Bill James on the 1980 Pirates

An embarrassing miscalculation

Bill James on the 1980 Pirates

Here’s another blast from the past for you, straight from Esquire magazine:

From This Time Let’s Not Eat The Bones, page 59

James was right —but, at the same time, he was wrong. Oh, how wrong he was.

You probably don’t need me to tell you much about how good the Pirates were from 1969 to 1979. One look at this will tell you all you need to know:

The Pirates hit well. they pitched well. They played good defense. They won two World Series in this period, were in the division race just about every season, and might have won more had they not lost the NLCS 3 times.

The 1973 Pirates are kind of an optical illusion, of course. That was the year the Mets won the division when nobody else seemed to want it. The Pirates were in first place as late as September 20 — and they had an even 75-75 record on that day, an ignominious .500 first place team.

Most experienced replayers will tell you that the 1969 Pirates usually beat out the Mets for the division title, regardless of which game you play. I’m not sure that the 1976 Pirates would ever catch the Phillies, but the 1977 and 1978 Pirates certainly have a chance at doing it.

In other words, James was right.

But, man, was he wrong.

The problem, of course, was that the team was old. The 1979 Pirates weren’t just family. They were an elderly family:

And, unfortunately for Pittsburgh, they just didn’t get any younger in 1980:

It would be inaccurate to say that Stargell was eating up too many at bats. The problem is that the replacement first basemen were all old: Bill Robinson, Manny Sanguillen, and the “youngest” a 30 year old John Milner. Stargell was the best hitter of the lot, which really isn’t flattering.

The Pirates finished in 3rd place in 1980, though that’s a bit deceiving. They drew 1.6 million fans and were in 1st for most of the season, finally being kicked out of the top spot for good on August 31st.

We’ll skip 1981, which was the strike year. By 1982, though, things started to fall apart. The team was thankfully a bit younger:

But, of course, the team seemed allergic to first place, hovering around 4th and 5th for most of the season. They drew just over 1,000,000 fans, but were pretty lousy.

By 1985, the Pirates were in dead last, drew barely 700,000 fans, and newspapers were reporting on how the Cardinals’ minor league team in Louisville drew more fans.

James was kind of right. The 1979 Pirates had power and speed; they had starters and a bullpen. They also had experience.

But they certainly didn’t have youth. And it showed.