1/18: Brito, Hammering Hank, Bockman Deals; Vazquez, Francisco, Bo Sign; '91 Arb Class; Kiner MoY; HBD Wandy, Gift, Lauren, Charlie & Eddie

• 1855 - OF Charlie Eden was born in Lexington, Kentucky. He joined the Alleghenys for two seasons, 1884-85, hitting .258 after a five-year minor league stint. Charlie played a little corner infield and also pitched some, going 1-3/5.53 with Pittsburgh. Those campaigns ended the 30-year old Charlie’s four-year MLB career; it appears that he went back to barnstorming through the minors. 
• 1899 - Utilityman Eddie Moore was born in Barlow, Kentucky. Moore hit .301 as a Bucco from 1923-26 and was a starter on the 1925 WS club, but he clashed with management a couple of times and was sold to the Boston Braves after getting into a shouting match with Fred Clarke, who was not only a club exec at the time but also a bench coach. 

Laurin Pepper - 1955 Topps

• 1931 - RHP Laurin Pepper was born in Vaughan, Mississippi. A football star drafted by the Steelers (he was an All-America halfback at Mississippi Southern), Pepper was inked for $35K by the Bucs in 1954 as a bonus baby, as the Pirates easily topped the Steelers’ $15K bid. Probably should have stuck with the pigskin, though: in four MLB seasons (1954-57), he worked just 109-⅔ IP, going 2-8/7.09 with 98 walks. He then spent some time in the minors, finally becoming a long-time HS football coach and AD back home in the Magnolia State. 
• 1947 - The Pirates purchased Hank Greenberg, the original “Hammerin’ Hank,” from the Tigers for $75,000 after he had a spat with Detroit owner Walter Briggs. It didn’t come easy; the Bucs had to talk the 36-year-old out of retirement, even after a 44-homer campaign in ‘46. To celebrate the move, team co-owner Bing Crosby recorded a song, "Goodbye, Mr. Ball, Goodbye" with Groucho Marx and Hank after the Bucs signed him to a reported $90,000 deal, the biggest in history at that time. In his one season with Pittsburgh, he hit .249 with 25 HR/74 RBI to become the first player with a 25-homer season in both leagues, walked a league-high 104 times and served as a mentor to a young Ralph Kiner. He inspired “Greenberg Gardens” when the Bucs shortened Forbes Field’s left field wall by 30’ for him and when he retired after the season, his nook was renamed “Kiner’s Korner.” 
• 1948 - Ralph Kiner was awarded the Dapper Dan “Athlete of the Year” award at the DD’s annual dinner at the William Penn Hotel (he was gifted with a watch). Newly retired Hank Greenberg made the trip to Pittsburgh as an honored guest of Kiner’s. Ralph also set aside some face time to talk contract with the Bucco brass, and made out pretty well by more than doubling his 1947 salary, upping his paycheck from $15,000 to $35,000 (per Baseball Reference). 
• 1948 - The Bucs bought IF Joe “Eddie” Bockman from the Indians for an undisclosed amount. The 27-year-old had hit .259 for the Tribe after coming off an All-Star season in the American Association. Bockman spent two years as part of the Pirates third base merry-go-round (.230 BA) and then settled in the minors as a player/manager through the 1958 season. After his stint behind the bench, he became a long-time Phillies scout, finally closing out his baseball days as a bird dog for the expansion Marlins. 

Wandy Rodriguez - 2013 Topps Heritage

• 1979 - LHP Wandy Rodriguez was born in Santiago Rodriguez, Dominican Republic. Wandy joined the Bucs in 2012 when he was acquired in a deadline deal from the Astros. He didn’t become a major contributor as hoped, as his 2013 season derailed because of arthritis in his pitching arm after a dozen starts, and he contributed just 11 wins in 25 outings with a 3.66 ERA as a Pirate before being released in May of 2014. 
• 1980 - SS Gift Ngoepe was born in Randburg, South Africa. Ngoepe became the first black South African to sign a professional baseball contract when he agreed to a deal with the Pirates in October 2008 and the first to play in the majors in 2017. You could say he was born to be a ballplayer. Ngoepe's mom was a clubhouse attendant for the Randburg Mets, and they lived in one of the clubhouse rooms, so he grew up in a ballyard. Gift has proven to be a brilliant fielder but hasn’t been able to hit the ball, with a .222 Pirates BA (.231 career MiLB) and was sold to Toronto in the 2017 offseason. He played in Australia in 2018, then the Phils/Pirates/Indie League and back to the Land Down Under last year. The Pirates signed his brother Victor, so the legacy continues. 
• 1989 - The Pirates came to a one-year/$730K agreement, adding various award bonuses, with 25-year-old 3B Bobby Bonilla. Bobby Bo was one of seven Buccos who had filed for arbitration after hitting .274 with 24 HR’s & 100 RBI in 1988 to earn a big jump from his $245K paycheck. 
• 1991 - The Pirates and their eight arb-eligible players traded salary offers. Not surprisingly, there was a sizeable gap between the Three Amigos and Bucs: Bobby Bo ($1.25M in ‘90) wanted $3.475 and was offered $2.4M; Doug Drabek ($1.1M) requested $3.35M and was met with a $2.3M bid, and Barry Bond ($850K) asked for $3.25M; the Pirates countered with $2.3M. Darbek and Bonds won their hearings; Bonilla lost his and left after the season. Bonds and Drabek joined him after the ‘92 campaign. 
• 1996 - The Bucs signed LHP Francisco Cordova out of the Mexican League. He tossed for five years in Pittsburgh, slashing 42-47/3.97 in that time. Francisco had three good years with the Bucs, throwing the front end of a combined no-hitter finished by Ricardo Rincon and getting the Opening Day call in 1998 and ‘99, before arm troubles caught up to him. He lasted two more years as a Pirate. After he left, he had enough left in the tank to pitch in Mexico from 2002-2011 with the Mexico City Tigres, the Mexico City Diablos Rojos, and the Petroleros de Minatitlán. 

Bix - 2009 Topps

• 2010 - The Buccos traded OF/SS Brian Bixler to the Cleveland Indians, getting young minor league handyman Jesus Brito in return. Bixler was Pittsburgh's second-round pick in the 2004 draft, but in 166 Bucco PA’s between 2008-09, he batted just .178. Bix also got shots with Washington and Houston, but his bat never came around; his lifetime BA was .189, and his best single-season OPS+ was 59. Utilityman Brito never advanced past Class A. 
• 2018 - Felipe Rivero officially signed a four-year/$22M deal to cash in his arb years. He gets $2.5M in 2018, $4M in 2019, $5.25M in 2020, $7.25M in 2021, plus a $2M signing bonus. The deal includes club options in 2022 and 2023 for $10M with buyouts of $1M in 2022/$500K in 2023. Rivero had filed for an arb hearing as a Super Two (he asked for $2.9M & the Pirates countered with $2.4M), but he traded it in for guaranteed money and team-friendly cost certainty for the club. A 2019 arrest for kiddie porn/sexual contact seems to have put the deal in jeopardy, although we’ve been unable to figure out the current status of the deal.