Wednesday, March 25, 2015

3/25: Bucs Bring In Jay Bell, Vanimal; Maz Hurt in Camp; Lee Mazzilli's B-Day

  • 1955 - OF Lee Mazzilli was born in New York City. Mazzilli spent four of his 14 seasons as a Pirate, playing fairly regularly for his first two years (1983-’86) and hitting .244 overall. In 1986, the Mets were thought to have offered Ray Knight (who was nearing the end of his career) for Mazzilli, but the Pirates turned them down. Instead, they released him in July when he was hitting just .226, and he re-signed with NY for free. 
  • 1965 - Camp isn’t all fun and games. Bill Mazeroski broke a bone in his right foot and was out of the Bucco lineup until May. He came back to hit .271 and earned another Golden Glove for his trophy case. It was the only time between 1964-67 that he didn’t appear in every game, and Maz played in 130 contests after his foot healed. 
Billy Maz 1961 Topps series
  • 1989 - The Pirates sent SS Felix Fermin and UT Denny Gonzalez to the Indians for SS Jay Bell to complete a PTBNL deal from November 28th, 1988. Bell manned the SS spot for eight years and earned an All-Star berth in 1993 for the Bucs. He returned to the team in 2013 as their batting coach before moving on to the Reds. 
  • 2014 - RHP Vance Worley was purchased from the Minnesota Twins. After going 1-5 with a 7.21 ERA in 2013, Vanimal started out at Indianapolis, and after tinkering with his arm angle, he was called up to start on June 15th to replace injured Francisco Liriano. He finished the campaign with an 8-4 record and 2.85 ERA and is carrying his success over with a strong spring campaign.
Vance Worley 2015 Topps series

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