7/14 From 1940 Through the 1970’s: Bucs-Red Rumpus; Roberto Booed; All Star & Game Stories; HBD Jose & Ben

• 1940 - The Pirates won their sixth game of seven by whipping Brooklyn 6-2 at Forbes Field. Rip Sewell got the win and also cracked a homer. They dropped the nitecap of the twin bill, 2-0, as the Dodgers’ Freddie Fitzsimmons got the better of Ken Heintzelman. July 14, 1946 - Hall of Famer Warren Spahn beat the Bucs at Forbes Field by a 4-1 tally for his first MLB win; he would earn 363 of them in his 21-year career, with 49 coming against Pittsburgh. His only blemish was a solo shot by Frankie Gustine. Spahn could have reached 400 wins, but gave up three years (1943-45) to WW2. 
• 1953 - P Murry Dickson was the Bucco rep at the All Star Game, a 5-1 NL victory at Crosley Field. He tossed the final two innings, giving up a run on three hits and earning a save for Warren Spahn. The relief appearance of St. Louis Brown’s 46-year-old Satchel Paige in the eighth inning set an All-Star record for oldest pitcher to toss in the contest. 

Murry Dickson - 1953 Redman

• 1955 - The Pirates suffered the worst defeat in their history to date when Cincinnati mashed them 19-1 at Forbes Field. Reds Johnny Temple, Wally Post and Smoky Burgess had 13 hits among the three of them. Five Pirate pitchers gave up 21 hits (3 HR), 12 walks and a hit batter while the fielders chipped in with three errors. The whupping stayed in the record books until 2010 when the Brewers laid a 20-0 beat down on the Bucs. 
• 1961 - A two-out grand slam in the bottom of the eighth by Roberto Clemente, a rising liner that carried the center field wall at the 410’ mark, erased a 4-1 deficit and led the Bucs to a 6-4 win over the SF Giants at Candlestick Park. Clem Labine got the win and ElRoy Face the save. 
• 1969 - IF Jose Hernandez was born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Jose played for 15 years in the show, making stops in Pittsburgh in 2003 as part of the infamous A-Ram/Kenny Lofton deal with Chicago and again in 2006 as a FA, playing six positions while hitting .240. He signed a minor league deal with the Bucs for 2007 (he was one of Jim Tracy’s favorites) but the 37-year-old’s tank was running on empty and he didn’t make the final cut. He’s been a coach in the Baltimore farm system since 2010. 
• 1970 - Roberto Clemente was booed by the All-Star crowd at Riverfront Stadium (then all of two weeks old) after earlier saying he would only play if the game was held in Pittsburgh instead of Cincinnati. He changed his tune (GM Joe Brown provided a bit of arm twisting), and though resting a chronically sore neck, the Great One was used late in the game. Clemente, the only Buc rep on the roster, hit a sac fly to tie the contest and held Willie Horton to a 375’ single off the wall in right as the NL won 5-4. The game is better remembered for the brutal collision between Pete Rose and Ray Fosse at the plate, with Rose jarring the ball loose to score the winning run. 
• 1974 - The nitecap of a twinbill against the rival Reds erupted into a donnybrook. The action started after a fourth inning beanball of Bruce Kison by Jack Billingham, causing both teams to rush the field. When Sparky Anderson stepped on Ed Kirkpatrick's foot, the Buc catcher shoved the Reds skipper and was rewarded with a sock from Andy Kosko. The best remembered bit of mayhem was when Cincy’s Pedro Borbon bit Daryl Patterson after a little hair-tugging. Patterson got a tetanus shot after the chomp (Borbon told the media afterward for Patterson not to worry about tetanus, but rabies; Patterson countered by saying Borbon "fights like a woman.") The Pirates won the spirited contest 2-1 after dropping the opener 3-2. The victory began an eight-game Bucco winning streak and the Pirates stormed through the second half of the season to take the NL East title, but lost the NLCS to the LA Dodgers three games to one.

Bucs & Reds dance - photo 7/15/1974 Edwin Morgan/Press

• 1974 - Pirates GM Ben Cherington was born in Meriden, New Hampshire. He replaced Neal Huntington (they had been teammates on Amherst’s baseball team in college) after the 2019 season. He began as a scout for Cleveland in 1999, moved on to Boston the following year and rose through the ranks to become GM in 2011. He held that spot until 2015, took a year off to teach, and then spent three years as Toronto’s VP of Baseball Operations before taking the Pittsburgh job.