Famed ballplayer Willie Stargell dies

April 10, 2001

By Marian Liu
CORRESPONDENT

OAKLAND -- The nation knew Hall of Famer Wilver "Willie" Stargell as a baseball legend, but to Oakland and Alameda he was a dear friend.

Stargell, who hit 475 homers and batted in 1,540 runs during his 21 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, died early Monday from a kidney disorder at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C. He was 61.

He was born in Earlsboro, Okla., on March 6, 1941, and moved to Alameda 10 years later. As a child he spent 12 hours a day on Alameda public housing sandlots playing baseball.

"He put Alameda on the map," said Nick Cabral, 61, a classmate at Encinal High School. "He always had time for us and he never forgot where he came from. I was honored to be his friend."

As a young prankster, Stargell would clown around West Oakland and Alameda with his friends. One time, he and his buddies sneaked into the Skippy Peanut Butter factory on Webster Street, pierced the peanut boxes and took the peanuts home to roast. Another time, they climbed over a fence into the Alameda Naval Air Station for a secret dip in the pool.

Cabral remembers watching Stargell play at Washington Park. Home run after home run, Stargell would repeatedly hit the blue window of a house across from right field.

In the late 1950s Stargell joined such baseball greats as Tommy Harper, Curt Motton, and Robert Davis on the Encinal High School baseball team. Even as a 5-foot-10, 165-pound teen-ager, he could swat home runs. He was an all-around athlete, lettering not only in baseball but also in basketball and football.

Cabral said his friend decided to stick with baseball after tiring of constantly being tackled in football.

But it was as a high school football star that Stargell grabbed freshman Barbara Elmore Lane's attention. That first date is still her most prominent memory of him.

It was the 1956 freshman dance and she needed her mother's permission to go. He couldn't meet her mother after school because he had football practice, and Lane didn't want her mother to come during school and embarrass them both. So during lunch they both headed to the circus market near a hamburger stand to meet her mother. It turned out she knew him already. Their mothers had been friends ever since he was born.

Many years later, when Lane married, Stargell married her friend, Lois Beard.

During the summers, Stargell joined his cousins at the Brookfield Recreation Center in Oakland, now the Ira Jinkens Recreation Center. He would tower over his cousin's husband, Bill Patterson, then the recreation director.

"When he reported to me, I had to look up to him," Patterson said. "His mother is a very strong lady who demanded a lot. Willie was a product of those demands. His personality showed the extra mile of love, grace and goodness she instilled in him. He was all the kinds of things exemplifying the roundness you hope for in kids."

Patterson remembers Stargell mixing easily with the other kids, especially the girls. His nickname, "Pops," grew from those early years. He would help out anyone who needed it.

"He was very gifted," said Patterson. "He could hit anything you could throw at him. I knew he was something special, a special package."

Years after Stargell was with the Pirates, he made sure to thank the people who helped him up along the way, including Patterson and his mentor, Encinal High School coach Don Grant, who died in 1995. When Stargell visited, Grant would gather all of Stargell's high school classmates at a reception at the Hilton near the airport, as well as the Encinal High cheerleaders, who would dance a soultrain with Stargell.

During those receptions, Lane said, Stargell would tell them about the discrimination he experienced as a black baseball player. But he always placed merit above color or skin, she remembers.

After his playing career was over, Stargell continued to return, visiting the baseball card shows at Alameda and the dedication of the Encinal High School gym in his name. Hundreds of visitors and fans filled the school to meet him. He also volunteered to help the NAACP and the fight against sickle cell anemia.

During the last couple of years, however, Stargell was ill and less active. Patterson said Stargell did not want sympathy, however.

Lane and Patterson did not have a chance to see him as often. Yet Patterson said they had been continuously communicating, "whether by phone, message or feeling."

"I will miss his contributions the most," said Patterson. "Many young grow up and succeed, but he was one who remembered to give back. Those are the ones you treasure the most, the ones who come back to help."

The baseball field at Encinal High School, where Stargell used to play, is now named after him. Steven Capling, a classmate of Stargell's and an Encinal High business teacher, has a picture from the gymnasium dedication. He makes a point to tell his students who Stargell is.

This weekend, the Encinal baseball team is playing in a tournament initiated 10 years ago to honor Stargell. The school is still deciding what to do in honor of his memory.

Lane is also planning a local memorial for Stargell for friends who can't make it to North Carolina.