About This File
Here is the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates team portraits set. The 1971 Pirates dominated the National League. They beat the NL West Champs SF Giants in 4 games and then beat the Baltimore Orioles in 7 games. One of the key players in 1971 was Willie Stargell who led the NL in HR's with 48, had 125 RBI's and batted 295 besides. He also led with SO's with 154. Steve Blass, Dock Ellis, and Dave Giusti were leaders on the mound. Although Ellis had 19 wins, he didn't win the big one. He got the loss in the 71 All Star Game and was the victim of Reggie Jackson's moonshot that hit a light transformer on the roof of Tiger Stadium (and it was still rising), he pitched mediocre against the Giants in the NLCS and lost the 1st game of the World Series in Baltimore. Danny Murtaugh didn't use him during the rest of the Series. Roberto Clemente won the Most Valuable Player of the World Series, but I differ with the ones who proclaimed him the winner of the award. I'm NOT discriminating against him but Steve Blass should have gotten it instead. As Casey Stengel said, "...just look it up!" He stopped the Orioles "steamroller" cold! The Orioles won 11 in a row at the end of the season, beat the A's 3 straight in the ALCS and the Pirates in the 1st 2 games in Baltimore with 16 runs to 6. In Blass's 1st start in Game 3, he gave up 1 run on 3 hits and struck out 8. That 1 run was a solo HR by Frank Robinson. In game 7, Blass gave up 1 run on 4 hits and struck out 5. That's dominating pitching! Clemente had a high average but he only went 1-4 in game 7. He went 4-9 in the 1st 2 games that the Bucs lost. Don Buford, Brooks Robinson, and Elrod Hendricks had a .300 average or higher in the losing cause. Clemente had a HR and a triple off Jim Palmer in Game 6 but they lost 3-2 in extra innings. Amos Otis had a higher average (I think.) in the 80 World Series against the Phillies but the Royals lost in only 6 games. In the 1st inning of Game 4, the Orioles scored 3 off of Luke Walker, then they brought in Bruce Kison and from then on through Game 7 the O's only scored 4 runs and 3 of those were in the 6th game. The baseball saying, "good pitching stops good hitting" was VERY apparent during the 1971 World Series.
Thanks,
BRobby05
