9/2 From 1930 Through the 1960’s: 8-In-A-Row; Ooops; Game Stories; HBD Luke

• 1933 - Pittsburgh won its eighth straight game by a 4-1 tally over the St. Louis Cardinals at Forbes Field. Woody Jensen and Tommy Thevenow each had a pair of hits with a triple each and together drove in three runs to give Howie Meine the win. The Cincinnati Reds ended the streak convincingly the next game by a 9-3 score. 

Tommy Thevenow - 1933 Big League

• 1943 - LHP Luke Walker was born in DeKalb, Texas. He worked eight years (1965-66, 1968-73) for the Bucs, with a line of 40-42-9/3.47. Walker had a breakout 1970, going 15-6 with a 3.04 ERA and was a member of the 1970-72 championship teams. He started, closed and did everything in between. The lefty worked just one more MLB campaign beyond Pittsburgh, when he was sold to the Tigers before the 1974 season. 
• 1944 - The Pirates slid by the first-place St. Louis Cards 5-4 at Forbes Field‚ giving Ted Wilks his first loss after he had reeled off 11 straight victories. The Bucs walked it off in the bottom of the ninth when Bob Elliott, who was 4-for-5 with a homer, singled home Jim Russell to give Max Butcher the victory. The lead switched hands several times during the game; Dick Fortune of the Pittsburgh Press called the contest “...a ding dong battle all the way.”
• 1948 - The Bucco hand was caught in the cookie jar... Commissioner Happy Chandler fined the Pirates $2‚000 for violating the NL bonus rule when the Pirates signed ML Lynch as a scout while offering his son Danny a $6,000 contract. Chandler saw the deal (and probably rightly so) as an attempt to sway the second baseman's decision. Lynch was declared a free agent and signed with the Cubs. He played just seven MLB games. 
• 1958 - Bob Friend and the Pirates held off the Phils at Forbes Field by a 3-2 count. The Bucs built an early lead of homers by Bill Virdon & Frank Thomas, along with a Ted Kluszewski rap that chased home Roberto Clemente after a triple. Philadelphia scored singletons in the eighth and ninth, but Friend fanned the last two batters to nail down his 19th win. Friend would win 22 times before the campaign ended, the only time in his career that he would claim twenty victories. The game moved the once sad-sack Buccos into second place, albeit eight games behind Milwaukee, and that’s how they’d finish the 84-70 season. 

Dick Stuart - 1961 Topps

• 1961 - Dick Stuart had a pair of homers, but his biggest hit was a broken-bat single that went off the pitcher’s mitt in the eighth to plate Dick Groat. That knock proved the game winner in a 5-4 Buc victory over the St. Louis Cards at Busch Stadium. Stu had all five RBI and ElRoy Face shut the door in the last two frames to earn the win. OF’er Joe Christopher threw out Stan Musial in the sixth, trying to go from first-to-third on a single to right. That was followed by a pair of knocks, so Joe’s arm defused a possible big frame.
• 1966 - The Pirates claimed first place by topping the Cubs 7-5 on a Roberto Clemente homer‚ his 2,000th career hit. Clemente's long fly gave him 101 RBI for the year‚ the first time he reached the century mark. He ended up with a career high of 119 RBI in 1966, and collected 110 the next season, the only other time he drove in 100+ runs. The Bucs would finish third with 92 wins, three games behind the LA Dodgers.