12/25/2019
Read about the Willie Stargell Foundation’s mission to help those affected by renal disease.
📕40 years ago today the Pittsburgh Pirates Willie Stargell and the Pittsburgh Steelers Terry Bradshaw were both featured on the cover after being named Sportsmen Of The Year. The Pirates did win the World Series in 1979, in a similar style as they had ended the 1978 season: from last place in the NL East at the end of April, the Pirates clawed their way into a first-place battle with the Expos during the latter half of the season. They excited fans with numerous come-from-behind victories along the way (many during their final at-bat) to claim the division pennant on the last day of the season. At his urging as captain, the team adopted the Sister Sledge hit song "We Are Family" as the team anthem. Then, his play on the field inspired his teammates and earned him the MVP awards in both the NLCS and the World Series. Stargell capped off the year by hitting a dramatic home run in Baltimore during the late innings of a close Game 7 to seal a Pirates' championship. The home run was his third of the series and, coincidentally, credited Stargell with the winning runs in both game 7s of the 2 postseason meetings between the Pirates and the Orioles (1971 and 1979). The 1979 World Series victory also made the Pirates the only franchise in baseball history to twice recover from a three-games-to-one deficit and win a World Series (previously they had done so in 1925 against the Senators). For the series, Stargell went 12-for-30; along with his three home runs, he also recorded four doubles for 25 total bases, which remains tied as a World Series record, Reggie Jackson having set it in the 1977 World Series, and his 7 extra-base hits (3 HRs and 4 doubles) in the 1979 World Series also set a record. In addition to his NLCS and World Series MVP awards, Stargell finally took home the elusive MVP award (as co-winner along with St. Louis' Keith Hernandez) at the age of 39. Stargell is the only player to have won all three MVP trophies in a single year. He shared the Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsmen of the Year" award with Terry Bradshaw, who also played at Three Rivers Stadium, for the Steelers. Before Super Bowl XIII, a Steelers-Cowboys rematch, Cowboys linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson famously ridiculed Bradshaw by saying, "He couldn't spell 'Cat' if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a'." Bradshaw got his revenge by winning the MVP award, completing 17 of 30 passes for a then-record 318 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 35–31 win. Bradshaw has in later years made light of the ridicule with quips such as "it's football, not rocket science." Bradshaw won his second straight Super Bowl MVP award in 1979 in Super Bowl XIV. He passed for 309 yards and two touchdowns in a 31–19 win over the Rams. Early in the 4th quarter, with Pittsburgh down 19–17, Bradshaw again turned to the long pass to help engineer a victory: a 73-yard touchdown to John Stallworth.📕 (Photo Credit: SI Online)
