8/4: Yeager In, Leever Out; KY 4-Ever; Salkeld Cycle; Bucs Storm Back; Gems & Game Tales; HBD Kevin, Steve, Ruben, Luke, Bill, Homer, Cliff, Hicks, Jake & Paddy

• 1867 - 1B Jake Beckley was born in Hannibal, Missouri. “Eagle Eye” played eight seasons (1888-96) for Pittsburgh, with a year off in 1890 when he suited up for the Pittsburgh Burghers of the outlaw Player’s League. He hit 113 triples as a Buc and had four 100+ RBI years. Jake could glove it, too. He’s the all-time leader for putouts and top 20 in assists for MLB first basemen. After his 20 year career was done, he was eventually selected in 1971 to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran’s Committee with a lifetime .308 BA. Jake got his nickname because of his batting eye; he was a contact hitter who finished his career with more walks than whiffs. 
• 1879 - C Patrick “Paddy” O’Connor was born in County Kerry, Ireland. A little used catcher for the Pirates from 1908-10, he hit .250. He played one more season in Pittsburgh in 1915, albeit with the Rebels of the Federal League, batting .228. Paddy got a lot of mileage out of baseball, with a playing career that spanned from 1901-21 counting his bush league years. 

Paddy O'Connor - 1908 photo/George Bain

• 1883 - RHP Lew “Hicks” Moren was born in Pittsburgh and attended Duquesne University. He pitched exactly two games for the Pirates between 1903-04 (0-1/9.00), but was more successful with the Phillies, picking up 48 wins and 10 shutouts while pitching to a 2.88 ERA from 1907-10 before arm problems ended his career. He was one of the first to feature a knuckleball, after its original practitioner, Eddie Cicotte. Hicks (no clue as to how he got that moniker) lived to the ripe old age of 86, and is buried in Homewood Cemetery. 
• 1896 - Utilityman Cliff Lee was born in Lexington, Nebraska. Cliff began his eight-year run in the show at Pittsburgh in 1919-20 after being drafted from Portland and then putting in military time. He hit .213 before being claimed by the Phillies and putting up three consecutive .300+ campaigns in Philadelphia, playing OF, C and 1B. His splits aren’t available, but it appears he never caught on as a regular because he was a platoon guy that could maul southpaws but righties, not so much. He played in the minors until 1930. 
• 1897 - It was a bad day for Pittsburgh at League Park II in Cincinnati. Lefty Killen and the defense floundered in the first of two, losing 14-3 and per the Pittsburgh Press “The Reds won the first one with ease as they found Killen at will and the Pirates made so many errors they simply couldn’t do anything else.” In the second game, ump Tim Hurst caught a beer bottle tossed at him from the stands and threw it back at his attacker. Hurst ended up the one arrested (he was fined $100 as the bottle gashed its victim; he had a good arm for an ump) and Red Bittman, who umped a handful of times and was a Cincinnati native, took over and called the game a 4-4 tie after six innings due to darkness, wiping out a six-run seventh by the Bucs. Per the Press, the real reason was “...because he failed to check the run getting of the Pirates, he called the game. As the sun was shining, it was a clear case of a steal.” The Pirates did win the rescheduled make-up game 8-1, and it was the last of 10 big league games Bittman umped. 
• 1901 - Before Pittsburgh’s 6-3 win at Cincinnati’s League Park, Reds and Pirates players were clocked while running from home plate to 1B. The fastest time for the 90-foot sprint was three seconds flat, by Bucco OF Ginger Beaumont. Though Beaumont was a lefty and was known for his wheels, scouts today consider 3.9-4.0 to be elite speed. The SABR Biography Project says he was once timed at 4.4, which seems a little more like it. As for the game, the Buc attack was primed by Beaumont and Hans Wagner with three hits apiece and a Lefty Davis homer. Ed Poole, subbing for scheduled but sore-armed starter Sam Leever, went wire-to-wire for the win. 

Sam Leever - 1902 photo via Baseball Hall of Fame

• 1901 - The Bucs made a couple of moves. First, they brought in veteran C George Yeager from the Cleveland Blues on a try-out basis after Chief Zimmer, the Bucs starting catcher, was spiked and put out of action (he would then break a rib in a fall three weeks later). George passed the test and finished the year with the Bucs, hitting .264 in 26 games. On the same day, P Sam Leever requested an unpaid leave of absence because of a sore arm, a problem he had throughout his career. The Goshen Schoolmaster told club secretary Harry Pulliam, as reported by the Pittsburgh Press, that “I am not in a position to earn my salary and in justice to the Pittsburg club I think I should take a vacation at my own expense. Just lay off me, Harry, until I send you word that my arm is right.” The Bucs granted his leave, with Pulliam replying “You are one of the highest paid men in the league and the officials will be pleased when they hear of your offer (but) you will get your salary if you do not pitch another game this season.” He didn’t but came back strong the following year and in fact tossed for the Pirates through 1910. 
• 1902 - RHP Homer Blankenship was born in Bonham, Texas. Homer tossed for a couple of years with the White Sox (1922-23) and then became a Texas League twirler; the Pirates gave him a shot in 1928 and he went 0-2/5.82 in two starts with one complete game. He retired from baseball in 1931. 
• 1912 - IF Bill Schuster was born in Buffalo, New York. He started his five-year, 123-game big league stint in 1937 with the Pirates, going 3-for-6 in a three game audition. Schuster did have a long career spanning 16 years of pro ball, mainly in the PCL, where he’s a member of its Hall of Fame. After retiring as a player, Schuster managed and coached in the league, and later worked in the press room of the Los Angeles Times. 
• 1915 - 1B Luke Easter was born in Jonestown, Mississippi. The slugger played for the Homestead Grays from 1947-48. He hit .363 and led the Grays to a win over the Birmingham Black Barons in the 1948 Negro League World Series, the last one held. The Grays sold him to Bill Veeck and he went on to play for the Cleveland Indians, but age (he was 34 when he made his MLB debut) and injury limited him to just a couple of productive seasons. 

