11/6: Branch GM; Cutch, The Kid Silver Slugger; Carroll, Thevenow Deals; Cobra Dangled; Nealon Signed; Rene Hired; HBD Adam, Candy Man, Matt, Don, Bob & Tommy

• 1877 - 3B Tommy Sheehan was born in Sacramento (some sources say his BD is on the 5th, c’est la vie). Tommy played for Pittsburgh from 1906-07 and hit .255. He also spent a year with the New York Giants and Brooklyn Superbas before and after his Bucco stint. He did get to play a lot of ball near home, though - he earned his daily bread with 11 years of minor league ball at Sacramento, Portland, Tacoma, Oakland and Stockton. A word of caution - make sure to keep your Sheehan’s straight - this one is not to be confused with Tommy Sheehan, pitcher from the mid-20s who tossed for the Bucs from 1925-26. 
• 1905 - The Pirates signed a hot shot prospect, San Francisco Seals 1B Jim (aka Joe, his middle name) Nealon, for a reported $6,500 in a heated bidding battle with the Cincinnati Reds (the New York Highlanders, Boston Americans, St. Louis Browns and Chicago Cubs were also on his scent). Manager Fred Clarke spent a week by the Bay working on Nealon and his father, with the Reds rep arriving a little late on the scene. Signing Nealon allowed the Pirates to include 1B Dave Brain as part of a package to the Boston Beaneaters to add Vic Willis to their staff a month later without losing any offensive muscle. Joe led the NL in RBI in 1906, but reported to camp in 1907 overweight and with a bad hand, the result of a fracture suffered in the off-season. He also fell out of favor with management; as a son of wealth, they felt he didn’t have his focus on baseball but on business. Nealon retired after the season - the Pirates were already auditioning replacements - and returned to the coast, playing in the California State League. He died of typhoid fever at the age of 25 in 1910. 
• 1925 - OF Bob Addis was born in Mineral Springs, Ohio. He closed out a four-year MLB career with Pittsburgh, going 0-for-3 with a pair of whiffs and one pinch-running assignment. Bob finished his pro career that season with Toronto of the International League. Addis was later the baseball coach and AD at Euclid (Ohio) HS, and was inducted into the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1975. 

Tommy Thevenow - 1933 Goudey

• 1930 - SS Dick Bartell was traded by the Pirates to the Philadelphia Phillies for SS Tommy Thevenow and P Claude Willoughby. Defensive whiz Thevenow spent six seasons with the Bucs and hit .251 while Willoughby went 0-2 for Pittsburgh in his final MLB season. Bartell played 14 more seasons, made a couple of All-Star teams and ended up with a .281 lifetime BA. But the seemingly one-sided swap of SS’s worked out OK - Thevenow hurt his leg in 1931, and in 1932 was replaced in the lineup by Hall-of-Famer Arky Vaughan. Tommy Thevenow factoid: he didn't homer in his final 3,347 at-bats, the most consecutive at bats without a home run in MLB history. 
• 1950 - Branch Rickey signed a five-year contract with the Pirates to become the team executive vice president/GM, replacing Roy Hamey. His son, Branch Jr. was named Pittsburgh's VP and farm system director. Branch laid the groundwork for future success by developing a productive farm system, but the Bucs put together just a 269-501 record (.349) during his tenure as GM. 
• 1953 - LHP John Candelaria was born in New York. The Bucs selected the LaSalle Academy (Brooklyn) star in the second round of the 1972 draft. In 12 years (1975-85, 1993) with the Pirates, his line was 124-87-16/3.17, with a 1-1, 3.91 ERA slash in his four post-season starts. The Candy Man tossed a no-hitter, led the MLB in ERA once, earned an All-Star nod and won a World Series ring while a Bucco. Overall, he had a 19-year MLB career with the Pirates, CaliforniaAngels, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Montreal Expos, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, and Los Angeles Dodgers. 
• 1969 - RHP Don Wengert was born in Sioux City, Iowa. Don had spent 1996-97 full-time with Oakland but had been bouncing back and forth since the Pirates signed him as a FA in 2001. The 32-year-old got four starts in May, went 0-2/12.38, and spent the rest of the year back on the farm. That ended his MLB days; he tossed one more year for the Boston system before retiring and returning to Iowa. 

Don Wengert - 2001 photo Tom Pidgeon/Getty

• 1972 - RHP Matt Skrmetta was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. Matt got to toss briefly in the bigs during 2000, first getting into a half-dozen games with the Expos and finishing with eight outings and an 0-2/9.26 line with Pittsburgh. Matt was a determined hurler: he played for 25 teams, believed to be a record, and 13 organizations, including a couple of seasons in Japan and an indie campaign. He’s now a scout for Softbank in the Japanese League. 
• 1976 - In a swap of 22-year-old righties, the Bucs traded Jim Sadowski to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Tom Carroll. The deal ended up a wash; neither Sadowski nor Carroll ended up pitching in the majors again. 
• 1979 - 1B Adam LaRoche was born in Orange County, California. He played for the Bucs from 2007-09, hitting .265 with 58 HR. During his last Pirate season, he got to play with his brother Andy (their pop was P Dave LaRoche) and also became the first player in major league history to lose a home run to video review. He left baseball in 2016 after a messy clubhouse beef about him bringing his teen-aged son to the Chicago White Sox clubhouse too often. A devout family man and Christian, LaRoche quietly retired rather than compromise, passing on a $13M contract for the season. 
• 1981 - Dave Anderson of the NY Times wrote that the Bucs and Yankees were discussing a deal for RF Dave Parker with the departure of Reggie Jackson on the horizon. The Pirates originally wanted five pitchers; the Yankees countered with an offer of hurlers Ron Davis and Gene Nelson along with SS Andre Rodgers. There were two sticking points: Pittsburgh wanted lefty Dave Righetti, whom New York considered an untouchable, and the Gotham gang wanted Parker to agree to a playing weight of 210 pounds, which the Cobra ho-ho-ho’ed off. No match was made and Parker played as a Pirate for two more seasons, then signed as a free agent with the Reds. 

Parker in pinstripes? - 1981 Fleer

• 2003 - Rene Gayo was hired as the Bucs’ full-time Latin scout, a position that Pittsburgh had inexplicably left vacant for five years. Rene was actually making a homecoming; he had started in Pittsburgh in 1989 when Cam Bonifay hired him as a part-time area scout. He later worked for the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians, for whom he became scouting director for the Indians in Latin America in 1999. Among others, he signed Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco, Jose Osuna, Alen Hanson, Elias Diaz, Willy Garcia, Tito Polo, and Harold Ramirez; among his fails were Luis Heredia and Miguel Sano. Gayo was let go in 2017 following a scandal involving kickbacks for recommending lesser players for top-shelf bonuses and then pocketing some of the difference. 
• 2014 - CF Andrew McCutchen won his third consecutive NL Silver Slugger award and 2B Neil Walker took home his first. Cutch became the first Pittsburgh outfielder to earn three consecutive Silver Sluggers since Barry Bonds in 1990-92 while Walker was the first Pirate second baseman to earn one since Johnny Ray in 1983. Cutch and SS Ian Desmond of the Nats were the only NL repeat winners.