9/16 Through the 50’s: HBD Sam & Con, Rizzo's 20, Kiner's 40, Red's 8, Gems...

• 1870 - LHP Sam Moran was born in Rochester, New York. A 22-game winner for Nashville in the Southern Association who had bested Cy Young in an exhibition game against Cleveland, the Pirates bought his contract in mid-August and he went 2-4/7.47 in 10 games, walking 51 batters in 62-⅔ IP. That ended Sam’s major league stint; he hung around in the minors for a couple of more seasons before getting on with his life’s calling.

Rube Robinson 1912 (photo Gail Roberson/Argenweb)

• 1912 - Pittsburgh won its 12th game in a row by beating the Brooklyn Superbas 2-1 at Washington Park behind Rube Robinson’s four hitter. The Bucs got their runs in the second inning when Honus Wagner tripled and jogged home in front of Chief Wilson’s homer. The Pirates were a strong club, finishing 93-58, but that was only good enough for second place in the NL, 10 full games behind the champion NY Giants. 
• 1922 - RHP Cornelius “Con” Dempsey was born in San Francisco. Con was a highly touted sidewinder with the old San Francisco Seal teams of the Joe DiMaggio era. He led the Pacific Coast League in strikeouts twice but never quite got over the hump. In 1951, he was called up to the major leagues, pitching seven innings for the Pirates in three games (two starts, 0-2/9.00) before being released. He also attended spring training with the Philadelphia Phillies before getting cut. Dempsey pitched in the PCL through the 1953 season and then went on to coaching & teaching at San Francisco's Giannini Middle School. 
• 1935 - Mace Brown tossed 5-1/3 frames of one-hit, shutout ball from the pen to beat the Boston Braves 5-3 at Forbes Field. Gus Suhr subbed at 1B in the last inning to run his streak of consecutive games played to 619‚ breaking the old NL mark of Eddie Brown. Suhr wouldn’t miss a game until 1937, running his streak to 822 games. 

Johnny Rizzo 1938 (photo: The Sporting News)

• 1938 - Johnny Rizzo became the first Pirate to hit 20 home runs in a season (Gus Suhr held the team record with 19 long balls in 1935) in a 5-4 loss to the Boston Bees’ Dick Errickson at Braves Field. Rizzo, a 25-year old Texan who was hurt the following season and never played regularly for the Bucs again, finished the campaign batting .301 with 23 round trippers and 111 RBIs. That contest was the nightcap of a twin bill; the Pirates took the opener 7-6. The first game was wide open with all hands on deck. The 13 runs scored by the two teams featured 11 different players plating and 11 others driving them in. The second game was all ninth inning heroics; the Pirates scored twice to take a 4-2 lead; the Braves answered with a three-spot to take the contest. Pittsburgh held on to a three-game lead in the NL with the split, but would lose 6-of-7 at the end of the month to finish second to the Cubs by two games. 
• 1944 - The Reds Tommy de la Cruz spun a one-hitter at Forbes Field to take home a 2-1 win. The Bucs only hit was a first inning triple by Frank Colman, driving in Jim Russell who had walked. Max Butcher took the loss when Steve Mesner drove home Ray Mueller with a ninth inning tally. The Bucs had no answer for them: Mesner had both Cincy RBI and Mueller scored both runs. 
• 1950 - Cliff Chambers and Boston's Vern Bickford dueled through 11 scoreless innings before the Bucs broke it open in the 12th at Braves Field. Two walks‚ a wild pitch‚ and four singles gave the Pirates a 4-0 win, with Pete Castiglione’s two-run knock the big blow. Both pitchers went the distance, with Chambers tossing a six-hitter for the victory. 

Cliff Chambers 1950 Bowman

• 1951 - Ralph Kiner set an NL record by hitting his 40th homer, the fifth consecutive year he reached that mark. The blast came during a DH loss to the NY Giants at Forbes Field, in the seventh inning of the opener against Larry Jensen. The only other player to hit 40 home runs for five or more straight seasons was Babe Ruth, who did it for seven campaigns between 1926-32. 
• 1958 - George “Red” Witt won his eighth straight game, 2-1, over the Cards. For Witt, it was his last appearance of the year as he left the club to finish his senior year at Long Beach State. He finished 9-2, and his 1.61 ERA in 106 innings was the NL's top mark. He came to camp next season with a sore elbow and went 0-7 with a 6.96 ERA in 1959. Red won just two more games before retiring in 1962, but did work 2-⅔ scoreless IP in the 1960 World Series. Red’s win was the conclusion of a suspended game; the Bucs took two behind Ronnie Kline 3-1 as Dick Stuart and Bob Skinner combined for six hits, three RBI and two runs scored in the regular schedule.