10/1 Through the 1940’s: First WS Game; Waner Rocks; O'Connell & Nagy Deals; Rip Released; HBD Specs, Jim & Chuck

• 1895 - RHP Carmen “Specs” Hill was born in Royalton, Minnesota. Carmen pitched eight years in Pittsburgh (1915-16, 1918-19, 1926-29) and went 47-31-8 with a 3.26 ERA. He won 22 games for the NL Champion Pittsburgh Pirates in 1927. As for his nickname, Carmen was the second pitcher in major league history to wear glasses and the other players wouldn’t let him forget it. He had a second nickname of "Bunker,” inspired by his last name of Hill. 

Specs - 1927 Mears/The Sporting News

• 1903 - Deacon Phillippe pitched a six-hitter while whiffing 10 and defeated the legendary Cy Young as the Pirates downed the AL’s Boston Americans, 7-3. It was the first World Series game in baseball history, played at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds in front of 16,242 fans. For the books, the first WS hitter was CF Ginger Beaumont, who flew out to American’s CF Chick Stahl. Tommy Leach got the first hit, a triple, and became the first runner to score when Honus Wagner singled him home for the first WS RBI. Jimmy Sebring hit the first Series’ homer (a seventh inning inside-the-park dash) and drove in four runs. Although the series was not officially sanctioned by the leagues, the clubs had agreed during the season to a best-of-nine postseason showdown and it was OK’ed by the leagues starting in 1905. 
• 1917 - Wilbur Cooper tossed a four-hit shutout as the Pirates closed the season with a 2-0 win over the Boston Braves at Forbes Field. Bill Webb had three hits and a run scored to lead the attack. Fritz Mollwitz also crossed home while Lee King & Max Carey drove in the runs. It was Cooper’s 17th win for a team that finished last by 47 games with only 51 victories. 
• 1918 - OF Jim Russell was born in Fayette City, between Belle Vernon and Stockdale on the Mon. He played for the Pirates from 1942-47, starting all but his rookie campaign, and put up a .277 BA during that time. In his final season, the CF’er had Hall-of-Famers Hank Greenberg and Ralph Kiner as bookends in the outfield. As a youth, he contracted rheumatic fever twice; his baseball career was cut short because of associated heart disease which sapped him in his later years. 
• 1922 - Max Carey swiped his 51st base against the Reds in a 5-1 loss at Redland Field. Not only did he lead the league in larceny, but his 51 steals in 53 attempts was the highest success rate ever achieved by a stolen base leader. His record of 31 straight steals without being caught stood until 1975, when Davey Lopes put together a 38-swipe streak. 

Max Carey - 1922 American Caramel variation

• 1927 - Paul Waner collected a pair of hits against Cincinnati in a 9-6 win at Redland Field to finish the season with a Bucco record 237 knocks. The victory also clinched the pennant for the Pirates, who finished the year with 94 wins, 1-½ games ahead of St. Louis and two up on NY. Pie Traynor, Lloyd Waner and Earl Smith each added three hits to back Johnny Miljus. It was a big year for Big Poison - he won the BA crown by hitting .380, led in RBI with 131 and won the MVP. 
• 1934 - IF Chuck Hiller was born in Johnsonburg, Illinois. Hiller spent the finale of his eight-year career with the Pirates in 1968, going five-for-13 in 11 games, primarily as a pinch hitter. Per Wikipedia, when he retired after the 1968 season, he became a minor league manager in the Pirates' organization for a year, then returned to the Mets in a similar capacity, working for the Mets' director of player development, Whitey Herzog, through 1972. He then served under manager Herzog as a MLB coach with the Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals, and later spent brief stints with the Giants and the Mets. In between his big-league assignments, Hiller served the Mets as an infield instructor in their minor league system, and managed in the Cards' organization. His fielding prowess led to his nickname of “Iron Hands.” 
• 1944 - As posted in John Dreker’s Pirates Prospects feature “This Date In Pirates History,” P Len Gilmore set a couple of dubious Pirate records. His start against the Phils at Shibe Park was his only big league game, and he gave up 13 hits and seven runs, going the distance in a 7-1 loss. All 36 batters he faced put the ball in play, leaving him with the Pirates standard for most innings pitched in a game without recording a strikeout or a walk. 
• 1946 - The Pirates hoped to bolster their staff by purchasing LHP Steve Nagy from Montreal, where he had gone 17-4/3.01 and led the club to an International League pennant. Alas, he tossed to a 1-3/5.79 line and spent most of his time at Indianapolis; in 1948, he was shipped to the Giants as part of the Bill Werle deal. 

Steve Nagy - Baseball Hall of Fame

• 1949 - The Pirates released 42-year-old RHP Truett “Rip” Sewell after 12 years with the club. Sewell appeared in 385 games as a Pirate (243 starts) with a line of 143-97-15, 3.43 and two 21-win seasons to go with three All-Star berths. The Bucs had originally released him in 1947 with plans to add him to the coaching staff but instead inked him for active duty for two more seasons. He was best known for the ol’ eephus, his blooper pitch, but his most valuable contribution came when Sewell, who never made more than $21,500 per year, came up with a funding mechanism for baseball's pension plan. On a train ride to Boston for the 1946 All-Star Game, he and St. Louis shortstop Marty Marion devised the formula to use receipts from ASG to prime the pension pump. 
• 1949 - IF Danny O’Connell came over from the Brooklyn Dodgers for a PTBNL (Jack Cassini) and $50,000. Danny spent two years with the Bucs bookending two years of military service, hitting .293 as a Pirate. He was flipped to the Milwaukee Braves after the 1953 season for six players and cash. Cassini was a one trick pony; he had gotten into eight games for the Pirates in 1949, all as a pinch runner. He scored three times, and that was his MLB career.