Pittsburgh Baseball 4/24

The Dutchman, the Rebels, the Gashouse Gang and a scary liner...

• 1903 - Honus Wagner was having a bad day in the field, booting three balls that helped the Cardinals head into the ninth with a 7-6 lead at Exposition Park. But his bat helped erase the deficit. He tripled in the ninth and scored the tying run on a Kitty Bransfield single. Then with two away in the eleventh, the Flying Dutchman walked, stole second and came around with the game winner on another Bransfield knock. Wagner collected four hits including two triples‚ two runs, four RBI‚ and three stolen bases.
• 1915 - Pittsburgh Rebel southpaw Frank Allen tossed a 2-0 no-hitter against the St. Louis Terriers at Handlan Park in the last year of the Federal League, the short-lived (1913-15) major league “outlaw” option to the National and American leagues. Allen went on to toss a couple more seasons for the NL Boston Braves. The league was absorbed by the NL & AL , and a suit the FL filed eventually led to the key ruling that baseball was exempt from anti-trust laws.
• 1934 - The Bucs defeated the Gashouse Gang from St. Louis 5-4 in dramatic fashion at Forbes Field. Behind 4-2 going into the ninth, Freddie Lindstrom dropped a ball over the LF wall with two aboard, and his walk-off homer gave the Pirates the win over the eventual NL champs.
• 2010 - Chris Jakubauskas, in the first inning of his first appearance of the year, was struck in the head by a liner off the bat of Houston's Lance Berkman. The 31-year old right-hander left the field on a stretcher, but was later diagnosed with just a concussion and not a fracture as first feared. Jaku wouldn’t pitch for the Bucs any more that year, but tossed for Baltimore the following season. The Pirates lost the game 5-2.