Willie Stargell's 1979 Season Ended With 3 (!) MVPs... & a World Series Title

Talk about accumulating a lot of hardware in one year, right?

May 21, 2025

Willie Stargell’s 1979 campaign was something that had never been seen before in baseball history. Let’s get to the details!

Willie Stargell’s Triple-MVP Season

Willie Stargell accomplished quite a bit during a Hall of Fame career. He spent all 21 of his big-league seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and his 475 home runs are the most in franchise history.

Before the 1979 season started, one of the few things missing from his resume was an MVP Award. It’s not that he didn’t come close, though — from 1962-78, Stargell finished within the top 20 of NL MVP voting nine times. This included six top-10 finishes. He even finished second, third, and second in three straight seasons (1971-73).

But things changed in a big way during his age-39 campaign. He was named Co-NL MVP with Keith Hernandez after hitting .281/.352/.552 with 32 home runs and 82 RBI in 460 plate appearances.

The Pirates went on to win the World Series, and they couldn’t have gotten it done without Stargell. He won NLCS MVP honors after posting a 1.753 OPS in 14 plate appearances. That was followed by taking home World Series MVP honors after posting a 1.208 OPS in 32 plate appearances.

Home Runs to Enjoy (All From the ‘79 Postseason)

10/2/1979: This home run helped the Pirates get a lead in the 11th inning of NLCS Game 1.

10/10/1979: Stargell gets the Pirates within a run of the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 with this dinger.

10/17/1979: Facing a winner-take-all Game 7 in the World Series, Stargell slugged a go-ahead homer to help power Pittsburgh toward a title.

Willie Stargell Blog Spotlight

Stargell is the Pirates’ all-time home run leader with 475 taters. His place on the leaderboard is safe for a while — Ralph Kiner is in a distant second with 301 homers. The closest active player is Andrew McCutchen, who has hit 238 homers as a Pirate (at the moment I’m writing this).

While Kiner has the single-season home run leaderboard covered quite well, Stargell found a way to get himself on there. The Hall of Famer drove in a career-high 125 RBI during the 1971 season, which is still the fifth-highest single-season total in franchise history.

As we can tell from his postseason hardware, October was a good time of the year for Stargell, too. His seven playoff home runs are currently the most ever by a Pirate.

P.S. I’ve compiled some of my best blog posts into a book for a comprehensive look at each MLB team’s single-season home run leaderboard at each position. You can buy the ebook on Gumroad (or get it for free as a paid subscriber) and the paperback book on Amazon.

Single-Season HR Performances | Career HR Performances | Postseason HR Leaders | HR Derby Performances

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