When all was said and done in 1981, a pair of third baseman won the batting titles. For Bill, it was his third title, while Carney won his first and only one. They reached their crowns in two different ways though.

Rewinding back to September 7th in the American League, Carney Lansford was trailing Richie Zisk by 26 points. With a young Rickey Henderson and veteran Jerry Remy in the mix too, it didn’t really look like Lansford had much of a chance.

Zisk was on a tear at the time, batting .404 since baseball resumed after the strike. At that point, the American League batting title was basically his to lose.

And lose it, he did. The very next day, he’d pop out to 1st base before grounding out to shortstop his next three at-bats facing Chicago’s Steve Trout. He hit just .174 to finish the season, blowing the batting race.

In the meantime, Carney Lansford upped his game, hitting .365 from September 8 onward, helpin’ him leap over Rickey and Richie, to win the ’81 AL Batting Title.

§

Over in the National League, Bill Madlock wasn’t quite as much of a surprise. As I mentioned, Bill had won a pair of titles earlier in his career, though that was half a decade earlier when he played for the Cubs.

When you look at his month-by-month averages in 1981, it’s amazing how consistent he’d been.

Lookin’ at that, it’s easy to see that Madlock fell into a slump as the stresses of the baseball strike were looming. Look closer though, and we see that his BAbip was about 100 points lower than his usual, while his OBP rose up about 100 points.

That’s impressive. Usually the OBP drops when the BAbip drops, but here it does the opposite. So I don’t consider that a slump, ’cause he was clearly still seeing the ball well, but the defenses he faced were on fire.

So unlike Carney, it was Bill’s consistency throughout the ’81 season, that was the key to the NL batting crown.

All I know is that the Pirates “asked waivers on Gary Alexander for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release”. The way that’s worded, sounds like they were doing the man a favor.

What kind of favor could they have been doing? Why did’t he ever come back? Truth is, the Pirates were probably doing themselves a favor, but making it sound much nicer.

When ’81 rolled around, Pittsburgh was deep in the catcher position. So Gary didn’t much playing time throughout the year.

Used mostly as a backup, he was a horrible hitter after a great 4 RBI game on April 29th. When I say horrible, I mean he hit .182/.217/.273 for the rest of the season.

So it’s really no surprise that the Pirates let him go, just days before the ’82 season started up. They probably didn’t like what they saw throughout spring training, and realized they’d get more of the same they got from him the year before.

Don’t get me wrong, Gary had a decent career overall. He played in seven seasons, working out a 99 OPS+ due to a pair of good years in the late 70′s.

I’m guessing that he probably regretted signing with the Pirates, even though he helped the team win it all in ’79. You see, from ’78-’80, he only had 16 plate appearances. Pittsburgh was so stacked with talent, that Matt’s main groove was being a pinch runner, pinch hitter, or a defensive substitute.

What’s interestingly odd about this though, is that the guy could hit. During his time in Pittsburgh, he hit .444, slugged .556, and posted an OPS+ of 172 in his mere 27 PA’s. You’d think hitting like that would move manager Chuck Tanner to give Matt more turns at the plate.

If you can hit when you do get the chance, you probably really really long for more playing time.

His final major league game came on October 2, 1981 when he entered the game as a pinch hitter in the 6th inning. He promptly went 2-for-2 with a run scored. Eat that Chuck!

No matter what he did, it never seemed to give him a shot at a chance for more in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t even on the roster when 1982′s spring training started, but he was invited to try out anyway. Within a few weeks, they sent him to their minor league camp before selling Matt to the Mexico City Tigres.

He didn’t give up hope though, being quoted in June as saying “I’m far away from home, but I’m still in the game of baseball with a chance of getting back for the stretch drive.”

His hope landed him back in the Pirates spring training camp to start the following year. Unfortunately it was almost the same deal for Matt as the last year. The Pirates returned him to Mexico City like a bowl of soup with a fly in it. They just didn’t want him anymore, and neither did any other team.

