3/29: Smith Deal; DJ Signs; Jared Goes; Varsho's Day; Jimmy Makes Cut; Tracy Moves; KBL Squabble; HBD Big Bob, Danny, Sean, Mike, Bob, Sir Richard & Hank

• 1865 - RHP Hank Gastright was born in Covington, Kentucky. He had been a workhorse for the Columbus Colts for the first three years of his career, had a rough campaign with Washington and then in 1893 had a bounceback year of sorts, starting out with Pittsburgh. The Pirates didn’t use him much as he went 3-1/6.25 in nine games into July, when he was released and claimed by Boston, where he pitched a little better but with lots more luck, going 12-4/5.13; his combined 15-5 record was the best winning percentage in the National League that year. He had one more campaign left in him and tossed a farewell game in 1896 for his hometown Cincinnati Reds. Trivia: Gastright threw a no-hitter in 1890 for Columbus but it’s not considered an official no-no. It missed the books because the game was called after eight innings due to darkness. 
• 1873 - OF/1B Duff “Sir Richard” Cooley was born in Leavenworth, Kansas. He played 13 MLB seasons, spending 1900 with the Pirates after being purchased from Philadelphia. Although a .294 career hitter, he had his worst year at the dish as a Buc and batted .201, leading to his August release. He found work until 1905, when a broken leg ended his big league stay. He was with Detroit at the time, and was replaced in center by a young guy named Ty Cobb. As for his nickname, it was said he had a haughty manner and so was dubbed as part of the gentry. 
• 1894 - LHP Bob Steele was born in Cassburn, Ontario. Steele hurled for the Bucs from 1917-18, when they had some fairly poor clubs. Steele suited up for Pittsburgh in the second half of 1917 after a deal with the Cards for 3B Doug Baird, continuing through the first half of 1918. He did fairly well without flashy results, going 7-14-2/2.87 as a starter who occasionally worked from the pen. Bob was sold to the Giants later in the 1918 campaign and tossed his last MLB season for them in 1919, retiring after finishing out the year with Indianapolis of the American Association. He did make the record books (albeit Canadien) when he tossed a no-hitter for the Moose Jaw Robin Hoods against the Calgary Bronchos (sic) in the Class D Western Canadian League in 1913. 

Moose Jaw's Bob Steele - 1913

• 1961 - OF Mike Kingery was born in St. James, Minnesota. Mike closed out his 10-year, six team MLB career with the Bucs in 1996, signing on as a $750K free agent at the age of 35. He became their part-time center fielder, hitting .246 before retiring to Minnesota to raise his family, gig with the Kingery Family Singers and begin the Solid Foundation Baseball School. 
• 1962 - Pirates owner Bob Nutting was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. He’s CEO of Ogden Newspapers Inc. and former mountain resort owner along with being the Chairman of the Board and principal owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had been repping the Nutting interests in the Bucs since 2002, when his dad Ogden was a shareholder of the Kevin McClatchy team. Educated at Williams College (surprisingly, he majored in History, not Finance/Econ), he’s married with three kids and often the target of frustrated Pirates fans who believe he should loosen the purse strings. Get used to his bottom line ways; he’s turned down at least three local bids to sell the club. 
• 1971 - RHP Sean Lowe was born in Dallas, Texas. Lowe had been a White Sox long man/spot starter for three seasons when he arrived in Pittsburgh in 2002 with Kip Wells and Josh Fogg as part of the Todd Ritchie deal. After going 4-2/5.35, he was released in September. He finished the campaign with Colorado, tossed for KC in 2003 and that gig ended his seven-year stint in MLB. 
• 1975 - RHP Danny Kolb was born in Sterling, Illinois. The Pirates signed the eight-year vet to a minor league deal in 2007; the 32-year-old didn’t break camp with the club, but was called up in June, got into three games, gave up three runs on six hits in three innings and was DFA’ed back to the minors. He refused to report, became a FA, and left for Boston. The Red Sox released him early in 2008, making Pittsburgh his last MLB stop. His cousin Gary Kolb played for the 1968-69 Pirates. 

