[LansdowneSt]

When the calendar flipped to July in 1979, manager Chuck Tanner declared that, nearly halfway through the season, he believed the Pirates had the National League’s most valuable player on their roster. Tanner wasn’t talking about Dave Parker or Willie Stargell or Bill Robinson. No, the manager meant Tim Foli, the fiery shortstop who only three months earlier was stuck in New York, wondering whether his playing career was over.

By modern metrics, Foli’s numbers in 1979 were nothing special. Below average, actually. But he fit the Pirates’ need for a No. 2 hitter between Omar Moreno and Parker. “I felt like I finally got to play on a team where the things I did — catch the ball, throw it across the infield, turn double plays and set up Parker and Stargell for RBIs — mattered,” Foli recalled. Until that season, Foli underachieved. He had promise and an unquenchable temper. “I was a hothead,” Foli said. “It (cooled) some over time, but not enough. Now I’d do it differently. I was a hothead. I did things I probably shouldn’t have.” Kent Tekulve, the former Pirates closer, offered this interpretation. “He wasn’t really a hothead,” he said, laughing. “He was overly emotional.”

Foli’s baseball days are in the rearview mirror, but when he looks back, he’s proud. He was a hothead. He was never worth the No. 1 pick. But he played his part. And for the 1979 Pirates, that’s exactly what was needed.

“Not everybody can be a star,” Foli said. - a great article in The Athletic

I lived in Pittsburgh a young boy for a single year - 1979. I used to listen to the Red Sox on an AM radio but caught a bit of "We Are Family" fever so all the '79 Pirates are favorites of mine. A confession on this one. I found a great photo of him with Montreal. Crisp from the Topps vault, I think, and just a few shadows to fix. I did it up and then I was staring at it. Something was off. Ugh! How could I forget the mustache! So, I did a first for me. I cut the mustache off his Rangers pic and sized it atop his cleaned-up Montreal photo. So, not a cheat per se - after all it IS his mustache... Anyway, I am showing the fg next to photos of him with said actual mustache. Looks enough like what I remember him looking like in '79 for me.