Pirates Championship's

History of the World Series - 1903

Red Sox 5; Pirates 3

With their clubs apparently headed toward pennants, Pittsburgh's Barney Dreyfuss and Boston's Henry Killilea agreed during the 1903 season to stage a best-of-nine postseason playoff for the "world championship." The accommodation came in the wake of open hostilities -- punctuated player raids -- that had existed between the National League and American League since the junior's entry on the major-league scene in 1901.

Dreyfuss' Pirates appeared to be stellar representatives for the league, whose history dated to 1876. Pittsburgh had third consecutive pennant in '03. Boston also seemed a worthy competitor in this first modern World Series, having won the AL flag by 14 1/2 games.

In Game 1, Pirates workhorse Deacon Phillippe pitched a six-hitter and right fielder Jimmy Sebring hit the first home run in Series history and drove in four runs as Pittsburgh scored a 7-3 victory. Third baseman Tommy Leach rapped two singles and two triples for the Pirates. Boston evened the Series, though, when Bill Dinneen threw a three-hitter and Patsy Dougherty walloped two homers in a 3-0 triumph.

Phillippe, pressed into heavy duty because of illness and injury to the Pittsburgh pitching staff, came back on just one day of rest to start Game 3. A 25-game winner during the season, Phillippe continued to excel. He allowed only four hits, won 4-2 and, as it turned out, was just getting warmed up. When a travel day and rainout ensued, the Pirates turned to the good Deacon for Game 4 as well. Phillippe met the challenge with a complete-game 54 triumph -- Leach knocked in three of the Pirates' runs, while Honus Wagner and Ginger Beaumont each collected three hits -- and Pittsburgh led Boston, three games to one.

Cy Young, 36 years old but a 28-game winner for the 1903 Red Sox (also known as the Pilgrims, Puritans and Americans), was called upon to cool off the Pirates in Game 5 -- and did just that. Young yielded only six hits and drove in three runs in an 11-2 runaway. The next day, Dinneen was a 6-3 victor in a game that featured four hits, two RBIs and two stolen bases by the losers' Beaumont. After six games, it was the Red Sox 3, Phillippe 3.

Having won each time Phillippe had trudged to the mound, Pittsburgh sent the strong-armed righthander against Boston in Game 7. But this wasn't to be Phillippe's day. Jimmy Collins, the Red Sox's playing manager, and Chick Stahl touched him for first-inning triples and Boston bolted to a 2-0 lead en route to a 7-3 triumph. For the first time, the Red Sox had seized the Series lead. Ahead four games to three, Boston would attempt to nail down the championship on its Huntington Avenue Grounds.

The pitching matchup for Game 8 was a beauty -- Dinneen against, yes, Deacon Phillippe. Working on two days of rest this time, Phillippe battled Dinneen to a scoreless tie through three innings. After Dinneen blanked Pittsburgh again in the fourth, the Red Sox broke through against the Deacon in their half of the inning. Buck Freeman led off with a triple and Freddy Parent reached base on an error (with Freeman holding third). Candy LaChance then sacrificed Parent to second. Hobe Ferris followed with a single, putting Phillippe and the Pirates in a 2-0 hole.

The hole grew deeper two innings later when LaChance stroked a two-out triple and scored on Ferris' single.

Phillippe battled on and would up pitching his fifth complete in the Series, which lasted 13 days. But Dinneen bested him in the climactic Game 8, tossing his second shutout of the Series and notching his third victory. The 3-0 decision was the Red Sox's fourth straight triumph and made the upstart Boston team champion of the First American league-vs. National League World Series.

Dinneen and Young were bellwethers for Boston. Together, they pitched 69 of the 71 innings that Red Sox hurlers totaled in the fall classic. (Tom Hughes lasted two-plus innings as Boston's third-game starter.) Young, appearing in what would prove his only Series, won two of three decisions for Boston and recorded a 1.59 earned-run average.