This is only the beginning of Pascual Perez errors though. The very next year after this card, Donruss produced a Pascual Perez card that says he plays for the Twins—a team he never had anything to do with. Later, in 1990, Topps made another error on Pascual Perez, producing a card that had all the stats on the back but an all white front with no photo.

I never had any of them until I bought this card on eBay early last year.

My main memories of Pascual Perez are his good pitching in ’83, his being a central figure in the infamous Braves-Padres brawl in ’84, and a wee bit o’ memories of him pitching for the Yankees later on.

Before all that though, Pascual was busy trying to get back to the majors when the summer of 1982 began, and he wasn’t doing very well at it. His 4.82 ERA in AAA Portland wasn’t inspiring the Pirates to bring him back up, and he was on the verge of giving up and heading back to the Dominican Republic.

The Braves scouts saw something in him though, so Atlanta traded for him on June 30th. I suspect the scouts saw something in his delivery that they knew they could fix, ’cause once Pascual was in AAA Richmond, his ERA was whistling along at a slim 1.26. He was simply a better pitcher in almost every category—lowered his BB per 9 IP, lowered his hits per 9, lowered his HR’s per 9 IP, and slightly increased his strikeouts per 9.

A month of that, got him back to the majors fast and pitching for a contender. He had trouble getting a victory for a month even though he was pitching pretty good. His two best starts in his first nine appearances, were no decisions. One time he throws eight shutout innings, for a no decision. Another time, he gives up one run in 9 2/3 innings, for another no decision.

It wasn’t ’til September 10th that he finally got credited with a victory. From that point on though, he was hot. His ERA was gliding along at 2.08, helping him to a 4-0 record.

Then came the Cardinals and the NLCS. Due to game 1 being rained out after Phil Niekro had used up his arm, Pascual got the nod to start the game 1 that would officially count. He held St Louis to one run through the 5th, but then he gave up three straight singles to start the bottom of the sixth. Steve Bedrosian came in for relief but he couldn’t hold the runs back, and three more runs were charged to Pascual.

In all, 1982 was the year Pascual Perez turned his career around. He’d gone from nearly leaving it all, to leaving for Atlanta, and winning a starting job in the pitching staff. He played several more seasons in the majors and finished his career with a respectable 110 ERA+, and a 3.44 FIP.

(If you’re not familiar with FIP, there’s two excellent primers, at Over the Monster and also Big League Stew.)

In the past, Dave wouldn’t have been sat down for a defensive replacement, but this was 1981 and he was clearly not the same Dave Parker that wowed fans two years earlier by throwing out a runner at 3rd and another at the plate, from right field.

No, the 1981 version of Dave Parker showed up to spring training so overweight, that a White Sox announcer called him a baby whale. Even before that though, people were already asking “Whatever Happened to the Pittsburgh Superstar?“, after he’d had a down year in 1980. At the time, he claimed it was due to playing on a bad leg, which might be part of it, but down the road he’d confess he started doing cocaine regularly in 1979 just as his skills began to suddenly fade.

It didn’t help that he got off to a very slow start once the season began, batting just .167 with no walks after 11 games. By the break, he was hitting .286/.303/.476, which still isn’t All-Star materials. Even his WPA (Win Probability Added) was a mere .116 in 34 games, so he wasn’t really helping the Pirates by being in the game.

Despite that, his past feats remained etched in the memories of fans and they voted him into the game. He may not have been the everything they were hoping for, but he was still able to pull off a moment at the plate to help the National League extend its All-Star game win streak.

Willie was a decorated Pirate, who’d been the ’79 NL co-MVP, 7 time all-star, helped give the city of Pittsburgh 2 World titles over Baltimore, modestly embarrassed by his power at times, played great year in year out, and rewarded teammates with stars.

I remember the kids I traded cards with, telling me he was going to be in the Hall of Fame. It was just that obvious to everybody at the time. There was simply no doubt.

There’s so much talk about Stargell’s 1979 season, that people seem to forget that he was great before that too.

Earlier in the decade, he received the Roberto Clemente award, named after his former teammate and lost friend.

As far back as 1964, he was making people stand up and notice him, earning him a trip to the All-Star game.

