4/19 Through the 1950s: Hans Debut; Opening Weekend; Fraternizing; Game Tales; HBD RJ

• 1890 - Pittsburgh, which had lost a boatload of players to the upstart Players League, still had enough to win their Opener at Recreation Park by a 3-2 tally over the Cleveland Spiders in front of 1,000 fans. The Alleghenys jumped ahead in the first frame when Billy Sunday advanced three bases on a misthrow by the Cleve catcher to score and the Allies added in the next inning when Sam LaRocque tripled and came home on Henry Youngman’s single. The Spiders tied the game in the fifth against Pete Daniels, but Pittsburgh took home the win in the ninth when Daniel’s bases-loaded rap proved the game-winner. Daniels tossed an eight-hitter with two K and a walk; it would be his only victory of the year. He was released after four games, and the team itself finished with a 23-113 mark. The Player League nine also had its Opener at Exposition Park and the Burghers were thumped, 10-2, despite a crowd of 9,000 who came to see James Galvin pitch. Both local clubs opened with a parade to their respective ballparks, but they avoided one another and any rooter attitudes.

 

Billy Sunday - 1888 Yum Yum Tobacco

• 1900 - Pittsburgh lost their opener to St. Louis, 3-0, at Robison Field as Cy Young pitched a five-hitter and K’ed nine. The game was auspicious because it marked the Pirates debut of 26-year-old Honus Wagner (in right field), who had played with Louisville for the past three seasons. He didn’t disappoint, getting two of the Bucs hits, though he did manage to get picked off. Hans went on to hit a league-leading .381 with 22 triples and 176 OPS+. 
• 1902 - The Cardinals booted 11 balls in a 10-4 loss to the Bucs at Sportsman Park, setting a NL record. The Pirates mishandled four more plays to help set a single game NL record for errors. The Pittsburgh Gazette aptly described the affair as a “game that would make amateurs blush.” 
• 1903 - The Pirates, NL pennant winners in 1901-02, let the rest of the league know they weren’t resting on their laurels by sweeping the Reds at Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans (and there was a huge crowd of 12,000 fans) in a season-opening four-game set, taking the series finale by a 6-4 score. The top three in the Buc lineup - Ginger Beaumont, Fred Clarke and Tommy Leach - scored all six runs to back up Sam Leever’s pitching. The club finished the season as Senior Circuit champions with 91 wins, and then met Boston in what’s considered the first World Series. 
• 1912 - The Pirates and Cardinals spent the evening at the Lyceum Theater on Penn Avenue taking in “George Evans’ Honey Boy Minstrels” show per the Pittsburgh Press. Evans was born in Wales, became a popular entertainer in America, and like many young immigrants, developed a jones for baseball. He awarded a loving cup to baseball’s leading hitter from 1908-12 (engraved to the "World's Championship Batsman"), with Hans Wagner earning the first and Ty Cobb then running the table. 

Hans with George Evan's Cup - 1909 photo/Paul Thompson 

• 1935 - Cy Blanton threw a complete game, one-hit, one-walk, shutout against the St Louis Cardinals at Forbes Field, only giving up a second-inning single to Spud Davis (who would end his career as a Bucco). The Bucs won 3-0, scoring all their runs in the third inning against Wild Bill Hallahan; Blanton chipped in with an RBI. Arky Vaughan and Tom Padden backed up Cy’s gem with three hits apiece. Beat man Edward Ballinger of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote “Blanton’s fireball worked so beautifully and his curves worked so artistically that the Redbirds expressed disgust by throwing down their bats after missing strikes.” Posing, it seems, is not a modern phenomenon. 
• 1938 - Trailing 3-2 entering the ninth inning, SS Arky Vaughan hit a two-run homer to give the Pirates a 4-3, season-opening victory at St. Louis’ Sportsman Park. Paul Waner went 3-for-4 with a double, triple and two runs scored. The win marked the beginning of a seven-game winning streak to open the season. Alas, they needed that winning touch at the end of the year. Instead, they dropped 6-of-7 in the closing days of the campaign to finish two games behind the Cubs. 
• 1948 - The Reds opened the season with a 4-1 win over the Pirates at Crosley Field in a game delayed by a shower of bottles in the eighth frame. The Bucs went down fighting when Cincy’s Babe Young doubled after Hank Sauer’s homer and got tangled with Buc SS Stan Rojek. Young went after Rojek, failing to note that the ball was back in play, and was tagged out. The players jostled and a fan jumped the railing to go after ump Jocko Conlin, who had rung Young up. First base ump Beans Reardon came over to help get things in order, but instead got into a fight with the riled rooter. Police restored peace while the Queen City faithful pitched a few bottles the Buccos’ way. The fighting fan, btw, was allowed to return to his seat. The game was noteworthy in a couple of other ways - it marked the Pirates switch to black & gold trim from the traditional red and blue piping along with the introduction of cleaner lettering instead of cursive, and it marked Billy Meyer’s debut as manager. Despite the bumpy baptism, he would become 1948’s The Sporting News Manager of the Year. 

Rip Sewell - 1949 Eureka Sports Stamp

• 1949 - Rip Sewell whipped Dutch Leonard, 1-0, in front of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson and Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly at Wrigley Field, marking the third time Sewell blanked the Cubbies on Opening Day. The Pirates scored in the ninth when pinch-hitter Les Fleming’s grounder scored pinch runner Jack Cassini for an unearned run; he was in for Dixie Walker, who reached on an error. 
• 1959 - Robert James “RJ” Reynolds was born in Sacramento. The switch-hitter spent six seasons with the Pirates, hitting .269 as a platoon outfielder and pinch hitter from 1985-90. He often played with Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke, but age and Bobby Bo’s emergence was the beginning of the end for RJ, who finished his career playing in Japan and Mexico.