Pirates great Rennie Stennett dies at age 72

May 18—Rennie Stennett, who made baseball history twice by his mere presence in the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup as a rookie and later with seven hits in all seven at-bats in a game, died Tuesday morning in Coconut Creek, Fla., after a battle with cancer. He was 72.

Born in Panama, Stennett first joined the Pirates in the middle of their 1971 World Series championship season (his first of two titles with the club), batted a career-high .353 in 50 games and was part of the first all-minority starting lineup in major-league history Sept. 1 at Three Rivers Stadium. He was the leadoff hitter in a 10-7 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies in a batting order that included Gene Clines, Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell, Manny Sanguillen, Dave Cash, Al Oliver, Jackie Hernandez and Dock Ellis.

Stennett played 11 seasons in the big leagues, finishing with a .274 batting average and 1,239 hits. He joined Sanguillen, a fellow Panamanian, as two of the best bad-ball hitters of their time.

"I don't think they went to any kind of hitting instruction," said outfielder Matt Alexander, a teammate on the 1979 World Series championship team. "They took it up on their own. See the ball, hit the ball. If you threw it up close to the plate, they'll swing."

Stennett's ability to find holes in the defense was never more pronounced than on Sept. 16, 1975, against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.

He hit safety in all seven of his at-bats, a major-league record that stands today. He recorded hits off both Reuschel brothers, Rick and Paul, and ended up with four singles, two doubles and a triple. He had two hits each in the first and fifth innings on the way to the most one-sided shutout in the majors in 75 years, 22-0.

Before Stennett, 43 players had gone six for six in a game, including Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Paul Waner.

Former Pirates pitcher Jim Rooker was in the dugout that day when manager Danny Murtaugh sent in Willie Randolph to pinch-run for Stennett after he tripled in the eighth inning.

Murtaugh said later he didn't want to remove Stennett until he made an out, but he never figured he might bat in the ninth. He almost did.

Stennett's place in the order was on deck in the ninth with two outs, causing Murtaugh to breath a sigh of relief when relief pitcher Ken Brett ended the inning with a flyout to left field.

"If (Brett) had gotten a base hit, Rennie would have had a chance to go eight for eight," Rooker said. "Murtaugh just kind shook his head. If you ever wanted your team to make an out ... Murtaugh was so thankful. He wiped his brow on that one."

Stennett, actually, kept hitting, getting two more hits in his first two at-bats the next day in Philadelphia.

He also was gifted in the field, Rooker said. "If you ever think about a guy who thought ahead just in case the ball was hit to (him)," Rooker said. "He was always prepared, moreso than any other guy I ever played with."

Rooker remembers another day in Wrigley Field where Stennett, playing second base, fielded a single in shallow right field between first and second and threw to third, nailing a runner who was at first and had a head-start on a hit-and-run play.

"Without even looking, he turned around and threw the ball to third on one hop and the guy didn't even slide because he was out by so far," Rooker said. "The look on his face was better than anything else: 'Who threw this ball? How did this ball get here?' I just shook my head and I laughed."

Rooker remembers Stennett as a fierce competitor who hated to strike out. Indeed, Stennett went to the plate 4,810 times in his career, with only 348 strikeouts. He hit the ball squarely amost 93% of the time.

"Rennie was an intense guy. You'd never know that about him, but he was," Rooker said. "He'd get so mad at these guys today because of the strikeouts. He told me, 'I was embarrassed when I struck out.' "

Stennett was hitting .336 in 1977 — one of two seasons in which he received MVP votes — when he suffered a severe dislocation of his right ankle in August while sliding into second base at Three Rivers Stadium. After that, he played four more seasons, but never hit more than .244.

"If he hadn't got hurt, he was headed to the Hall of Fame," teammate Lee Lacy said.

Former Pirates pitcher Don Robinson had the chance to see another side of Stennett when both men were in the hospital following surgeries.

Then a Double-A pitcher, Robinson was having surgery on his elbow when he was summoned to Stennett's private room. Stennett had his surgery the previous day.

"One of the nurses came down and said there was a man who wanted to meet me," Robinson said. "They wheeled me up and it was Rennie Stennett. I had never met Rennie Stennett before in my life.

"He said, 'C'mon in,' and they had all this food and he said, "Listen, eat whatever you want. I just want to introduce myself. I'm Rennie Stennett.'

"I know you are," Robinson responded, "but I don't know that you know who I am. I couldn't believe he wanted to meet me. I'll never forget what he did for me in 1977."

Pirates manager Derek Shelton said Tuesday he received a text message from Stennett this year in which the former Pirates player praised the direction in which the team was headed. Shelton declined to reveal details of the private message, but he said, "Any time you get a guy (who) has seven hits in a regular-season game and was a big part of two World Series, and he talks about the direction the Pirates are going in a positive way, it was impactful to me.

"That message never will be deleted. It will stay with me."

Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry by email at jdipaola@triblive.com or via Twitter .