As if that wasn’t enough, the next season he smacked 2 HR’s off Don Drysdale in his first 2 plate appearances on June 24, in Los Angeles and added another HR later in the game after Drysdale was showering. Don had a career 2.19 ERA in Dodger Stadium.

Even when the team wasn’t able to win, he’d come up with some colorful quotes like “Getting a hit off Koufax is like try to eat soup with a fork”.

In “the year of the pitcher”, 1968, Stargell pulled the Pirates out of a 5 game losing streak with a 3 homer day against in Chicago, driving in 7 runs as the Cubs whole team only scored 6. His fourth hit, bounced back onto the field after hitting the top of the outfield railing. You can’t come any closer to a 4 homer day than that.

The following year, on August 5th, he was the first player to hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium. To date, there’s been 4 HR’s hit out, and Willie launched 2 of them.

When the Pirates opened a new stadium (Three Rivers) on July 16, 1970, Willie was the first Pirate to hit a home run there. It wasn’t just a barely over the wall variety either, he deposited the ball in the upper deck! Even though Pittsburgh lost the game, Stargell’s home run had tied the game.

The next season Willie lead the majors with 48 home runs. He also posted a 185 OPS+, a .398 OBP, drove in 125 RBI’s, scored 104 runs, was worth 8.1 WAR, and led the World Champion Pirates with 131 RC (Runs Created).

In ’72, he made the All-Majors team for the 2nd consecutive season.

Then, in ’73, he managed the first 40 double 40 homer season since 1940. Nobody did it again ’til 1995, meaning Willie was the only one to do it in a 55 year period. He led the league in doubles, HR’s, RBI’s, SLG, OPS, and OPS+.

The next season, he led the league in OPS+ for the 2nd consecutive year.

In spring of ’75, he moved to a new position—first base. Largely due to learning a new position, he spent most of the first half of the season in a slump. He still finished the year with more than 20 HR’s, 90 RBI’s, and a slugging percentage over .500.

From ’76-’78, he averaged only 101 games, 20 HR’s, and 66 RBI’s a year. He was in his late 30′s, what do you expect? With his on-the-field talent slowing down, he became more of a motivator than he had already been. He would give out “stargell stars” to teammtes when they played a great game or made a fantastic play. They nearly made it to the playoffs in ’78 and Stargell said that was the best team he’d ever played on and predicted his Pirates would win the World Series the next season.

That’s when 1979 happened. The “we are family” Pirates, led by “Pops” Stargell, are still the last Pirates team to win a playoff series. If you ever get a chance to watch game 7 of the ’79 series on the MLB Network or somewhere, don’t miss it. Willie launched a pair of home runs, to bring Pittsburgh a championship.

After that, he had a lot of knee trouble the next couple years. Once healthy, he was back in action for a farewell tour in 1982.

Expectations were high when the ’82 season began, but through June 4th, he was only batting .277 with a sorry .333 OBP, and the Pirates were wallowing 10.5 games out of 1st place at 21-28. Things weren’t looking good.

Mad Dog’s season would turn at that point though, and the Pirates season would follow right along (they went 63-50 after June 4th, tied for 3rd best record in the NL over that span).

From June 6th to 26th, Madlock was hot. Really hot. He hit .379 and had a .456 OBP, while scoring 14 runs in 18 games. The Pirates went 9-5 during this stretch, totally turning from a sub-.500 club back into the solid Pirates team that was always a threat to win the division back then.

For the next month after that, Bill struggled again, batting just .282/.314/.436 through July 29. The team kept winning though, going 18-11. Interestingly, the team was winning when Madlock scored at least 1 run, but when Madlock didn’t score…the Pirates weren’t anything special. They went just 8-8 in the games Madlock didn’t score. When he did score though, their record was 10-3. Pittsburgh had a 1-1 record when Madlock wasn’t in the game.

Of course, that’s all kind of subjective since he needed teammates to drive him in, but it shows how integral Bill Madlock was to the Pirates offense in ’82. If he wasn’t in the middle of the action, then the team struggled to get beyond mediocre.

