vic Cianca, a traffic cop who became famous when Candid Camera broadcast his unique gesticulations to a nationwide TV audience, directed traffic on Grant Street. We spotted another unwitting local celebrity, Robert Lansberry, a conspiracy theorist before it was fashionable. Lansberry was convinced the CIA was stealing his mail. Or maybe the FBI. He paraded around downtown during the day with a large sandwich board around his neck. Among the messages on the board, in big capital letters, were “WHY CAN’T LANSBERRY GET HIS MAIL?” and “MIND CONTROL.”

The game included a few veteran players who were active when I was a child. It was like seeing my baseball cards come to life. For the St. Louis Cardinals: Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, and Joe Torre. For the Pirates: Gene Alley, Steve Blass, and Stargell. The Pirates’ third base coach was Bill Mazeroski. I thought about how I could never get a Clemente card. I’d buy packs of baseball cards at Margolis’ store in my neighborhood, and I never got a Clemente. Instead, I got high numbers of Jesse Gonder and Andre Rodgers. The folks at Topps will never convince me that they printed an equal number of cards for each player.

“You’ve Never Seen Our Club”

As we sat in our seats high over first base, Pirates starter Blass couldn’t find home plate. After three innings, St. Louis led, 5-0. Blass managed to last five innings, giving up the five runs on five hits, four walks, a hit batsman, and a wild pitch. Sitting in the bullpen, offseason acquisition Jim Rooker told his fellow relievers that the Pirates were in trouble being five runs down to Gibson. Pitcher Luke Walker told Bob Smizik of The Press, “I told him you’ve never seen our club.” Pitcher Bob Johnson chimed in, “Look, this club can come back against any team.”

The Pirates started to put a dent in Gibson’s armor. They scored a run in the sixth inning. Then, in the seventh inning, the Pirates’ Richie Hebner hit a ball that struck the top of the right field wall and bounced over for a home run. The comeback that his fellow relievers promised Rooker began in the bottom of the eighth. The Pirates loaded the bases against Gibson with one out. Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst went to the bullpen for his ace, Diego Segui.

“I Don’t See Any Future at All”

After Segui fanned Robertson, up stepped Hebner, who still had luck on his side. This time, Segui jammed him and broke his bat, but Hebner was able to send a pop fly to shallow left field that dropped in fair territory, scoring two runners. The noise in Three Rivers Stadium was deafening. Virdon then called on Gene Clines to pinch-hit for Rooker, who pitched the top of the inning.

The day before, Clines opened up to Smizik about his unhappiness at spending another season on the bench. Clines hit .334 in 1972 and entered 1973 with a lifetime average of .327. “Right now, I don’t see any future at all in me being out on the field as a regular,” he said. On this afternoon, he took his frustrations out on the ball. The right-handed hitter blasted a line drive into the left-center field gap. The moment seemed frozen in time as Clines, the fastest Pirate, raced around the bases while left fielder Brock, the fastest Cardinal, chased the drive. The ball glanced off Brock’s outstretched glove. Clines had a two-run triple. Later, he scored on an error, and the resulting Pirates’ 7-5 lead held up.

Rooker was the winning pitcher, and Sanguillén fittingly caught the final out. It remains one of the greatest Opening Day games in Pirates history.

Crabbino, the Game of the Week, and the Italian Inquisition

My first Pirates Opening Day remains burned in my memory because baseball was so important during my childhood in Pittsburgh. We could buy a rubber ball at Margolis’ store for 30 cents. Once we had one, we hated to lose it. In the little alley where we played baseball, there was a property surrounded by a high, green wooden fence. If the ball went into that yard, the old lady who lived there would let her dog out. Our rule was if the ball was hit there, it was an automatic three outs.

There was a bigger alley in the next block. Within stood the house of an old Italian immigrant who the kids nicknamed “Crabbino.” He sat in his yard all day in a three-piece suit and fedora, guarding his tomato plants against stray rubber balls. If the ball landed in his yard, he’d chop it in half with a hatchet. We figured an old woman with a dog wasn’t as scary as an old man with a hatchet. I vowed that I’d find better things to do when I became an old man.

There wasn’t much baseball on TV. The Pirates televised around 40 road games in a season. The Saturday NBC Game of the Week was a big deal. Kids gathered to watch it in the home of the McIntyres, where Tommy’s friends were always welcome, often in large numbers. As for me, I had Italian parents. If I asked Mom whether I could bring friends in the house, before she said “no,” I had to go through The Italian Inquisition: “What friends? Who? What will you be doing? Why can’t they do that in their house?”

