1/25: Stuper-Sandt; Roberto's Big Deal; Sid, Jeff, Dann, Dale Sign; Joe, Hank HoF; Werle Wrong; RIP Mooney; HBD Dan, Gregg & Buddy

• 1936 - IF Harold “Buddy” Pritchard was born in South Gate, California. The Pirates signed him in 1957 out of Southern Cal for a $30,000 bonus w/$6,000 salary for each of the next three seasons, and as a bonus baby he had to spend his first year with the Buccos. He went 1-for-11 in 23 games and played just 34 innings in the field. Pritchard was sent to minors after the campaign and played eight seasons in the Pirate farm system with a .256 BA. Buddy managed and scouted for Pittsburgh, then bird dogged for the Cubs and the Major League Scouting Bureau. 
• 1950 - LHP Bill Werle, recovered from a muscle pull and angling for a raise, predicted that “given a share of the breaks” that he would finish the year with 20 wins after a 12-13/4.24 rookie campaign. He misspoke by a bit; he finished the season 8-16-8/4.60, splitting time between starting and the pen. In fact, he won just 18 more MLB games between 1950-54 after his prediction. 
• 1956 - SS Joe Cronin and OF Hank Greenberg were elected to the Hall of Fame. Both were considered to be among the top RH hitters of their era and had brief stops in Pittsburgh. Cronin started as a Pirate in 1926-27 and played sparingly before breaking out for Washington and Boston, while Greenberg spent 1947, his last MLB season, as a Bucco, hitting 25 HR and serving as a mentor to up-and-coming slugger Ralph Kiner. They were inducted on July 23rd. 
• 1964 - Former Pirate coach Gregg Ritchie was born in Washington DC. Ritchie played in the Giant system, topping out at AAA, and then went on to coach in the White Sox organization for a decade before joining Pittsburgh. In 2006, Ritchie became the Bucs' roving minor league hitting coordinator and later the hitting coach for the big club during the 2011-12 seasons. He left to take George Washington University’s baseball manager job and is still the Colonial’s pilot. 

Gregg Ritchie - 2011 photo Dave Maxwell/Getty

• 1967 - Roberto Clemente signed a $100,000 contract, then the highest in Pirate history, topping Ralph Kiner’s $90,000 deal of 1952. He joined the MLB’s top shelf of players with a six-figure deal; the others paid at that rate were Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Frank Robinson, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. His salary helped boost the total Pirates payroll for the year to an estimated but unverifiable $800,000, considered by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to be an “elite” amount for a third place club. It was certainly a different era - the combined total payroll of MLB in 1967 was estimated to be at about $9.5M, with at least 10 of the 20 clubs topping out at $375,00 or less (Kansas City’s entire roster came in at $190,700!). The average player’s salary was $19,000 for the ‘67 campaign, with the minimum set at $6,000. 
• 1967 - Catcher and manager George "Mooney" Gibson passed away in his hometown of London (Ontario) at the age of 86. Mooney played for the Bucs from 1905-16 and was considered one of the top defensive catchers of the deadball era , making up for his .238 BA as a Pirate. He was a workhorse with Pittsburgh, leading NL catchers in games played for four consecutive seasons between 1907-10. His final two seasons were with the NY Giants, spent as a player/coach, and the time served him well as he had two stints as the Pirates skipper, from 1920-22 and again from 1932-34. The clubs went 401-330 (.549), finishing under .500 just once with three second-place finishes. George, who hailed from Ontario, was celebrated north of the border - he was named Canada's baseball player of the half century in 1958, the first baseball player elected to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame and entered the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in 1987. 
• 1974 - LHP Dan Serafini was born in San Francisco. Though he got just 104 appearances in parts of seven big league seasons (he was a Pirate in 2000, going 2-5/4.91 in 11 starts), he deserves a tip o’ the cap for perseverance. Drafted out of HS, he pitched from 1992-2013 professionally from the age of 18 until he was 39, with nine AAA seasons, 10 years in foreign (Mexico, Japan, Venezuela) leagues and even a couple of years of indie ball; that’s one dedicated ball tosser. 

Dale Berra - 1984 Donruss

• 1984 - SS Dale Berra signed a five-year contract worth nearly $3M, avoiding arbitration and putting to bed rumors that he was on his way to the Yankees, where his dad Yogi had just been named manager, in exchange for Roy Smalley. His middle-of-the-infield partner, 2B Johnny Ray, also signed a five-year agreement two days later. But Berra hit just .222 during the ‘84 campaign and joined his pap in NY as part of the Steve Kemp deal. 
• 1979 - The Pirates traded RHP John Stuper to the St. Louis Cardinals for IF (and later coach) Tommy Sandt. Stuper, a RHP who twirled for Point Park College, was drafted by the Bucs the year before and was plucked from Class A Charleston. He spent three years in the Redbirds system, and carved out a four-year MLB career, winning 32 games, including a brilliant rookie playoff run in 1982. He took over the reins at Yale in 1993, where he still manages. Sandt, like Stuper, never played for Pittsburgh, but began his coaching career as a minor league skipper for the Pirates in 1982 before coaching for Jim Leyland, Gene Lamont and Lloyd McClendon. 
• 1989 - Pittsburgh agreed to terms with a trio of players. They met 1B Sid Bream in the middle, signing him to a one-year/$510K deal. The Pirates then signed RHP Jeff Robinson to a two-year/$1.675M deal, with the Pirates meeting his salary demands after he went 11-5-9/3.03 and led the majors in bullpen work with 124-2/3 IP. Both were arb-eligible. C Dann Bilardello inked a minor league contract. Dann hung around for two seasons, hitting .171 in 51 games and spending most of his Buc career in AAA Buffalo, not an uncommon occurrence during his career - he spent all or part of 16 seasons in the minors as a big league insurance policy.