Sugar Bean, Formerly Gentle Ben

Everyone in baseball knows the main reason why the Pittsburgh Pirates are leading the National League's Eastern Division. Leftfielder Wilver Dornel Stargell is leading everyone in baseball in home runs and runs batted in. But why, exactly, is the lefthanded slugger hitting so well this season? Some say it's because the rightfield power alley in Pittsburgh's new Three Rivers Stadium is 23 ft. shorter than it was in Forbes Field, the Pirates' old home. Others explain that Willie is using a new bludgeon of a bat that is four ounces heavier and two inches longer than his old model. Stargell, 30, has a simpler theory: "It could just be me coming into my own."

It is also true that the Pirates are coming into their own as a team. Their pitching is clicking--particularly Righthanders Dock Ellis and Steve Blass, who have accounted for 25 wins against only seven losses this season. Pirate hitting is positively awesome; no fewer than five starters--Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Manny Sanguillen, Dave Cash and Richie Hebner--are batting over .300. As a result, the Pirates are leading the league in games won (64), runs scored (502), hits (981), home runs (104), runs batted in (473) and hitting (.282). For all their joint heroics, though, the Bucs ascribe their strong showing this season to the team's natural leader. "If Stargell hits," explains Dave Cash, "we win. It's as simple as that."

Streak Hitter. This April Willie hit .347 and clouted eleven homers to set a new record for the first month of the season. He also capped the month of June against the Philadelphia Phillies with his 28th homer to set yet another record for the first three months of the season. Now, with 32 home runs and 89 runs batted in, he is well on his way to his best season ever. Even so, Willie refuses to be overly confident--and for good reason.

Since he joined the Pirates nine years ago, he has always hit what he likes to call "long taters"--a 512-ft. shot over the bleachers in the Los Angeles Dodger Stadium, a 542-ft. blast over the right-centerfield wall in Forbes Field. Trouble is, Willie has never been able to sustain his slugging over an entire season. Periodically slowed by bad knees, both of which have been operated on for bone chips, he is one of the league's most notorious streak hitters. Five years ago, for example, he set some kind of hot-cold record by collecting nine straight hits on one occasion--and striking out seven times in a row on another. "When I'm hitting," he says, "it doesn't matter who's pitching. When I'm not, my four-year-old son can get me out."

Four-Mile Hikes. Stargell's new eminence as the league's most dangerous power hitter has caused other Pirates to stop calling their amiable 6-ft. 21-in. cleanup batter "Gentle Ben." Now, in mock reference to the tiny TV-cartoon cereal pitchman, he is known as "Sugar Bear." Fact is, during past winter hibernations, Stargell would balloon up to 245 lbs. and then have to spend spring training "exercising instead of batting." This winter he combined a strict diet with four-mile hikes through the Penn Hills section of Pittsburgh, where he lives. As a result, he is down to a hard 215 lbs., compared with 235 lbs. at this time last season.

Apart from winning the pennant and driving in runs, the only other thing Willie has to concern himself with these days is that familiar symbol of the affluent athlete: an off-the-diamond business. Before the season, his fried chicken takeout restaurant in Pittsburgh's predominantly black Hill District announced that they would give away free chicken every time Willie hit a home run. As one happy fan explains: "The thinner Sugar Bear gets, the fatter I get."

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