Pirates Opening Day Promised a Fresh Start in 1977

There were more Opening Days, but another one that stayed with me took place on April 7, 1977. Again, the Cardinals were the Pirates’ opponent. It was the Pirates’ first game under manager Chuck Tanner and GM Hardy Peterson. The previous year, the Philadelphia Phillies ended the Pirates’ period of dominance over the East Division. But not before the Pirates made them sweat. On August 24, 1976, the Pirates were 67-57, in second place, 15 ½ games behind the Phillies. Then, Pittsburgh won 25 of their final 38 games.

They did it largely without the old guard. Center fielder Al Oliver was injured in August. He gave way to speedy rookie Omar Moreno, who provided better defense and a base-stealing threat. Sanguillén was injured in mid-September, creating an opportunity for veteran catcher Duffy Dyer. Although he caught a solid 38.8 percent of would-be base stealers in 1976, Sanguillén was never the same catcher after the right field experiment of 1973, and led all NL catchers in errors with 13. Submarine pitcher Kent Tekulve wrested Dave Giusti’s job as bullpen ace on August 13. The rest of the way, Tekulve was 2-2 with seven saves and a 1.56 ERA.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

The Peterson/Tanner tandem injected some badly needed new blood into the Pirates. Brown and manager Danny Murtaugh were overly loyal to certain players from the 1971 champions who weren’t cutting it any longer. Peterson went to work. He traded Sanguillén to the Oakland Athletics to get Tanner. The new GM then jettisoned Robertson and Giusti and allowed Hebner to walk as a free agent.

Peterson added some pieces that Tanner had managed on other teams. All-Star second baseman Phil Garner was brought in from Oakland. Relievers Rich Gossage and Terry Forster were obtained from the Chicago White Sox. Tanner installed Garner as his third baseman and Dyer as his catcher. He named Moreno as his center fielder, moving Oliver to left field. Tanner promised more daring on the bases, better defense, and a better bullpen. As if to signal a completely new identity, the Pirates would be sporting three new uniforms of white pinstripe, gold, and black, creating nine combinations.

“I Don’t Remember a Game Ending Under Worse Conditions”

I was away at St. Vincent College, but the 1977 opener coincided with spring break. So, I placed a mail order for four box seat tickets. The weather for Opening Day was more suited for the Steelers than the Pirates. The forecast called for temperatures ranging from the low 20s to the low 40s with snow. Mother Nature chose the lower of the predicted temperature range. Said Stargell to Charley Feeney of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “In the ninth inning, I told Don Kessinger not to mess with me. I told him I’d hit him with a snowball.” Kessinger, a Cardinals infielder, said, “I don’t remember a game ending under worse conditions anywhere.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, as my friends and I arrived at the game in winter gear, we found that the Pirates’ idea of a “box seat” was four seats in the 200 level in right field, just left of the foul screen. My seat was next to a fence that separated the box seats from general admission. I paid $5 for my seat. The guy next to me on the right, on the other side of the fence, paid $1. As I sat freezing while snow fell, I felt like a sucker.

It Was No Clinic

Far from a masterpiece, the Cardinals won, 12-6. Due chiefly to the poor weather conditions, the Pirates didn’t support starter Jerry Reuss in the field. With one out in the top of the first inning, second baseman Rennie Stennett fumbled Garry Templeton’s grounder. The next batter, Bake McBride, hit a grounder back to Reuss. Trying for a double play, Reuss threw the ball past second base, sending Templeton to third. Templeton scored on a botched double play attempt that turned into a force out. Despite mishandling three balls, the Pirates faced a mere 1-0 deficit with two outs. However, on Keith Hernandez’s ground ball, first baseman Stargell lifted his glove too early, allowing the ball to skip underneath for the inning’s third error. As the 35,186 fans booed, St. Louis scored three more runs before the third out was recorded.

After that fiasco, the rest of the game was interesting only for Dyer registering the first Pirates home run of the Tanner Era and the glimpse it provided into Tanner’s managerial style. Oliver, the Pirates’ cleanup hitter, left the game with an injury after his first at-bat. Tanner could have replaced him with power-hitting Bill Robinson. Instead, he chose diminutive speedster Miguel Diloné, as if to reaffirm his edict that speed on the basepaths would be a key weapon for the Pirates. All told, Tanner would employ 19 players on the day. That included six pitchers, four pinch-hitters, four left fielders, and nine occupants of the cleanup spot. My scorecard was a mess. One thing was certain. Tanner wouldn’t be the type of manager to sit on his hands and lose. Time would tell whether his tenure would be successful.