With Phillippe, Dinneen and Young dominating play, hitters obviously had a tough time. The Red Sox batted .252 while Pittsburgh, despite the presence of NL batting champion Wagner, hit .237. Wagner hit .222 in the Series, managing only one hit in the final four games. And the rival playing managers, third baseman Collins of Boston and left fielder Fred Clarke of Pittsburgh, drove in one run in a combined 70 at-bats.

Pittsburgh's Sebring, besides accounting for the first homer in Series history, also led all regulars with a .367 average.

Perhaps the main thing about the 1903 Series, though, was that it at least cooled tempers between baseball's warring factions. That the upstart American League buried the hatchet squarely in the back of the haughty National League -- and did so with fiendish delight -- was merely a sidelight.

History of the World Series - 1909

Pirates 4; Detroit 3

Detroit won its third straight AL flag in 1909, paced by the hitting of Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford and the pitching of George Mullin, Ed Willett and Ed Summers. Cobb won his third straight AL batting title with a .377 mark (he finished his career with 11 titles), and Crawford hit .314. Mullin (29), Willett (22) and Summers (19) combined for 70 victories.

None of the Pirates' "big three" pitchers won a game in the Series, and only one of Detroit's standouts, Mullin, was victorious. Mullin won twice, 5-0 in Game 4 and 5-4 in Game 6.

While the Tigers solved Camnitz, Willis and Leifield, they couldn't handle rookie Babe Adams -- and that tilted the Series in Pittsburgh's direction. Adams, who compiled a 12-3 record for the Pirates in 1909, drew the starting assignment in Game 1 and responded with a six-hitter.

Manager Fred Clarke got the Pirates rolling with a game-tying home run in the fourth inning and the Pirates went on to win, 4-1.

Detroit's three-run outburst in the third inning of Game 2 -- an uprising spiced by Cobb's steal of home -- paved the way for a Series-squaring 7-2 Tiger victory. Pittsburgh regained the lead, though, with an 8-6 decision that featured Wagner's three hits, three RBIs and three stolen bases.

Mullin brought the Tigers back the next day, pitching a five-hit shutout and striking out 10 Pirates.

The victory-swapping pattern continued unabated. In Game 5, Adams allowed only six hits -- Crawford touched him for a single, double and home run -- and Clarke hammered a tie-breaking three-run homer as Pittsburgh prevailed, 8-4. But the resilient Tigers found themselves back in business the next afternoon when Mullin, after being roughed up for three first-inning runs, surrendered only one more and wound up with a seven-hit victory.

With the Series going down to a climactic seventh game -- this was the first fall classic to go the limit -- Pittsburgh's Clarke went with Adams as his pitcher, while Detroit Manager Hugh Jennings decided on Bill Donovan, a complete-game winner in Game 2.

Donovan, known as Wild Bill, was just that. After hitting the first batter, Bobby Byrne, with a pitch, he proceeded to walk six batters in the first two innings. After three innings, Donovan was gone and Adams was holding a 2-0 lead.

Pittsburgh extended its advantage to 4-0 in the fourth when Dots Miller singled with the bases loaded and blew the game open in the sixth when Wagner tripled home two runs and scored on an error. Adams continued to cruise, and he went on to nail down a six-hit, 8-0 victory that gave the Pirates their first World Series championship.

Wagner led the Pirates with a .333 mark and drove in seven runs. He also accounted for six of Pittsburgh's 18 stolen bases. Clarke, despite batting only .211, also totaled seven RBIs and, in a one-for-the-book performance, drew four walks in Game 7 (he played from start to finish, going O-for-O officially at the plate).

Cobb, appearing in what would be his last Series although he would be an active player through 1928, had his second sub-par classic out of three. He batted only .231 but led Detroit in RBIs with six. Second baseman Jim Delahanty's .346 average led the Tigers.

