Former Major Leaguer and seven-time All-Star Al Oliver came and spoke to the Maysville Rotary Club on Tuesday.
After growing up in Portsmouth, Ohio, Oliver was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates where he played his first 10 seasons before going on to play with Texas, Montreal, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto. Oliver was second in Rookie of the Year voting in 1969 and helped the Pirates win the World Series in 1971. On top of seven All-Star selections, Oliver won three Silver Slugger awards.
Oliver is now a licensed minister and a keynote speaker. He owns Al Oliver Enterprises Inc. and released his second book in 2014, “Life is a Hit, Don’t Strike Out”.
Oliver has ties to the area as his mother grew up in Maysville.
“I remember Sunday’s at least once a month Dad would bring us to Maysville on Sunday’s after church. We’d go to my grandmother’s house, she lived on 4th Street at the time and of course we had the same meal every time we came. Chicken and macaroni and cheese,” Oliver said. “I really don’t want to see any macaroni and cheese no more.”
On Tuesday, Oliver hit on many topics such as his playing days, his faith and message he spreads when he speaks at events.
Oliver reminisced when he was with the Pirates and played the Reds. The Big Red Machine had the Pirates number in the 70’s, knocking them out of the playoffs in 1970, ’72 and ’75.
“At least give the Pittsburgh Pirates an assist,” Oliver said jokingly.
Oliver got to play with Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente in the Pirates outfield.
“When I transitioned from first base to centerfield I had this philosophy as a center fielder. I had Stargell playing left field, any ball that was hit to left center field, I said, ‘Starg, it’s yours.’ Any ball that was hit to right center field, I said, ‘Berto, you take it.’ So, I’m the one who’s responsible for those two guys being in baseball’s Hall of Fame,” Oliver said.
Another time came when the Pirates came to Cincinnati taking on the Reds at Riverfront and the Pirates were bitter and tired of losing to the Big Red Machine. Dock Ellis took to the mound to pitch for the Pirates. Ellis, already with a wild reputation of having rumored to pitch a no-hitter while on LSD, told his team he was going to hit the first four Reds batters of the game.
“Dock said, ‘I’m tired of these Reds beating us in the playoffs.’ So Dock said he’s going to throw at the first four hitters. Dock hits Pete Rose. Bam, waste of time, you can’t hurt Pete Rose. The ball rolls from here to you, Pete sprinted over there, got the ball, flipped it to Dock, went to first, that’s Pete. Morgan comes up, bam. Joe had this wing flip, Joe always had this game face on. Joe’s theory was I know Dock is not going to hit no brother. Well…he didn’t know Dock Ellis. He drills Joe. Johnny Bench, beams Johnny. And then he misses Tony Perez and Tony’s at home plate and Tony doesn’t know what’s going on. So Danny Murtaugh comes out of the dugout and I walk to the mound to see what the skipper had to say. So he says, ‘Dock it looks like you don’t have your good control tonight.’ So Dock stops, the crowd is just mumbling, Dock was sending a message. Most people thought Dock was crazy so they didn’t charge the mound. But both benches emptied, everybody is standing around looking at each other, talking about where we want to eat tonight, we didn’t want to fight. The crowd wants us to fight so what happened was Ed Kirkpatrick, our third string catcher accidentally steps on Sparky Anderson’s foot. Someone steps on your foot with some spikes and it breaks loose. Fights all over the infield and the fight went on for 15 minutes. Pedro Borbon bites one of our relief pitchers, Daryl Patterson and we had to take him into the clubhouse and get a tetanus shot. These are the things that happen back in the day,” Oliver said.
Quite a bit of a change from modern day.
Oliver also hit on his philosophies of race and other topics.
“I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, where you worship, it doesn’t matter. We all are human beings, we all come in the same way, we all are going to leave here the same way and as soon as we realize that, the better off we’ll be,” Oliver said. “I’ve never felt inferior to no one. I’ve never felt superior to no one. But I always thought I was just as good as a person as anyone. That has carried on all these years and that’s why I like to bring this message because some people might struggle with that.”
Oliver fielded questions at the end of message that included what youths should do to be more involved in the community with limited options and he suggested mentoring programs. He was also asked who his toughest pitchers he faced when playing and he named Woodie Fryman and Steve Carlton.
He closed with suggesting our nation’s leaders need prayer as we are a divided country and need prayer for our leadership.
“Through God all things are possible. He is the one who made Heaven and Earth and we need to pray to God for leadership that they will look to him. He is our true leader regardless of what our faith is. He is the one who will guide us in the path in which we should go. Only thing we have to do as a country is follow his path and we’ll be fine,” Oliver said.
