8/16 Through the 1940s: Historic Slugfest; Hans Out; Game Tales; HBD Curt, Gene, Tiny, Andy, Bill, Rube, Gene the Kid & Wee Willie

• 1872 - SS Frederick “Gene The Kid” Steere was born in South Scituate, Rhode Island. An All-America at Brown University, where he got his nickname (he was on the small side and looked younger than his age), his major-league career consisted of 10 games with the Pirates in 1894, hitting .204. The Kid took the hint and went off to Hawaii at age 26, where Steere was a successful plantation owner and real estate developer who was deeply involved in baseball on the Islands. It had taken root there when Alexander Cartwright made it his home (he left NYC and the Knickerbockers to join the Gold Rush and kept going). Steere continued to help popularize the game on the Aloha Islands before returning stateside before passing away in San Francisco. 

Wee Willie Clark - undated photo via Vintage Baseball

• 1872 - 1B “Wee Willie” Clark was born in Pittsburgh. He played the final two years of his five-season big league career with the Bucs, hitting .293 from 1898-99. Though he played well, he was part of the backwash when Barney Dreyfuss absorbed most of the Louisville team in 1900. Willie played a year for the minor league Milwaukee Brewers, then retired. He stayed local, dying at the age of 62 and was buried in Allegheny Cemetery. 
• 1887 - LHP John Henry “Hank”/“Rube” Robinson was born in Floyd, Arkansas. He spent the first three years (1911-13) of his career with Pittsburgh, going 26-17/2.34 with his time split between the pen and starting. After he retired, Robinson pitched 13 consecutive seasons with Little Rock from 1916-28. During his career he won 190 games, working 3,000+ innings for the Travelers, and earned a spot in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1962. 
• 1890 - RHP Bill Phillips of the Alleghenys (and Charleroi) became the first pro pitcher in history to allow two grand slams in the same inning against the Chicago Colts, as the Windy City won 18-5 at Recreation Park. Phillips ended 1-9 with a 7.57 ERA in his rookie season, but learned some lessons and went on to have a seven-year career with a 70-76/4.09 line. 
• 1892 - 1B Bill Keen was born in Oglethorpe, Georgia. Keen got into six games as a Buc in 1911, going 0-for-7 with a walk, and that was his MLB career. He was one of six first basemen to get a look that season, and his was the briefest audition of the gang. Keen did have a drawerful of nicknames, with Rebel, Hammerhead, WB (William Brown) and Buster among them. 

Patsy Flaherty - 1904 photo/Chicago History Museum

• 1904 - The Pirates swept the NY Giants by 7-2 and 4-1 counts at the Polo Grounds in front of 23,000 disappointed Big Apple fans. Patsy Flaherty took the opener from Christy Mathewson while Mike Lynch did the honors in the nightcap, defeating Dummy Taylor. Ginger Beaumont had five hits during the day to lead Pittsburgh while Hans Wagner chipped in with three. It was the first time that the New Yorkers had dropped a twin bill during a season that saw them dethrone the Bucs and run away with the pennant by reeling off 106 wins. 
• 1908 - RHP Andrew Jackson “Andy” Bednar was born in Streator, Illinois. Andy pitched briefly for the Pirates in 1930-31, making five appearances with a 0-0/15.19 slash. That was his MLB career, but despite that, he was a fine pitcher in the minors, once winning 22 games for Tulsa. He died young in Texas in 1937 following a car crash while working in the oil fields. 
• 1909 - OF Red Murray of the NY Giants saved Christy Mathewson’s bacon on a dark and stormy afternoon when, as the Pittsburgh Press described “...the ball was seen rising, rising far out over the heads of the waiting fielders. But Red Murray had his eye on the ball...the most wonderful catch ever seen at Forbes Field was pulled off, Murray getting the sphere with his bare hand after a long hard run. The inning was over and the Pirates were robbed of victory...as the game was called because of rain with the score deadlocked at 2-2. Two runners had already crossed home when Murray snagged Dots Miller’s two-out drive...as the wind whistled, the lightning flashed, the thunder crashed and the rain descended.” 1B Ham Hyatt chipped in with his third pinch-hit triple of the year, a record that wouldn't be matched until 1970 by Vic Davalillo of St. Louis. 
• 1911 - Elmer Steele needed just 72 pitches in downing the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, 9-0, at Washington Park. Steele surrendered no walks, had no strikeouts, and allowed just one hit, a one-out ninth inning single that just got past 2B Dots Miller. But it wasn’t all good news: Honus Wagner severely injured his ankle during the match, ended up on crutches and missed 25 of the next 26 games. During his absence, the Bucs, who were only one game off the pace at the time, fell out of contention and finished 16 games behind, a distant third to the NY Giants. 

Elmer Steele - 1911 photo Conlon Collection/Detroit Public Library

• 1913 - The Pirates jumped on the Giants’ Christy Mathewson, scoring eight times in the first three frames and then hanging on for an 8-6 win at the Polo Grounds. The “demon Dutchman” (per the Pittsburgh Press) Hans Wagner went 4-for-5 with a homer and Jim Viox added three knocks to help Babe Adams earn the win with George McQuinlan credited with a four-inning save. 
• 1913 - RHP Ernest “Tiny” Bonham was born in Ione, California. He pitched the final three years (1947-49) of his career for the Pirates, with a record of 24-22 and a 2.11 ERA. Prior to that, Tiny tossed seven seasons for the Yankees with a 21 win season and two All Star berths. In one of baseball’s saddest endings, he went to the hospital in August of his last season for an appendectomy, was discovered to have cancer and died three weeks later. 
• 1922 - OF Gene Woodling was born in Akron, Ohio. The outfielder spent 17 years in the league, and made a stop at Pittsburgh in 1947 as a 25-year-old, getting into 22 games and batting .266. He coached for the Orioles for four years after hangin’ ‘em up, but his biggest contribution following his playing days was as a major mover in establishing a players pension fund. 
• 1929 - 2B Curt Roberts was born in Pineland, Texas. The first black American ballplayer for Pittsburgh (Carlos Bernier was the first black player), he played from 1954-56, hitting .223 as a Pirate. He lost his starting job at second in 1955 to Johnny O’Brien and they both lost out to a kid from Ohio named Bill Mazeroski, who would claim the position in 1956 and keep it for the next dozen years. When his baseball career ended, he worked as a security guard for the University of California, Berkeley. He died tragically at the age of 40 in Oakland, California, when he was hit by a drunk driver while changing a flat tire on his car. 

Curt Roberts - 1954 Dan Dee

• 1947 - The Pirates blasted a franchise record seven homers in a game against the Cardinals in a 12-7 win at Forbes Field. Ralph Kiner launched three consecutive dingers, the first of four times he would do that thing (he also tied a MLB record by going long in four consecutive at bats), while Hank Greenberg and Billy Cox blasted a pair each. For Greenberg, it was his 35th and final multi-homer game. The homers accounted for all 12 of the Buc runs. Kiner matched the MLB marks of seven HRs in four games, six in three games, five in two games, and four in consecutive at bats (he went long in his last at bat the day before) while becoming the first Pirate to homer not only three times in a single game but consecutively. Kiner, Greenberg and Cox were joined by Cardinal Whitey Kurowski, who also had a pair of homers, to set a MLB record for most players with multi homers in a game; the 10 home runs in a nine-inning game tied another record as nine long ball marks were set or equaled.