History of the World Series - 1925

Pirates 4; Washington 3

Vic Aldridge, who had pitched the distance in the Pirates' lone victory of the Series, was called upon by Manager Bill McKechnie to keep his club afloat in Game 5. Aldridge did just that, pitching his second straight complete-game, eight-hit victory. The 6-3 triumph -- like his earlier success -- had come at the expense of Stan Coveleski, the onetime Cleveland pitching great who had been obtained by Washington after the '24 season.

Second baseman Eddie Moore, playing is first full season as an everyday player in the big leagues, then combined with second-year major leaguer Ray Kremer to help Pittsburgh tie the Series. Moore broke a 2-2 tie with a fifth-inning homer and Kremer set down the faltering Senators on six hits. The Pirates' 3-2 victory in Game 6 meant it would all come down to one game at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. And it would be that man, Johnson, going against Aldridge.

Johnson had reached the 20-victory plateau for the 12th and last time in 1925 and, in the process, climbed within four victories of the 400 mark in his big-league career. He had spent his career with the Washington Senators, and that career dated to 1907. Aldridge, acquired from the Chicago Cubs after the '24 season, was coming off a 15-7 year with the Pirates. A righthander, Aldridge was 10 days from his 32nd birthday.

An outstanding pitching matchup. At least on paper.

In fact, Aldridge lasted one-third of an inning. But Johnson, given a 4-0 first-inning lead and a 6-3 edge in the fourth, couldn't contain the Pirates and was tagged for 15 hits in eight innings. Despite Johnson's ineffectiveness, the Senators carried a 6-4 lead into the last of the seventh and seemed poised to ring up their second consecutive Series championship. The inning got off to a shaky start for Manager Bucky Harris' team, though, when shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh muffed Moore's pop fly. Moore reached second on the error -- Peckinpaugh's seventh of the Series -- and scored on Max Carey's third double of the game.

Two outs later, Pie Traynor laced a game-tying triple off Johnson, but the Pirates' third baseman was out trying to stretch the hit into a home run.

With Game 7 tied at 6-6, tension was high when Washington came to bat against Pirates reliever Kremer in the eighth. After Ossie Bluege grounded out, Peckinpaugh strode to the plate. At this point, the Series had been a nightmare for the 34-year-old veteran. He had made one error in Game 1, two in Game 2, one in Game 3, another in Game 5, one in Game 6 and, to this juncture, one in Game 7. And he had collected only five hits in 23 at-bats. Possessing very little power -- he had hit 10 homers in the last four seasons -- Peckinpaugh, in a goat-to-hero turnaround, caught hold of a Kremer delivery and drilled it into the left-field seats. Washington was back on top, 7-6.

The prospect of Johnson holding on for his second Series-clinching victory in two seasons -- after the superstar pitcher had toiled for one Washington also-ran after another for the bulk of his career -- seemed the stuff of which baseball dreams are made. And the chances of same grew brighter as Johnson retired the first two Pittsburgh hitters in the bottom of the eighth, getting Glenn Wright to foul out and Stuffy McInnis to fly out.

Earl Smith and pinch-hitter Carson Bigbee followed with consecutive doubles, however, and for the second straight inning Johnson had frittered away the lead. Moore walked and Carey reached base when Peckinpaugh made a poor throw while attempting to record a forceout at second. Cuyler broke the 7-7 tie with a two-run ground-rule double, the Pirates' eighth two-base hit of the rainy afternoon.

The Big Train had jumped the tracks. And the Senators crashed with him, falling 9-7 and losing a World Series they seemingly had locked up a few days earlier. The Pirates' comeback marked the first time a team had rallied from a 3-1 deficit in games to win a best-of-seven Series. While Carey batted a Series-leading .458 for Pittsburgh and Aldridge and Kremer each won two games, the individual spotlight fell mainly on Washington players. Of particular note was the performance of the Senators' outfield, as Goose Goslin whacked three home runs in the Series for the second straight year, Joe Harris hit .440 with three homers and Rice batted .364 and made an unforgettable defensive play.

