- 1935 - IF Dick “Ducky” (it actually was his dad’s nickname that followed Dickie around) Schofield was born in Springfield, Illinois. He played eight (1958-65) of his 19 big league years with the Pirates and took over for an injured Dick Groat during the 1960 title stretch run, hitting .333 to help the Bucs take the NL title without missing a beat. Schofield was a regular infielder from 1963-65, but his BA (.248 as a Pirate, .227 overall) limited him to a backup role through most of his career. His son Dick continued the legacy, playing for 14 big league seasons while grandson Jayson Werth has put in 15 campaigns.
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| Ducky Schofield - 1963 Topps |
- 1997 - Fox Sports and the Pirates reworked their TV deal to extend through 2000. Over the course of the agreement, games televised would increase from 85/season to 100 and payments from $3.8M up to $4.5M in 2000; the 1996 deal had covered 75 games and $2.75M in payments. Some booth shuffling was also involved - Greg Brown became the TV play-by-play man while Lanny Frattare was relegated to radio only, with Bob Walk and Steve Blass alternating between radio and TV as color/analytic sidekicks. All four were inked to multi-year deals.
- 2001 - Under the regime of manager Lloyd McClendon and pitching coach Spin Williams, the Pirates held a voluntary week-long pitching mini-camp in Bradenton for the first time in club history. The staff had put together a 4.94 ERA in 2000, the clubs’ highest since 1953, and Williams said he wanted to get a jump on evaluating his charges’ physical shape, working on the fundamentals before training camp and pounding his philosophy of “Get quick outs.” Only three hurlers of the 20 invited didn’t attend - Kris Benson and Jason Schmidt (who was rehabbing an arm injury and wouldn’t get into a game until mid-May) were about to become fathers and vet Terry Mulholland begged off because of personal business. Their absence and the camp in general didn’t matter much; the team posted a 5.05 ERA in 2001.
- 2004 - Pittsburgh pro teams usually get along well, but the Bucs were being a little bit catty (OK, mean) when they ran a season-ticket spot that had Lanny Frattare say something to the effect of “Cheer up, Penguin fans - baseball season is just three months away.” The Pens were not amused by the shade, even though they were going through a miserable season that featured a 17-game losing streak; after all, the Buccos had racked up an 11-season losing spell themselves. The Pirates pulled the radio ad on this date, apologized to the Penguins and both teams have played nicely in their community sandbox ever since.
- 2005 - SS Jack Wilson inked a two-year/$8M contract ($3.5M - 2005, $4.5M - 2007; $200K in potential awards bonus money both years) to avoid arbitration. He was coming off an All-Star year when he hit .308. Jack would go on to sign a three-year extension w/an option in the following off-season, putting him under team control up until 2010.
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| Jack Wilson - 2009 Topps |
- 2009 - Cashing in his last shares in the Pirates, Kevin McClatchy ended his 13-year relationship with the team. Always undercapitalized, he still managed to keep the financially floundering Buccos in Pittsburgh by coming up investors to cover the $90-95M needed to buy the franchise. Bob Nutting became the majority stockholder in 2007 and ushered in the Frank Coonelly/Neal Huntington era when the season ended.
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