Madlock got hot again on July 30 at Shea Stadium, with the Pirates now just 3 1/2 games out. Bill went 3 for 4, collecting 3 RBI’s, partly due to a 2-run HR in the 5th that put the Pirates ahead 5-1 (you can see the pitch & HR in this video starting at the 11:34 mark). From that night onward, Mad Dog hit .353/.395/.563 with 10 HR’s. His .353 average was tied with Al Oliver for the best in the NL from July 30 onward (150 PA’s). The only player who hit for a higher average during that span was a young future Hall of Famer named Wade Boggs (.354).

The Pirates only gained another 1/2 game on the division lead before drifting out of the race and settling for 4th in a 6 team division. They finished the season going 31-33, despite Madlock’s hot bat. During that stretch, the team was 20-9 when Madlock scored, but just 11-23 when they couldn’t drive him in. They just weren’t the same team. For the season as a whole, Pittsburgh was 48-26 (.648) in games when Madlock scored, but 36-52 (.409) when he didn’t score. Now that’s what I call an interesting split.

Even though Madlock fell short of winning another batting championship, he reached career highs in runs scored (92), runs created (103), HR’s (19), and RBI’s (95). If he hadn’t started off so slow for 2 months, he might’ve captured the NL MVP. The next year, he’d win his final batting crown.

Entering the ’82 season, Lacy averaged 82 games a year and was just utility man or backup player, never playing more than 109 games in a season. He once hit 5 pinch hit HR’s in a season. Despite his non-star status, he’d been fortunate enough to play in 4 World Series between ’74-’79 and being a part of the “We Are Family” Pirates. Even without being a star, he was just the kind of player you wanted on your team, to add depth.

He had a career year in 1980, but in ’81, he fell down with a .268 average and a measly .307 OBP, at the age of 33. It looked like this once solid backup player’s skills were beginning to fade after having a career year.

So nobody expected that in 1982 he’d play 121 games (mostly in RF) and post his 2nd highest OBP of his career (.369)! He was better as a starter than a substitution. When he started a game, he hit .331/.380/.448, but when he sub’d, he was awful— .167/.294/.167. No wonder manager Chuck Tanner penciled Lacy in as a starter for 80 of the 121 games Lacy played in. He didn’t have a lot of power, but he stole a career high 40 bases. I think many a Pirates fan thought— “Are you kidding??”

Delving into his 1982 splits even more, Lacy wasn’t just a good hitter, he was a dangerous hitter. If he came to bat with RISP (Runners In Scoring Position), he got on base 42% of the time. In fact, 35 times he came to plate when there weren’t just RISP but also 2 outs, and he put up a batting line of .333/.385/.500. Which is plain awesome. He proved to be one of the toughest outs in the Pirates lineup.

Amazingly, he was at his best against some of the best teams in the National League. He smacked the Phillies and Dodgers pitching around hard. He batted a combined .418 against them in 26 games. Against the Phillies alone, he had a .500 OBP!! He also hit well against the ’82 World Series Champion Cardinals.

The most unique moment of Lee Lacy’s 1982 season though, came against the Cincinnati Reds on May 14. With 1 out in the bottom of the 8th, the Pirates down by 2 but had Walton on 3rd, Berra on 2nd, and the speedy Moreno on 1st. The Reds brought Tom Hume in from the bullpen to face Lacy, and Lacy made them pay. He smacked a grand slam over the centerfield wall. On the way to 2nd though, Lacy passed Moreno!! So Lacy was officially given a single and called out on his way to second. Still, he drove in 3 runs and the Pirates won 8-7.

After ’82, he played a couple more seasons in Pittsburgh, which included a very good 1984. He signed with Baltimore after that, and played through 1987. For his career, he posted a 107 OPS+, so he was a little above average over the course of his 16 major league seasons.

3 random Lee Lacy facts….

• In the 1977 World Series, he hit .429 while gettin’ on base at a .500 clip.
• Finished 2nd to Tony Gwynn in the 1984 NL Batting race.
• His daughter Jennifer, plays basketball in the WNBA.