With the Senators ahead by one run in the eighth inning of Game 3, Rice ran down a long drive by Smith at the wall in right-center and tumbled into the stands. There was no immediate indication whether

Rice had speared the ball before falling and it took him about 15 seconds to untangle himself from the fans and return to the field -- at which time he held up the ball to signal he had made the catch. The Pirates disputed the call, saying a Washington fan may have stuffed the ball into Rice's glove, but umpire Cy Rigler called Smith out. Rice parried questions about the play the rest of his life, but in a letter to Hall of Fame officials -- a missive to be opened only after his death, which occurred in 1974 -- he tried to put an end to nearly 50 years of suspense. "At no time did I lose possession of the ball," Rice wrote.

Peckinpaugh, of course, was always losing possession of the ball.

The AL MVP in 1925, he suffered a stinging comedown against the Pirates by setting a record with eight errors in one Series (regardless of position).

And then there was Johnson, overpowering in his first two starts but underwhelming in the decisive seventh game.

For the Pirates, it was a return to a supremacy of the baseball world they had not enjoyed since 1909 when rookie pitcher Babe Adams led the club to the World Series title by beating the Detroit Tigers three times. There was even a link to that previous title -- Adams, who at 43 pitched one inning of relief against Washington in Game 4.

History of the World Series - 1960

Pirates 4; Yankees 3

New York, led by Mickey Mantle's two home runs and five runs batted in, clubbed six Pirates pitchers for 19 hits and rolled to a 16-3 victory in the second game.

Then, as the Series shifted to Yankee Stadium, the Yankees' Bobby Richardson flexed his muscles. Having driven in only seven runs in the last 75 games of the American League season and just 26 overall in '60, the little second baseman connected for a bases-loaded home run off reliever Clem Labine in the first inning of Game 3. Richardson later contributed a two-run single, giving him a Series-record six RBIs, and Mantle stung the Pirates with a two-run homer and three other hits. New York was a 10-0 winner, with Whitey Ford pitching a four-hitter.

Battered and bruised from the successive drubbings, the Pirates gave the ball to first-game winner Vern Law in Game 4. Law, a 20-game winner in '60 and the NL's Cy Young Award winner, combined with relief ace Roy Face to beat back the Yankees, 3-2. Bill Virdon's looping single to center field in the fifth knocked in two of Pittsburgh's runs.

Art Ditmar, who lasted only one-third inning as the Game 1 starter for the Yankees, received another chance in Game 5 and lasted 1 1/3 innings this time. Bill Mazeroski's double was the key hit in the Pirates' three-run second inning, the smash scoring two runs and driving Ditmar from the mound. Face turned in 2 2/3 innings of hitless relief after replacing starter and winner Harvey Haddix to nail down the 5-2 triumph, which thrust the Pirates ahead in the Series.

The Yankees, though, called on a proven combination in Game 6 -- their big bats and the pitching guile of Ford. Richardson's two triples and Johnny Blanchard's two doubles highlighted a 17-hit Yankee spree -- Roger Maris, Yogi Berra and Blanchard each collected three hits -- and Ford again shut out the Pirates, this time silencing the NL champions on seven hits. Hoping to clinch their first Series championship in 35 years, the Pirates instead wound up 12-0 losers at Forbes Field.

While the first six games of the '60 Series had been notable because of their general wackiness (the Yankees' victories, for instance, coming by the combined score of 38-3), Game 7 proved memorable because it unfolded along classic lines.

Law, drawing his third start of the Series, was staked to a 4-0 lead when Rocky Nelson cracked a two-run homer in the first inning off Turley and Virdon stroked a two-run single in the second against reliever Bill Stafford. The Yankees nicked Law for a run in the fifth when Skowron powered a homer into the lower right-field stands, and drove the righthander from the game during a go-ahead rally in the sixth. Richardson began the inning with a single and Tony Kubek drew a base on balls. Law gave way to Face, who got Maris to foul out. Mantle, though, singled home a run and Berra followed with a three-run homer that shot New York into a 5-4 lead.

