10/7 Through the 1920s: WS Lumps; Hans Up & Down; Game Tales; HBD Chuck, Moonlight Ace, Brickyard & Adam

• 1867 - P Bill “Brickyard” Kennedy was born in Bellaire, Ohio. He tossed his final MLB season for the Pirates in 1903, going 9-6/3.45 and worked one game in the WS, losing badly to the Boston nine, 11-2, although six runs were unearned. Brickyard was noted for a lively fastball that he unfortunately had sporadic control over, walking over 1,200 batters in his 12-year career. He got his Brickyard nickname because he worked for a brick-making company before his days as a pro ballplayer. Kennedy was also known as “Roaring Bill” because of his loud voice, which he used to barber just about anyone within ear range on the field.

Brickyard - 1903 photo Getty/Chicago History Museum

• 1892 - IF Adam DeBus was born in Chicago. The son of German immigrants, he played minor league ball in the Midwest before the Cards signed him in 1917. He didn’t end up playing for them but caught the eye of the Pirates, who inked him in July. Adam hit .229 in 131 ABs and that three month audition ended up being the sum of his MLB career. At the end of the 1917 season, DeBus joined the 86th Infantry Division, and played with the division's baseball team. He spent his post-baseball days working as an electrician. 
• 1895 - LHP Fred “Moonlight Ace” Fussel was born in Sheridan, Missouri. Fred tossed his first two years with the Cubs, spent the next three years in the minors and then finished his career as a Pirate in 1928-29, going 10-11/4.61. He was a baseball lifer, though, and toiled on the farm for the next 11 years before calling it a day at age 43. He was dubbed with his moniker in the minors after his MLB stint when he threw a no-hitter in a 1933 night game to become a "Moonlight Ace." 
• 1901 - It ain’t easy being The Flying Dutchman. Per the season-ending Pittsburgh Press Bucco recap, “Hans Wagner leads the Pirates in batting with a good percentage. His batting this year, however, has not come up to his own or expectations of friends.” Honus’ disappointing campaign consisted of hitting .353, the fourth best average in the National League, and he also finished fourth in total bases with 271. Tough crowd... 
• 1902 - Sam Leever and the NL champ Pirates beat a team of AL all-stars in an exhibition at Exposition Park by a 4-3 score, with the AL pushing across three runs in the ninth to give the Bucs a scare. Ginger Beaumont led the Pirates with three hits. Cy Young took the loss, giving up eight hits and striking out seven. There was no post-season or World Series yet; the NL and AL were still merrily raiding one another’s rosters in a bid for baseball supremacy. 

Sam Leever - 1902 photo via Baseball Hall of Fame

• 1903 - Game Five of the WS at Exposition Park was a pitcher's duel for the first five innings between Boston's Cy Young and Pittsburgh's Brickyard Kennedy. But in the top of the sixth, the Americans scored a then-record six runs and added four more in the seventh on the way to an 11-2 romp. Young went the distance and struck out four for his first World Series win while the Pirates didn’t help their mound men much, committing four errors that led to six unearned runs. 
• 1904 - OF Chuck Klein was born in Indianapolis. The HoF’er played one year (1939) in Pittsburgh, hitting .300 with 11 homers. He was signed after being released by the Phillies and fittingly returned to Philadelphia in 1940 to end his career, giving him 15 years in the City of Brotherly Love. Klein then put down roots, operating a Philly bar after his playing days. The Phils retired his number, but as he wore eight of them during his years with the club (two of them twice), they just put a Philadelphia “P” up where the number should be on the Veterans Stadium Wall of Fame. 
• 1907 - The Bucs split a twinbill with the Reds to finish with 91 wins, 17 behind the front-running Cubs. But it was a championship season for Honus Wagner. Hans led the league with a .350 BA, .408 OBP, .513 slugging %, 38 doubles, 264 total bases and 61 stolen bases. He tied teammate Ed Abbaticchio for second in RBI with 82 and came in third in runs scored with 98. 
• 1925 - Walter Johnson of the Senators struck out 10 Pirates during a 4-1 Washington victory in the opening game of the World Series at Forbes Field. Pie Traynor’s homer was the only dent against the Big Train, who surrendered just five hits. Lee Meadows took the loss. In a sidebar, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis had the Pirates and the Sens wear black armbands in memory of NY Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson who had died that morning. That honor was thought to be the first time that teams recognized the passing of a fellow MLB player with a uniform patch. 

Pie - 1926 Exhibits

• 1927 - Herb Pennock took a perfect game into the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium before Pie Traynor broke it up with a one-out single, followed by Clyde Barnhart double to bring him home. That was about all the local drama as the NY Yankees claimed an 8-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates to give the Yanks a 3-0 bulge in the World Series. It was actually a close game until NY scored six runs in the seventh, capped by Babe Ruth’s three-run bomb.