- 1893 - RHP Bill Evans was born in Reidsville, NC. He spent his entire three year MLB stint with the Bucs (1916-17, 1919) as a fringe hurler, going 2-13 with a 3.85 ERA. Evans went into the military and missed most of 1917 and all of 1918. He worked seven games for Pittsburgh in 1919, then spent the next decade toiling in the minors.
- 1894 - 2B James “Cotton” (he sported light blond hair) Tierney was born in Kansas City, KS. He started his pro career in Pittsburgh (1920-23), mainly as a second baseman but also playing the outfield and hot corner. He hit .315 for the Bucs and was the main piece in the 1923 trade for P Lee Meadows. Cotton was remembered when in 2005, his great-great-nephew Jeff Euston created the popular website Cot's Baseball Contracts, named after his MLB ancestor.
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| Cotton in 1921 (photo by Bob Dorman) |
- 1920 - The spitball, shineball, and emeryball were outlawed by the AL/NL Joint Rules Committee. Seventeen pitchers, including off-and-on Pirate Burleigh Grimes, were grandfathered so they could continue to toss a wet one. Grimes, who finished his career in 1934 with Pittsburgh, was the last man to legally throw a spitter.
- 1971 - The Pirates made one of their better deals when they sent minor league lefty Danilo Rivas to the Mexico City Reds for LHP Ramon Hernandez. The southpaw was a bullpen anchor from 1971-76, going 23-12-39 with a 2.51 ERA before being sold to the Red Sox in 1976. It was a homecoming; the Pirates had originally signed Hernandez as an 18 year old out of Ponce De Leon, Puerto Rico, in 1959.
- 1975 - 3B Judy Johnson was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Negro League Committee. Playing in the 1920s and 1930s, Johnson was a defensive whiz who batted .309 over a 17 year career, including stops at the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords. He was inducted on August 18th. His nickname came from his first Negro league club, the Hilldale Daisies, because he resembled Chicago American Giants’ player Judy Gans.
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| Judy Johnson (via Negro Leagues Museum) |
- 1954 - LHP Larry McWilliams was born in Wichita, Kansas. The sixth overall pick of the 1974 draft by the Braves, he worked for the Pirates from 1982-86. Larry had three strong years as a starter, then faded and was shipped back to his original club, the Braves. His line with the Bucs was 43-44-2 with a 3.86 ERA.
- 1988 - RHP Jeanmar Gomez was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He went 5-2-1 with a 3.28 ERA in 78 outings for Pittsburgh from 2013-14 after coming over from the Indians. Gomez became a free agent in the 2014 off season and signed with the Phillies.
- 2001 - C Jason Kendall was honored as the Dapper Dan 2000 Sportsman of the Year. He made rehabbed a gruesome ankle injury and came back to hit .320, score 112 runs and steal 22 bases, then made long-term commitment to the Pirates by signing a six-year contract extension. He was the first Pirate to win the award since Jim Leyland in 1990.
Hey, Ron, do I understand you to mean that the Pirates actually made a trade with the Mexico City Reds in 1971? Does MLB still allow direct deals like this one between major league organizations and Mexican League teams? Very interesting if so, and I wonder why more teams don't look in the Mexican League for players? IIRC, the Pirates got Enrique Romo from the ML and I remember the Dodgers signing (or trading for?) his older brother Vicente. Otherwise there don't seem to have been a whole lot of ML players in major league ball, at least not in recent years.
ReplyDeleteGood observation, Will. The ML holds the rights to their players, and I think historically more had their rights sold to MLB than were traded for. Here's a link that explains the situation in a bit more depth: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/1077415/
ReplyDeleteYou're right on top of things as always, Ron! Many thanks!
ReplyDeleteBTW, you mentioned Jason Kendall. That's a guy I really thought had an outside shot at Cooperstown with the way he played the first few years of his career. I never cared for his "welcome to he**" comment in spring training, particularly when he was making $10 million a year at the time, but he was very good his first few seasons. I didn't realize he made such an effective comeback from the ankle injury, and that it was after that that his hitting, especially his power, dried up. I think what really did him in, then, was not as much the ankle but rather a later, and very serious, hand injury. I don't recall all the details, but while he had a long and respectable career, he was a shadow of himself.
ReplyDeleteCould be, Will; I don't recall one, but he got hit a quadzillion times, so I'm sure he caught a couple in the paw. I don't believe he ever wore a batting glove (tho he did don an elbow pad, as all ball magnets do). I think a torn rotator cuff is what finished his career.
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