Clinging to its one-run lead with two out in the eighth, New York went to work against Face. A walk to Berra, singles by Skowron and Blanchard and a double by Clete Boyer netted two runs and, with Yankee reliever Bobby Shantz at the top of his game (as evidenced by his five scoreless innings of pitching since taking over in the third), New York appeared to be in good shape.

Appearances were deceiving, however. Gino Cimoli led off the Pittsburgh eighth with a pinch single and Virdon hit a sharp grounder toward Kubek, the Yankees' shortstop. The ball took a bad hop, striking Kubek in the throat and forcing him out of the game. Virdon was alive at first with an infield single, Cimoli was stationed at second and Joe DeMaestri was summoned to replace the injured Kubek. Dick Groat's single cut the lead to 7-5, and Roberto Clemente's infield hit scored Virdon and advanced Groat to third. Now trailing 7-6, Pittsburgh had two runners on base and Hal Smith at the plate.

Smith, who entered the game in the top of the eighth after Pirates catcher Smoky Burgess had left for a pinch-runner in the previous inning, sent shock waves through the Pittsburgh crowd by blasting a home run over the left-field wall.

The Yankees were down but not out. Bob Friend, an 18-game winner for the Pirates and the Bucs' starter in Games 2 and 6, came on in the ninth to try to protect the 9-7 lead. Richardson and pinch-hitter Dale Long greeted Friend with singles and Pirates Manager Danny Murtaugh lifted the veteran pitcher in favor of Haddix. Maris fouled out, but Mantle delivered a single that scored Richardson and moved Long to third. Berra followed with a strong grounder to first, with Nelson stepping on the base for the second out. In what, at the time, stood as a monumental play, Mantle, seeing he had no chance to beat a play at second, scurried back to first and avoided Nelson's tag -- which would have been the third out -- as McDougald raced home to tie the score, 9-9. Skowron's grounder forced Berra, ending the Yankees' inning.

Ralph Terry, who had gotten the final out in the Pirates' eighth, returned to the mound in the bottom of the ninth. The first man he faced was Mazeroski. With a count of one ball and no strikes, the Pirates' second baseman smashed a drive over the wall in left that made the NL champions -- outscored, 55-27, and outhit, 91-60, in the seven games -- 10-9 winners and improbable champions.

History of the World Series - 1971

Pirates 4; Baltimore 3

By the end of the 1971 World Series, Roberto Clemente would attain some measure of the respect he had been seeking.

Clemente and the Pirates had earned their way into the '71 Series by winning the NL East crown by seven games and then beating the San Francisco Giants, three games to one, in the Championship Series. Amazingly, the Baltimore Orioles had pulled off their third successive Championship Series sweep -- this time the up-and-coming Oakland A's were the victims -- after topping the 100-victory mark for the third straight year.

The'71 Orioles had become the second club in modern major-league history (the 1920 Chicago White Sox were the other) to boast four 20-game winners, with Dave McNally, Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson reaching the coveted figure. And Baltimore Manager Earl Weaver would start those four pitchers against Dock Ellis, Bob Johnson, Steve Bless and Luke Walker in the first four games of the Series. Ellis had been the Pirates' big winner with 19 victories and Blass won 15 times. Walker had won only 10 games, while Johnson compiled a losing record (9-10). Advantage, Baltimore, clearly.

At least that's the way it looked on paper. But after four games, the 1971 Series was deadlocked. In the Series opener at Baltimore, McNally was roughed up for three second-inning runs, but the lefthander settled down and didn't allow a hit after the third inning. Baltimore, getting a three-run homer from Merv Rettenmund and solo blasts from Frank Robinson and Don Buford, posted a 5-3 victory. Clemente collected two of the three hits off McNally.

Palmer followed with an 11-3 triumph in Game 2, a contest in which Baltimore prospered from a popgun attack. The Orioles banged out 14 hits, all singles, with Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson each notching three hits and Brooks reaching base five consecutive times (he walked twice). Richie Hebner accounted for all of the Pirates' scoring when he clubbed a two-on homer in the eighth. Besides Hebner's blast, the only other extra-base hit of the day was a double by Clemente, who, for the second straight game, was the only Pittsburgh player with two hits.

