Gun to the Head

Today is the birthday of Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, born March 6th, 1940, in Earlsboro, Oklahoma.

In 1958, outside a ball field in Plainview, Texas, a man walked up to Stargell, put a gun to his head, and said, “Nigger, if you play in that game tonight, I’ll blow your brains out.”

Stargell spent much of his childhood bouncing from one living situation to another. After his father left, he and his mother stayed with his grandfather for several years before moving to California. When his mother remarried for a third time, he was sent to live with an abusive aunt in Orlando for six years.

When she left for work, he’d skip the mountain of chores she’d given him and go off to play baseball — knowing that when she got home, she would beat him.

Eventually he was free of his aunt and back in Alameda, California, with his mother. His obsession with baseball continued. As he later put it, "White boys from richer families were given other alternatives such as the Boy Scouts, family vacations, and field trips…[baseball was] all we had"

His passion for the game got him noticed, and earned him a spot in the Pirates’ minor league system, playing for a Class D team. That first season, playing in the South, he experienced the full weight of segregation — sleeping on porches because hotels wouldn’t take him, eating meals alone because restaurants refused to serve him. And it was during that season that he had a gun held to his head.

He took to the field anyway.

With the Pirates, he’d make his mark as a power hitter — warming up on deck with a sledgehammer and regularly clearing the right-field roof of Forbes Field. In his 20 years in the majors, he didn’t just make the All-Star team seven times, win two World Series titles, and earn both the National League MVP and the World Series MVP in 1979 — he gave back.

He created a foundation that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight sickle cell anemia, handed out Christmas turkeys to families in need, and opened a chicken restaurant in Pittsburgh’s Hill District that gave away meals for free whenever he hit a home run.

After he died at age 61 in Wilmington, North Carolina his old teammate Steve Blass told a reporter, “When we heard about Clemente’s death at four o’clock in the morning, I went to Willie’s house. I’m not sure where to go this morning.”

MLB News

Oakland Baseball Inspires Pixar, Scherzer Vs. the Machines, and the 2025 Report Card

• The 2025 Report Card – With opening day three weeks away, The Athletic’s Jim Bowden gives out his grades and predictions for the 2025 season.

• Top of the Heap – A lot of talk this offseason about L.A. ruining baseball with their huge payroll. But it’s The Mets with their $333.3 million payroll — $23 million more than any other team — that are in the lead.

• An Ode to the A’s – Pixar’s an animated series about a green-and-gold uniformed co-ed baseball team called “Win or Lose”. Apparently the color choice is not a coincidence. The studio is based in Emeryville, California — less than 10 miles from the Coliseum where the A’s used to play. But the studio has an even deeper connection to the game. Its parking lot used to be the Oakland Oak’s field where the DiMaggio brothers, Casey Stengel, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson played.

• Devers on Hold – The Red Sox’s three-time All-Star third baseman didn’t arrive at spring training on Tuesday, saying he needed more time. Devers’ unwillingness to step to the DH role and allow Bregman to take his position at third base has become a big talking point since he was signed late in the offseason. Devers is expected to show up this weekend. Let’s see if he takes his usual spot when he gets to Florida.

• Rage Against the Machines – Scherzer joined Doug Glanville and Jayson Stark on the Starkville pod to share his critical take on the ABS system the MLB has been testing in spring training this year. Read a summation here. 

On This Day

Babe Takes the Check

• 1930 — The New York Yankees re-signed Babe Ruth to a two-year contract worth $160,000 ($80,000 per year), making him the highest-paid player in baseball at the time. When asked about making more money than the President of the United States, Ruth famously responded, "I had a better year than he did."