8/16 From the 70’s: STFD; Dock Docked; Gravedigger Returns; Game Stories

• 1972 - Willie Stargell showed why you play all nine innings when his two-run homer brought the Bucs back for a 3-2 win at Dodger Stadium. Don Sutton had been cruising along with a 2-0 lead going into the ninth when trouble hit. Dave Cash doubled and scored on Al Oliver’s bouncer up the middle. Pops, who was in a 1-for-21 batting funk, had the green light on a 3-0 pitch and dropped it into the RC field stands for the win. Normally, the Dodgers would have sent closer Jim Brewer to the hill to face Stargell, but the lefty was out with hand problems so Walter Alston stuck with Sutton. Cash had three hits and Scoops a pair to pace the attack. Bob Miller, who danced around Dodger runners in the last two frames thanks to a pair of DP balls, got the win in relief of Nellie Briles. 

Willie Stargell 1972 O-Pee-Chee

• 1975 - After being pulled from his last two starts without getting through the first inning and then refusing to pitch in relief, earning a one-day suspension, Dock Ellis called a clubhouse meeting in Cincinnati and had skipper Danny Murtaugh attend. Ellis then ripped into the Irishman and team management, earning himself an indefinite suspension and $2,000 fine. The suspension left the team short a player, but GM Joe Brown told Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Press that “We’re better off with 24 (players) than we were with 25.” The club, not too surprisingly, lost the game to the Reds 5-3. The suspension was lifted on August 30th after he apologized to Murtaugh, and Ellis was traded to the NY Yankees in December. Ellis became the UPI “Comeback Player of the Year” in 1976 with a 17-8 record, then refused to sign his 1977 contract, blasted George Steinbrenner, and was traded again. But bygones are bygones; he returned to the Pirates in 1979 and retired as a Bucco. 
• 1982 - The Pirates purchased Richie Hebner from the Tigers, a homecoming for The Gravedigger who began his pro career in Pittsburgh and had a nine-year run with the Bucs. He hit .276 during the stretch run and 1983, then spent his final two campaigns with the Cubs. Richie’s Bucco average over 11 years was .277 with a 122 OPS+. 
• 1989 - The Bucs took home a 5-4 win in 12 innings against Houston at the Astrodome. Bobby Bonilla hit the winning dinger off Larry Andersen. It first played out as an apparent double, but the call was changed to a home run after a quick ump’s conference; the ball had bounced off a fan’s stone hands and back into the field. P John Smiley had two RBI, but wasn’t around for the final decision. The win went to Neal Heaton, with a save credited to Bill Landrum.

Jose Guillen 1997 New Horizons (back)

• 1997 - The Pirates scored three times in the first inning and never looked back as they defeated the Florida Marlins 10-5 at Pro Player Stadium. Rookie Jose Guillen, who had been playing in High A Lynchburg the season before, homered and chased in five runs. Joe Randa collected three raps and Kevin Polcovich also went long. Francisco Cordova got the win in a game that didn’t feature many mound highlights. The two staffs used nine pitchers who gave up 19 hits and 15 walks while tossing 347 pitches. 
• 2011 - Andrew McCutchen hit a three-run homer to give Pittsburgh the early lead, Neil Walker hit another bomb to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and Garrett Jones went yard in the 11th inning for 5-4 win against the Cardinals at PNC Park. Chris Resop, the fifth Pirate pitcher of the game, got the win after working a pair of scoreless innings. Longtime Buc nemesis Albert Pujols lit up Jeff Karstens in the sixth to become the first player in MLB history to hit 30 homers in each of his first 11 seasons. 
• 2012 - AJ Burnett wasn’t at his best, but battled into the seventh to take a 10-6 win over the Dodgers at PNC Park. This contest entered Pirate folklore when Hanley Ramirez homered off Burnett in the fourth and tossed a couple of barbs at the Bucco hurler, who got his revenge in the sixth when he struck Ramirez out swinging on a 3-2 pitch and famously told him to “STFD.” Garrett Jones had a pair of three-run homers to spark the victory over LA.