The Series then shifted to Pittsburgh, and the Pirates shifted into high gear. Blass tossed a three-hitter in Game 3 and Bob Robertson whacked a three-run homer as Danny Murtaugh's team beat Cuellar and company, 5-1. In Game 4, the first night game in Series history, Baltimore drove Walker from the mound in a three-run first, but a pair of 21-year-olds rallied the Pirates. Bruce Kison relieved Walker two outs into the first inning and threw 6 1/3 innings of one-hit, scoreless ball, and Milt May stroked a tie-breaking pinch single in the seventh as Pittsburgh tied the Series with a 4-3 triumph. Clemente went 3 for 4.

Nelson Briles, who made only 14 starts for the Pirates in '71 and recorded just four complete games, went out and fired a two-hitter in Game 5 as Baltimore fell, 4-0. Briles helped his own cause with a run-scoring single.

Having rebounded in this Series by sweeping the Orioles in Pittsburgh, the Pirates would need to win once in Baltimore to be fall-classic champions. Clemente helped steer the Bucs in that direction with a bases-empty home run in Game 6, but that contest evolved into a 2-2 standoff after nine innings. Then, in the 10th, Baltimore's Frank Robinson -- playing the game in the all-out manner that was his specialty -- walked, dared to take third on Rettenmund's dribbler up the middle, and scored the game-winning run on Brooks Robinson's shallow fly to center field.

Game 7 pitted Blass against Cuellar, and the climactic contest was 0-0 with two out in the Pittsburgh fourth. Clemente then drilled a Cuellar pitch over the wall in left-center. In the eighth, the Pirates made it 2-0 as Willie Stargell singled and Jose Pagan doubled him home. The Orioles then put runners on second and third with one out in the last half of the inning, but managed only an RBI grounder by Buford. Blass went on to record a 1-2-3 ninth, and the Pittsburgh Pirates were 2-1 winners and World Series champions.

Blass had pitched two complete games, allowing only one run in each, and deserved of all the accolades tossed his way. Kison and Briles had made major mound contributions, catcher Manny Sanguillen had hit .379 and first baseman Robertson had belted two homers and knocked in five runs.

The spotlight, though, shone brightly on Roberto Clemente, No shadows here. He basked in the glow of a .414 batting performance (12 hits in 29 at-bats) while playing on his second Series title team. As in the 1960 classic, Clemente had hit safely in each game. That's right, with the conclusion of the 1971 World Series, Roberto Walker Clemente had appeared in 14 Series games and hit safely in every single one of them.

There wasn't much more Clemente could do on the diamond; he had shown 'em, once and for all. Nor was there much time left for Clemente to accomplish more (although he did collect big-league career hit No. 3,000 late in the 1972 season). Fourteen and a half months after the 1971 World Series, he died in a plane crash off the coast of his native Puerto Rico as he attempted to take food, clothing and medical supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

History of the World Series - 1979

Pirates 4; Baltimore 3

helping the Bucs to a National League East championship that wasn't nailed down until the final day of the season. Stargell then drilled two homers, drove in six runs and batted .455 in three Championship Series games as Pittsburgh swept the Cincinnati Reds.

Next up for the Pirates was a World Series date against the Baltimore Orioles. But no matter how hard team captain Stargell tried to inspire his teammates -- whether it be along the lines of awarding gold stars for superior performances or supplying such notable performances himself -- he saw the National League champions fall dangerously behind the Orioles.

