- 1875 - 1B William “Kitty” Bransfield was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He played four seasons for Pittsburgh (1901-04), batting .271, and started for the 1903 Pirate team that played in the first recognized World Series, losing to the Boston Americans. He played through the 1911 season and then spent time as an minor league umpire, Cubs scout and briefly as a farm team manager. Per David Anderson of the SABR Biography Project, “His original nickname was "Kid," but a reporter with bad hearing (mis)heard it as "Kitty" and the name stuck.”
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| Kitty Bransfield 1903 (Chicago Daily News/Library of Congress) |
- 1889 - C Leo “Red” Murphy was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Leo only spent one year in the majors when he was George Gibson’s 1915 back-up in Pittsburgh. He batted .098 and spent the next five years in the minors. But it did lead him on to bigger and better things - Red managed the Racine Belles of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (the inspiration for the “A League of Their Own” movie) for five years, winning the AAGPBL title in 1946.
- 1902 - C Al Todd was born in Troy, NY. Todd spent from 1936-38 as a Pirate after coming over in a deal with the Phillies. He started the last two seasons, compiling a .282 BA during that span before being traded to the Boston Bees. He hung up the spikes at age 39 after the 1943 season and worked as a minor league manager and scout for several years after his playing career ended.
- 1921 - OF Ted Beard was born in Woodsboro, Maryland. He played for the Pirates as a reserve outfielder from 1948-52, batting .203, after losing three years to WW2 as a medic. A top prospect, Ted had speed and showed some occasional flashes of power (he became the second player, after Babe Ruth, to clear the RF roof at Forbes Field), but was fated to become an AAAA player. He had great success playing for the Hollywood Stars & San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League and later Indianapolis through the fifties and into the early sixties.
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| Jim Pendleton 1957 Topps |
- 1924 - OF Jim Pendleton was born in St. Charles, Missouri. The utility man played sparingly for Pittsburgh from 1957-58, batting .306 in 49 games. He was one of the early Negro League players to reach the majors, having gotten his pro baseball start in 1948 with the Chicago American Giants. Sent to the minors in ‘58, he came back with the Reds and later the Colt .45s to carve out an eight-year career in the show.
- 1935 - IF Dick “Ducky” (his dad’s nickname that followed Schofield around; prob a play on Dickie) Schofield was born in Springfield, Illinois. He played eight (1958-65) of his 19 big league years with the Pirates and took over for an injured Dick Groat during the 1960 title stretch run, hitting .333 to help the Bucs take the NL title without missing a beat. Schofield was a regular infielder from 1963-65, but his BA (.248 as a Pirate, .227 overall) limited him to a backup role through most of his career. His son Dick continued the legacy, playing for 14 big league seasons.
- 2005 - SS Jack Wilson inked a two-year/$8M contract ($3.5M - 2005, $4.5M - 2007; $200K in potential awards bonus money both years) to avoid arbitration. He was coming off an All-Star year when he hit .308. Jack would go on to sign a three-year extension w/an option in the following off-season, putting him under team control up until 2010.
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| Kevin McClatchy (photo Rich Pilling/Getty) |
- 2009 - Cashing in his last shares in the Pirates, Kevin McClatchy ended his 13-year relationship with the team. Always undercapitalized, he still managed to keep the financially floundering Buccos in Pittsburgh by coming up investors to cover the $95M needed to buy the franchise. Bob Nutting became the majority stockholder in 2007 and ushered in the Frank Coonelly/Neal Huntington era when the season ended.
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