6/22: Brad, Lefty Sign; Hot El Coffee; Dovy Debut; Rennie 5-Pack; Clyde's 23-Gamer; Max Doubles Up; 2,000 For Hans; Game Tales; HBD Brant, Dave & Gus

• 1877 - RHP Gus Thompson was born in Humboldt, Iowa. The Pirates picked up the 26-year-old’s contract in August from Helena of the Pacific National League, and he slashed 2-2/3.56 in five 1903 outings (four starts) in his rookie campaign. He made the World Series roster and got into a game against Boston, giving up a run in three innings. But he only got one more shot at the show in 1906 with the Cards and his pro career ended following the 1910 season when he tossed for the Seattle Giants of the Northwestern League. 
• 1882 - The Reds beat the Bucs at Exposition Park, 5-2, in 14 innings, ending the game with a triple play. With runners on first and second, Cincinnati SS Chick Fulmer let a pop fly drop, then with the runners in limbo, went around the horn to close out the game. Plays like this were not uncommon as the infield fly rule wasn’t put into effect until 1885 by the NL and crafted into its current form in 1901. 
• 1901 - The Pirates signed 26-year-old OF Alfonzo “Lefty” Davis as a free agent after he had a slow start as a rookie with the Brooklyn Superbas and was released. Davis hit .313 for the Pirates during the remainder of the campaign. He batted .280 over 59 games in 1902 for the Bucs, then jumped to the AL New York Highlanders for the 1903 season. After a year with them, Lefty mostly played in the American Association, with a 1907 stop in Cincinnati. 

Lefty Davis - 1902 The Sporting News

• 1908 - Honus Wagner smacked his 2,000th hit against Jake Weimer of the Reds during a 4-0 loss at Exposition Park. Back in the day, there wasn’t much ado about career milestones (nor were hits and such even accurately counted, so thus date may be taken with a healthy dash of salt) and the Pittsburgh media made nary a mention of the feat. 
• 1917 - The Pirates held a Honus Wagner Day at Forbes Field to honor the Bucco great, who announced (again) that this would be his last season, although this time the 43-year-old kept his word and hung ‘em up after the season. Before the game, he rode in the lead car of what was claimed to be a 500-vehicle parade from town to the Oakland ballyard along with Mayor Joe Armstrong. The fans were all given ribboned pins with the Flying Dutchman’s picture (no bobbleheads back in the day) and Wagner received an engraved silver loving cup along with a lifetime membership to his favorite club, the Carnegie Elks. Honus went 1-for-4 with a walk and a steal as the Bucs eked out a 4-3 win over the Cubs in 10 innings. 
• 1925 - Max Carey got two hits in each the first and eighth innings as the Pirates beat the Cards at Sportsman's Park, 24-6. The two-hits-in-two-innings feat wasn’t repeated again until Rennie Stennett did it against the Cubs in 1975. The Pirates smacked six homers that game, with two from George Grantham, grand slams by Kiki Cuyler and Pie Traynor and more long balls from Clyde Barnhart and Earl Smith, helped along by seven Cardinal errors along the way. Every Pirate starter, including the pitcher and winner Ray Kremer, had at least a hit and either scored a run, drove in a run, or both. It was the Pirates biggest run outburst of the 20th century. The Bucs were really rolling; the game before they tattooed the Brooklyn Robins 21-5, banging out four dingers, three triples and three two-baggers. Kiki Cuyler went 4-for-5 with two homers, a triple, six RBI and five runs in that one. The Bucs bopped that year; they scored 912 runs on the way to a 93-60 record, the NL title and a World Series crown. 

Clyde Barnhart - 1925 photo via Prewar Sports

• 1927 - LF Clyde Barnhart ran his hit streak to 23 games with a single in an 11-9 win over the Reds at Forbes Field, a string that would end the following game against the Cubs’ Charlie Root. The heroes of the day for the Bucs were Kiki Cuyler and Glenn Wright with three knocks and two RBI each, along with pitcher Carmen Hill. “Specs” spun 6-2/3 IP of relief for the win and went 2-for-3 at the dish to spark the Buccaneers. 
• 1949 - LHP Dave Tomlin was born in Maysville, Kentucky. Tomlin had a good run through the league, but the Bucs got him when the tank was empty. He got six outings with the Buccos in 1983 & 1985 while in his mid-thirties for five innings and a 5.40 ERA, spending most of his Pirates career in AAA Hawaii. After his tossing ended (1986 was his last MLB year) he became a pitching coach for Montreal and later Atlanta. He was later a pitching coach and minor league manager for the Red Sox from 1998-2016. 
• 1951 - A power failure at Forbes Field delayed the start of the game with the Dodgers by two hours, and rain held up play in the sixth inning by another 36 minutes, pushing the game’s end to 1:56 AM. Brooklyn’s night owls won easily, 8-4. Of the 24‚966 fans there at the start of the Friday night game, an estimated 10‚000 insomniacs made it to the end. 
• 1964 - Beat man Les Biederman of the Pittsburgh Press wrote that the Pirates had a pair of deals in the fire for 1B Donn Clendenon, one with the Braves and another with the Phils. Both clubs wanted Clendenon and a reliever. The Pirates ask from Milwaukee was OF Felipe Alou and from Philadelphia, they wanted RHP Art Mahaffey and another unnamed player. Neither set of talks got close to trigger-pulling status. 

