1/31 From 1980: Bonds, Wally & Sup' Signs; Lefty Swap; TV Shifts; HBD Guillermo

• 1986 - The Pirates announced a couple of changes in their KDKA-TV coverage: John Sanders remained as the play-by-play man while Alan Cutler took over the analyst job and Steve Blass, who was also on the radio side with Lanny Frattare and Jim Rooker, was added as a part-time color commentator. 

Wally Backman - 1990 Topps Wide

• 1990 - The Pirates signed 30-year-old IF Wally Backman to a $600K free agent deal (they also had to compensate the Twins, his former club, with a second-round draft pick) to help ease Jeff King’s load at third base. He filled the bill, starting 68 times at the hot corner and hitting .292 during the campaign in his last solid MLB season; he even started with a bang when he collected six hits during a nine-inning game in late April. Wally went to Philly in the off-season and hit .243, finishing out his playing career after the 1993 campaign and beginning a stormy second life as manager.
• 1991 - OF Guillermo Heredia was born in Matanzas, Cuba.The Pirates signed the FA to a major league contract early in 2020, presumably to serve as a depth outfielder, as he did for Seattle and Tampa Bay. In parts of four seasons, he scored high marks as a defensive corner outfielder while batting .240 with an 82 OPS+. 
• 1992 - The Pirates signed OF Barry Bonds to a one-year contract worth $4.7M‚ the largest one-year deal in baseball history at the time. Bonds won his second MVP trophy and the Bucs won their division, so it was money well spent. His next contract was with the SF Giants, and it was another record-breaker at seven years/$43M. 
• 1995 - The Bucs ended their 40-year affiliation with KDKA Channel 2 and switched to WPXI Channel 11. The drivers were thought to be that KD switched networks to CBS, causing preemption issues on the weekend, and to boot, was losing money airing the Buccos on the TV side. The deal didn’t affect their long-time radio agreement, though. WPXI agreed to broadcast 16 weekend games, so long as they didn’t involve replacement players, and the main distributor, cable station KBL, held the rights for 75 other contests.

Jeff Suppan - 2003 photo Will Powers/Getty

• 2003 - Free agent RHP Jeff Suppan was signed to a $500K deal. After a solid summer (10-7/3.57), he was flipped to the Red Sox at the deadline as part of the Freddy Sanchez/Mike Gonzalez deal. Steady Freddy was a Pirate All-Star while Gonzo eventually became the closer. “Sup” went on to toss for eight more seasons, capping a 17-year MLB career in 2012. He’s a KC Royals minor-league pitching coach now. The Pirates also inked RHP Pat Mahomes to a minor-league contract. He was called up twice from AAA Nashville during the season, got into nine games (one start) and slashed 0-1/4.88 in his last MLB outings. 
• 2018 - The Pirates sent minor league lefty Daniel Zamora to the New York Mets for LHP Josh Smoker. They might have been better off to let things be - Zamora went 1-1/4.08 for NY in 2018-19 while averaging 12K per nine innings, albeit while spending most of his time in AAA. Smoker was waived by Pittsburgh and then Detroit after giving up seven runs in 5-2/3 IP while striking out two, walking five and giving up a pair of homers. He closed out 2019 pitching in the indie leagues.