- 1927 - Hall of Famer OF Kiki Cuyler was traded to the Chicago Cubs for journeymen Sparky Adams and Pete Scott. He had bumped heads with manager Donie Bush, and owner Barney Dreyfuss was looking to dump salary with the Waner brothers on the payroll, so it was bye-bye Kiki. Cuyler played twelve more seasons, hitting .300+ in six of them. Per Wikipedia, two explanations have been given for Cuyler's nickname of "Kiki". In the first version, he was known as "Cuy" by his teammates, so when a fly ball was hit to the Nashville outfield, the shortstop would call out "Cuy" as would the second baseman. Their “Cuy - Cuy” caught on with Nashville's fans. In the second explanation, the moniker came from the player's stuttering problem and the way Cuyler said his own last name (Cuy-Cuy-ler). Either way, "Kiki" is credited to Nashville announcer Bob Murray.
- 1949 - OF Dave Augustine was born in Follansbee, West Virginia. His MLB career lasted from 1973-74, getting 29 at bats with the Bucs and hitting .207. He’s best known for the “ball on the wall” against the Mets. In the heat of a late September pennant race in 1973, he hit a ball at Shea in the 13th inning that appeared ticketed to be a homer. Instead, it landed on the top of the wall and bounced back into play. Richie Zisk was thrown out at home, the Pirates lost the contest, and the Mets eventually took the NL crown by 2-½ games over the Bucs. That was the closest Augustine came to a major league dinger.
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| Dave Augustine and Junior had something in common - 1974 Topps |
- 1958 - The sale of Forbes Field to University of Pittsburgh was approved; the Pirates were allowed to stay on for five years, until new Northside stadium was built. In reality, the Pirates stayed on not for five but for twelve years, until TRS opened in 1970. The stadium was a political hot potato for a decade, until ground was broken finally in 1968. The Bucs lost a proposed open center field view of town from TRS when the Steelers vetoed that design in search of more seats; the Pirates made up for that lost scenery when PNC Park was built.
- 1962 - The Pirates traded 3B Don Hoak, 34, to the Philadelphia Phillies for IF Pancho Herrera and OF Ted Savage. It ended up a minor deal; The Tiger was at the end of his career while Herrera and Savage never established themselves as regulars in MLB. Hoak got his nickname from Bob Prince for his relentless, hard-nosed play augmented by his background as an ex-Marine and boxer.
- 1966 - The Bucs completed a deal that sent knuckleballer Wilbur Wood to the White Sox for Juan Pizarro. Under Hoyt Wilhelm's tutelage, Wood pitched twelve seasons for Chicago and won 168 games with three All-Star appearances. His career was cut short in 1976 when Ron LeFlore’s liner broke his kneecap; Wood missed that campaign and was generally ineffective afterward. Pizarro pitched a season and some change in Pittsburgh before being sold to Boston in 1968; he would return in late 1974, ending his 18 year career as a Pirate.
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| Wilbur Wood (Pirates promo picture) |
- 1967 - In a reliever swap, Pittsburgh dealt Dennis Ribant to the Detroit Tigers for Dave Wickersham. Both were near the end of their careers and while they had solid 1968 campaigns, they were out of the MLB following the 1969 season.
I had forgotten that Wilbur Wood, like Tim Wakefield, was Pirate property once upon a time. That makes TWO really good knuckleballers that our knucklehead organization gave up on. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the turn of phrase!) Seriously, though, that's nearly 400 major league wins the Pirates gave away for basically nothing. I know you don't like knuckleballers, Ron, but holy smokes. You'd think the Pirates would have learned after Wood left town, but they did the same thing with Wakefield. It's funny, though. Some big league organizations have ingrained organizational cultures, and there have always been managers and front offices that never liked knuckleballers no matter what. 'Twould seem the Pirates are in that category, for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't a pure knuckleball guy in Pittsburgh, Will. When he got to Chicago, Hoyt Wilhelm turned it into his full-time pitch. The CWS put him in the pen for four seasons where he was excellent before converting him to a starter. Wood did have one really good five-year run when he won 106 games, tho his ERA went up each season. Knuckleball guys are notoriously erratic in performance and my guess is the Pirates didn't have anyone to coach him up; Wood had Wilhelm while Wakefield had the Niekro brothers.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so Wood was more of a Joe Niekro type, at least initially, whereas Wakefield was a Phil Niekro. In other words, Wood had other pitches, whereas Wakefield had the knuckler and that was almost all he ever threw.
ReplyDeleteI get the fact that the Pirates had no one in their organization who could teach the knuckler, but I'm not sure what the deal was with Wakefield after he left. Did he seek out Niekro on his own, or did the Red Sox bring Niekro in as a consultant? With Wood, I suppose Wilhelm would have been the last really prominent practitioner of the art who was around to coach at that time, and being a Chicago guy, I guess that's just how it worked out.
Even so, those were two very successful pitchers who got away for next to nothing. Which got me thinking about the most lopsided trades both for and against the Pirates...maybe I can do some research. Seems to me that the Pirates in general have definitely hit some home runs by getting guys off the junkheap, but not so much by robbing other teams in uneven trades. Al Martin, Garrett Jones, and---I think---Rick Reuschel all came here as unwanted, dirt cheap free agents, and they all did very good work for the Bucs, especially Reuschel.
As far the Niekro bros, Will, my bad for not being clearer - they weren't coaches, but they worked w/Wakefield. My guess is that they had an academy. As for the trades, I'll have to think on that a bit. Huntington made some clunkers early on (Bay, Sanchez, Wilson; we won't talk about Littlefield, lol); as I said last time we touched on the topic I think they cost themselves a couple of years in the team rebuild. I think they evaluate talent better now (they have a bundle of decent FA signings). I half suspect a guy like Dickerson prob didn't look good on the computer base; possibly they didn't see a path for him to the team, either.
ReplyDeleteIf what I saw on another site is accurate, Dickerson hasn't played first base very much since his Double-A year in the Pirates organization. He's been almost entirely an outfielder since. So, if the FO thought he wasn't going to be a major league 1B, that does make that trade look a bit different. Obviously, with McCutchen, Marte, Polanco, and Meadows, there wasn't going to be a path for Dickerson to the big leagues as an outfielder, not in the near term.
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