Start to finish - 1933 Goudey

• 1931 - Heinie Meine started it and ended it. Pirate pitchers put together a streak of 45 consecutive scoreless innings, starting with Meine’s outing on July 27th and ending with Meine’s 7-1 loss to the Cards at Forbes Field after adding five more frames to the zero column. In between, Pittsburgh pitchers Larry French, Ray Kremer, Glenn Spencer and Erv Brame all tossed shutouts. 
• 1945 - C Bill Salkeld went 5-for-5 to become the first (and only) Pirates rookie to hit for the cycle. He drove in all five runs in the Bucs 6-5 loss to the Cardinals at Forbes Field, with the club stranding 12 runners against St. Louis. Young Bill must have felt particularly fleet this day; his triple was the first of just two that he would hit in 1,050 plate appearances during his six-year MLB career. 
• 1958 - Roberto Clemente’s two-out homer in the ninth off Juan Pizarro gave the Pirates a 4-3 win over the first place Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium. Clemente had three hits and scored three times to lead the attack as Roy Face saved the game for Curt Raydon. 
• 1964 - C Ruben Rodriguez was born in Cabrera, Dominican Republic. His big league stay consisted of four games, two in 1986 and two more in 1988, for the Bucs. He went 1-for-8 with a triple. The Pirates signed him as a 17-year-old and he played minor league ball from 1982-94, closing out his career in 1995 in Mexico. He became the bullpen coach for the Royals and is now a youth instructor. 
• 1967 - OF Steve Bieser was born in Perryville, Missouri. Steve played for the Mets in 1987 and got into 13 games as a Pirate in 1988, going 3-for-11 with a double. Bieser spent 13 years in pro ball, then retired to become a high school coach and later the manager at Southeast Missouri, his alma mater. 

Tom Walker with Wayne Garland - photo undated via MLB.com

• 1971 - OK, this is stretching Pittsburgh baseball history a bit, but blood is blood... Tom Walker of Dallas-Fort Worth in the Texas League pitched a 15-inning no-hitter in a 1-0 win over Albuquerque. Tom is Neil Walker’s dad, and after spending six campaigns in the show, his last pro season was with Pittsburgh’s AAA Columbus club in 1978. He retired, moved to the City, and you know the rest of the tale. 
• 1993 - SS Kevin Newman was born in Poway, California. A first round pick (19th overall) of the Pirates in 2015 from the U of Arizona, he was called up as a utility infielder in 2018. He hit only .209, but made the club in 2019. When SS Erik Gonzalez went down early in the year, K-Man took over the starting spot and has held it ever since. 
• 1998 - Fours were wild as 1B Kevin Young went 4-for-5 with four runs scored and four RBI during a 13-5 win over the Rockies at TRS. None of the Bucs went yard, but they did bang out nine doubles off four Colorado pitchers, with Young cranking out three of them. Jason Christiansen, the fourth of five Pirates hurlers, got the win. 
• 2006 - 23-year-old lefty Tom Gorzelanny went eight innings of two-hit ball and struck out seven as the Bucs beat the Cubs at Wrigley Field 6-0. Xavier Nady went 4-for-5 with three doubles, two RBI and two runs. Jose Castillo and Ronny Paulino each homered, had two knocks and chased home a pair of runs. The Bucs made it easy, not only scoring freely but making a handful of glovely plays in the field, led by Nady and Chris Duffy in center field. To make it a little sweeter, Gorzo flaunted his stuff in front of his homies - he was born in nearby Evergreen Park. 

Tom Gorzelanny - 2006 Topps

• 2017 - The Pirates, who had dropped the series at San Diego the week before and were in the throes of losing eight-of-10, fell behind Travis Wood and the Padres 3-0. They rallied with back-to-back two-run frames to tie the game before a bullpen implosion put them behind the eight ball again by a 6-4 count in the seventh (each team twice surrendered leads). But they had one more hurrah left, and behind a three-run pinch-hit homer by Gregory Polanco and a two-out, two-run knock by Josh Harrison rallied one more time to defeat the Friars 10-6 at PNC Park. 32,243 were at the game, which was delayed for two hours by a passing storm, and they hung around to listen to Chicago and “Saturday in the Park” (the game began Friday night but the band didn’t get on stage until 1AM Saturday morning). David Freese also homered while AJ Schugel got the win despite facing just two batters and walking in a run.