Baltimore jolted the Pirates with five first-inning runs in the Series opener. Doug DeCinces capped the uprising with a two-run homer, and 23-game winner Mike Flanagan made the runs stand up -- barely. The Pirates pecked away, with Phil Garner and Stargell (a two-time NL home-run champion and possessor of 461 homers) each collecting two RBIs and Dave Parker finishing with four hits. Stargell accounted for the game's final run with an eighth-inning homer, but Flanagan held on for a 5-4 victory at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

Veteran Manny Sanguillen gave Pittsburgh a lift in Game 2, delivering a ninth-inning pinch single that broke a 2-2 tie and enabled the Pirates to beat the Orioles and ace reliever Don Stanhouse. Despite the 3-2 triumph, the Bucs went flat when the Series shifted to Three Rivers Stadium. In Game 3, Orioles shortstop Kiko Garcia banged out two singles, a double and a triple to total four RBIs, and Benny Ayala cracked a two-run homer as the American League titleists prevailed, 8-4. Pinch-hitters John Lowenstein and Terry Crowley each belted two-run doubles in the eighth inning of Game 4 as Baltimore roared back from a 6-3 deficit to a 9-6 conquest. The loss was extremely distressing to the Pirates. Not only did they lose a game they seemingly had won, but the defeat also left them facing a three games-to-one deficit. Pittsburgh would also be going against Orioles ace Flanagan in Game 5.

A disheartening situation. Unless, of course, you come together in tight situations, like a family tends to do.

Bill Madlock and Tim Foli, key in-season acquisitions for Pittsburgh, kept Tanner's troops in the hunt in the fifth game. Madlock, obtained from San Francisco in late June and installed as the Pirates' regular third baseman (he had been playing out of position, at second base, for the Giants), went 4-for-4 and shortstop Foli, acquired from the New York Mets two weeks into the season, drove in three runs as the Pirates dealt Flanagan a 7-1 setback. Bert Blyleven, working four scoreless innings of relief, got the victory.

While Madlock, Foli and Blyleven got the headlines after Game 5, Jim Rooker perhaps made the biggest contribution for Pittsburgh. Winner of only four games during the regular season, the lefthander nevertheless was Tanner's choice to start the do-or-die contest. Rooker kept the Bucs in the game-and in the Series-before turning things over to Blyleven. He permitted only one run and three hits over five innings, then departed for a pinch-hitter.

Now the Pirates would go with their ace -- if a 14-game winner qualifies for such billing. John Candelaria was, in fact, the top winner for the pennant-winning Pirates despite his modest victory total (six Bucs had 10 or more triumphs). The Candy Man combined with relief ace Kent Tekulve to stymie the Orioles on seven hits in Game 6, which went into the books as a Series-squaring, 4-0 victory.

Pittsburgh's Jim Bibby and Baltimore's Scott McGregor hooked up in Game 7, and the Orioles scored the first run of the game when Rich Dauer led off the last of the third inning with a homer to left. The game remained 1-0 until the sixth, when the Pirates broke through. McGregor retired Parker on an inning-opening groundout, but allowed a single to Bill Robinson. Stargell, with a single and a double in two at-bats thus far in the game, followed Robinson to the plate and whacked a McGregor pitch over the right-field fence. The Pirates were ahead to stay. The Bucs got two more runs in the ninth, an inning in which Weaver trotted out five pitchers in an attempt to keep his club in the game, to no avail.

While Bibby had left the contest for a pinch-hitter in the fifth inning, Pirate relievers Grant Jackson and Tekulve combined to pitch hitless ball over the final 4 1/3 innings. The Orioles, having scored two runs in the final 28 innings of the Series, were dead. And the Pirates, 4-1 winners in the finale, had become the fourth team in history to come from a three games-to-one deficit and win a best-of-seven World Series.

Five Pirates collected 10 or more hits in the'79 Series, with Garner (who batted a Series-high .500) and Stargell getting 12 apiece, Omar Moreno 11 and Parker and Foli 10 each. Madlock was right behind with nine.

It was Stargell, though, who posted the best all-around numbers with a .400 average, three home runs and seven RBIs. And, of course, his home run in the seventh game -- in which he went 4-for-5 -- decided the Series.

No doubt about it, "Pops" had made the 1979 World Series a very special family outing for the Pittsburgh Pirates.