Saturday, February 7, 2015
# 630 Richie Hebner
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in the day ballplayer had off season job, Hebner’s was most unusual… Gravedigger….Solid but unspectacular third
baseman…Played 18 season most notably for Pittsburgh…Replaced Maury Wills at 3rd, bringing power....Put in his first 8 years for the Bucs at the hot corner with a strong offensive showing in the 6 years...Had a 11 year stretch as a
regular in the lineup for Pirates, Phillies, Mets, and Tigers spanning 1969 to
1980…Used sparingly afterwards but did return to Pittsburgh in 1982-83…Career .276 average and 203 home runs…hit .270
and had 4 home runs in 100 Abs in post season play….Average fielder at best
once led NL 3rd basemen in errors…His season bests were 25 home runs
and RBIs came 7 years apart, 1973 and 1980 respectively...Handsome chap during playing days.
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Hebner's Favorite Line Was, Can You Dig it. Ha!
ReplyDeleteI did not know that.. I wonder if he used it after seeing the movie Warriors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-OYKd8SVrI
ReplyDeleteSwitched to 1st base upon his arrival in Philly in 1977. After 2 seasons there, he was traded to make room for Pete Rose in 1979.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was about 7 I went to a shopping mall for autographs featuring Hebner and 4 other Pirates. They were all stationed in different stores throughout the mall. I got autographs from Giusti, Blass and Bob Johnson, but we could not get close to Hebner's station. It was chaos. We couldn't even see him because the crowd of girls was so big and they were making so much noise. The 5th was Sanguillen. We couldn't get to him either because the line was very long, but at least it was orderly.
ReplyDeleteI could see Hebner being popular with females, it was all great until they asked what he did in the off season. "Grave digger!" "Oh" then awkward silence.
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