Fresh out of Encinal High School and Santa Rosa Junior College, Willie Stargell declared he was "reportedly under the danger of being released even before I'd played in a regular season game. Apparently some people in the Pirate organization felt that I hadn't matured enough physically to handle the strain of minor-league ball."
A spectacular career later, Stargell was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
With spring training beginning in Arizona and Florida, we can look back to May 13, 1980, when a civic tribute in the form of a parade and a field dedication in Stargell's honor started at Washington Park, where he had begun his climb and sometimes arduous semi-uniformed start on a "real" field.
Stargell was in the lead car of a 38-unit parade that moved down Central Avenue to Webster Street, then west down Lincoln Avenue to Third Street onto the Encinal High School campus, where the ceremonies were held before a large and enchanted gathering.
After Stargell's sensational 1979 World Series performance when his home run won it for the Pirates over Baltimore, Encinal High athletic director J. Paul Foster suggested a tribute and that the sports facility at the school be named in honor of the ex-Jet.
Originally it was planned as a "friendly little affair with Willie coming by, meeting some old friends" and being honored. It turned out to be a major civic event, one that did both the city and Stargell proud.
Wilver Dornel Stargell, known in the baseball world as "Pops" of the "We Are Family" Pirates, had come a long way since he was born at 11:27 a.m. March 7, 1941 (some sources give his birth date as March 6, 1940), on "a cold, windy day" just outside Earlsboro, Okla., in the home of his grandfather, Wil Stargell. He was, as he wrote with Tom Bird in his book "Willie Stargell: An Autobiography," "a hefty eight pounds."
Stargell wrote that he was raised in both a "Negro and Seminole Indian environment" His great grandparents had arrived at a Seminole reservation sometime in the mid-1840s. His great-grandfather had been a slave, his great-grandmother a Seminole. They had a daughter, Nora, who married his grandfather and they gave birth to four boys, one of them William, who was to become Willie's father.
The name Wilver is a combination of his father's first name and his mother, Gladys', middle name--Vernell.
Later his father left his mother, which, Willie wrote, was a "Seminole custom prevalent in the war years a century before."
When his mother remarried, another one that was doomed to divorce, her new husband moved to the East Bay to work in the shipyards.
Fast forward to a few days before Christmas -- a long train trip ended when Stargell arrived in Alameda where, he wrote, "I instantly felt at home." His mother's then dear friend (and future husband) Percy Russell was here, and Percy and Gladys Russell rode in the lead car at the gala homecoming parade.
A student at Washington School, Stargell was living and playing baseball in the housing projects that had been built for World War II. And, from there, Stargell went to Encinal High School followed by his illustrious professional career.
All of these segments and phases of his Alameda life were represented in the parade and dedication.
After the welcome at Washington Park, the parade, which stressed the youth of the city, was led by the U.S. Coast Guard color guard, drill team and marching band. Thousands flocked the streets as the parade moved its course with Willie and his mother and stepfather swamped by people trying to get his attention. Then came the Encinal High varsity and junior varsity baseball teams in uniforms, Alameda Mayor Chuck Corica, Mrs. Elaine Kurlinski, president of the school board, and superintendent Clarence Kline next.
Sponsors of the event, the Encinal High School Boosters Club, were represented by co-chairmen Nick Cabral and Paul Kapler and Beverly Saunders, president of the club. Two of Stargell's classmates, Barbara Elmore and the Rev. Ronald Swisher, also were members of the committee.
The official city car included Amy Stone, vice-mayor; Anne Diament, Rich Sherratt and Charles Tillman of the city council along with Brian McDonald, representing Assemblyman Elihu Harris.
Encinal High principals -- past and present -- Lowell Mell, Grant Branders and Frank Hanna, were in a car. Then there was a vehicle driven by Oakland Raider Raymond Chester that included D. Grant Mainland, head Alameda Recreation and Park Department, athletic director Foster and Larry Patton, chairman of the Willie Stargell Day planned for Candlestick Park on July 26.
The two student body presidents, Edna Washington, then an Oakland School department principal who was EHS student body president in 1958, and Steve Nelson, the 1980 president, were there. Coach George Read and Bob Zuk, the scout who signed Stargell for Pittsburgh, also were in a car. Marching bands from both Encinal and Alameda High School took part as did the Encinal High ROTC drill team, representatives of the Encinal tennis team, championship girls softball team, swimming, badminton and football squads. There were 21 Babe Ruth baseball teams lined up in order along with the park league teams and representatives of the Boys Club, Girls Club, Alameda High varsity and junior varsity baseball teams.
Then there were representatives of the Alameda Athletic Association, the City Special Olympics, and the Washington, Haight and Lincoln school spirit groups. Franklin, Longfellow, Chipman and Woodstock schools also were represented.
He was fresh from winning the World Series ... the MVP, no less. But in his book, Stargell wrote, "Never had I had so many friends and so much fun as I did in the projects." And never, when interviewed, did he fail to recall his Alameda background. He never forgot.
We'll have more next time of those early days and the trials and tribulations encountered by racism during his early career, recollections of his childhood friends and future major leaguers Tommy Harper and Curtell Motton, of coach George Read and of the reasons a statue now stands in his honor at the new Pittsburgh Pirates field.