Jim Nelson - 1972 Topps

• 1970 - RHP Jim Nelson tossed his first (and only) complete game and shutout, beating the Cards, 1-0, in 10 innings at Forbes Field to salvage a twin-bill split, with Gene Alley scoring the game-winner after a Matty Alou knock. For a guy who only had 32 outings (12 starts) in MLB, he was pretty notable: Nelson started his career with a 4-0 record for the Pirates in 1970, a feat not matched by a Pirates starting pitcher until Zach Duke in 2005, and was the last Pittsburgh pitcher to win his first three career starts until Gerrit Cole in 2013. Nelson also was the starting and winning pitcher in the final game played at Forbes Field in 1970. He struggled with control in 1971, and was demoted to the minor leagues, but refused to report to AAA Charleston until the end of the season. His teammates voted him a half-share of their 1971 World Series money, but Pirates management denied him a World Series ring. He then underwent rotator cuff surgery and never returned to the majors, with a career slash of 6-4/3.06. 
• 1971 - OF/1B Brant Brown was born in Porterville, California. The Bucs swapped Jon Lieber for Brant after he had hit .291/14 HR with the Cubs in 1998, but in 130 Pirates games he hit just .232, although he did swat 16 homers and chase home 58 runs. He was sent to the Padres after the year for Bruce Aven and 2000 was his last big-league season. Since he’s retired, Brown has coached in the Rangers and Mariners minor-league systems and is now a dual assistant hitting coach/minor league hitting coordinator for the Dodgers. 
• 1976 - Rennie Stennett had five hits to help rally the Pirates from a 5-0 deficit to a 10-7 win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Richie Zisk & Al Oliver had three knocks each (the team collected 19 raps) while four Bucs had two RBI and eight different Corsairs scored to carry Larry Demery, the middle arm of a five-pitcher parade, to victory. 

Bob Walk - 1993 Pacific

• 1993 - Bob Walk spun a three-hitter as the Bucs downed the Cubs, 7-2, at TRS. Walkie had the magic touch against Chicago, with the win pushing him to 15-3 lifetime against the Baby Bruins (he finished his career 15-4 against them; this was the 36-year-old’s final campaign). It was his second back-to-back complete game of his 14-year MLB stint. His support came from Jeff King and Al Martin dingers, with Kevin Young banging out four hits. Walk wasn’t particularly impressed by the outing, though. He told Paul Meyer of the Post Gazette that “Everything they hit was right at somebody. They could have easily had 100 hits...” Manager Jim Leyland, for one, was glad that the at’ em balls led to an easy night. He had spent the evening before at the hospital as wife Katie delivered daughter Kellie. 
• 2006 - RHP Brad Lincoln, the Pirates first round draft pick selected out of the U of Houston, signed for a bonus estimated at $2.75M. He was introduced at a Bucco PC and then sent straight to Bradenton to the Rookie League Pirates. The day before, it was announced that Pittsburgh prospects C Neil Walker and LHP Tom Gorzelanny would appear in the Futures Game for the USA during MLB’s All-Star weekend while the number one pick from 2005, Andrew McCutchen, went 1-for-3 in the Sally League All-Star game. In more All Star news, NL skipper Phil Garner of the Astros selected Bucco bench minder Jim Tracy to his staff, along with Chuck Tanner as an honorary coach, for the PNC Park Midsummer Classic. 
• 2010 - RHP Dovydas Neverauskas saw some mop-up duty for the GCL Pirates during an 11-4 loss to the Yankee rookies, becoming the first born-and-raised Lithuanian to appear in organized baseball. He debuted with the Pirates in 2017. 

Dovydas Neverauskas - 2020 photo Justin Berl/Getty

• 2011 - At PNC Park, the Pirates reached the magic .500 mark as Kevin Correia picked up his 9th win, 5-4, over the Orioles, with Joel Hanrahan earning his 20th save in 20 opps (he would run up 26 saves before blowing a lead). The big blow was delivered by Josh Harrison, who plated Brandon Wood and Michael McKenry when his fifth-inning, two-out ground ball rolled between the second baseman's legs. The Pirates were fighting to end an 18-year streak of losing seasons, but it wouldn’t be this year (nor next). The team was over .500 in late July, but by August 3rd, they had a losing record and then circled the drain, finishing 72-90. 
• 2014 - Rookie Gregory Polanco’s team-record streak of 11 straight games with a hit to open his career ended at Wrigley Field, but the Bucs still prevailed, 2-1. Travis Snider’s home run and Josh Harrison’s two-out single gave Brandon Cumpton just enough breathing room, with Mark Melancon coming on to close it out. Polanco would continue his on-base streak, which reached 14 games before he finally had a contest without a hit or walk. El Coffee had barely kept his hit streak alive in the prior game by winning a challenge: he was credited with an infield single that had originally been ruled an out at first. 

Gregory Polanco - 2014 Topps Hi Tek

• 2018 - The Pirates lost in 11 innings to the Arizona D-Backs, 2-1, at PNC Park in a game that Ivan Nova and the Snakes Pat Corbin teamed up to set a deep stat dive, big league record. (Nova - eight innings, three hits, eight K) and Corbin (seven innings - three hits, 12 K) became the first starters to go at least seven frames of shutout ball giving three hits or fewer while posting eight or more strikeouts and no walks in MLB history. It took 10 more pitchers to finish the final 5-1/2 innings, with Tyler Glasnow losing to TJ McFarland.