Sean Lowe - 2002 Upper Deck 40-Man

• 1991 - In a depth swap, the Pirates traded outfielders, sending Steve Carter to the Chicago Cubs for Gary Varsho. Carter, who had a couple of short Pittsburgh stays, never appeared in MLB again. Varsho hit .249 in two years as a bench bat for the Bucs, was waived, claimed by the Cincinnati Reds for the ‘93 season, and then returned to the Pittsburgh coop in 1994. 
• 1994 - After being released the day before, Gary Varsho signed a $243,750 contract for a second go-around with the club, which he had played for in 1991-92 before joining the Reds. In his three years with the club, Gary batted .251 as a pinch hitter and extra outfielder. He returned one more time to serve as John Russell’s bench coach in 2008 before being let go in 2010, shortly before JR was shown the door. He came back to the fold in 2016 as a Bucco scout. 
• 1994 - The Pirates and KBL settled a beef that had led to the Buccos suing for breach of contract, risking the possibility of no TV coverage for the season. Before the hearing was to start, Judge Michael Musmanno told the lawyers to make another effort to hammer out an agreement, and five hours later, they shook hands on a deal. KBL was given production & advertising rights while the Pirates TV footprint shrank with 25 fewer games broadcast than the season before. 
• 1997 - The Pirates traded OF Trey Beamon and C Angelo Encarnacion to the San Diego Padres for 1B/OF Mark Smith and minor-league RHP Hal Garrett. It was a wash; Beaman had a couple of decent seasons from the pine while Smith hit .285 with nine homers off the bench for the Bucs in 1997 but faded in 1998. Smith’s highlight came in 1997 when he drilled a homer in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Pirates a 3-0 win over the Houston Astros at TRS, ending the first extra-inning, combined no-hitter (Francisco Cordoba, Ricardo Rincon) in MLB history. 

Mark Smith - 1998 Pacific Invincible

• 1999 - RHP DJ Carrasco, 33, signed a one-year/$950K free agent deal with the Pirates, where he was workmanlike, posting a 2-2/3.88 slash. That performance earned him a deadline ticket to Arizona with OF Ryan Church and IF Bobby Crosby for SS Pedro Ciriaco, C Chris Snyder and cash. 
• 2000 - The Pirates picked lefty Jimmy Anderson to break camp as their fifth starter and cut veteran LHP Pete Schourek, eating the final $2M of his contract. Schourek wasn’t taken by surprise; he was coming off a poor, injury-ridden 1999 and had been on the trade market for a couple of weeks. The Pirates suits thought Anderson had more upside, but a couple of the team leaders weren’t sold. Kevin Young said “A lot of the veteran players are disturbed...We don’t want people rewarded for mediocrity.” Brian Giles added that “He (Schourek) busts his butt. With Jimmy, you don’t know that...Jimmy needs to learn how to work and make himself better. From what we’ve seen, we haven’t seen him make that commitment.” As it ended up, Anderson’s career lasted through 2004 though he never posted an ERA south of 5.10 after his ‘99 rookie campaign while Schourek tossed through 2001 for Boston, winning four games pitching to an ERA of 4.97. The Pirates searched fruitlessly for a fifth starter who would finish the season with an ERA under five until 2011, when Kevin Correia put up a 4.72 mark. 
• 2006 - It was a busy day at Jim Tracy’s first camp. First, the rumor mill was leaking out a potential UT Craig Wilson-for-RHP Joel Pineiro swap with Seattle, which eventually fell through (Piniero made twice the money that Wilson did, and went on to post an 8-13/6.36 with the Mariners during the season, so the Bucs dodged that double barrel). The need for a starting pitcher was highlighted when Kip Wells, John Van Benshoten and Bryan Bullington all went on the DL this day. Additionally, a handful of non-pitching guys were sent to the minors, including Jose Bautista, Ronny Paulino and Mike Edwards. 

Jim Tracy - photo via All Star Collectibles

• 2017 - In a surprise move, the Pirates released RHP Jared Hughes, whom they had tendered months earlier and signed to a $2.175M contract. Hughes had been with the MLB club since 2011 and was a member of the organization since 2006 when he was a fourth round draft pick. The release date had to do with a combination of declining performance and dollars; by letting him go before the season started, the Pirates were on the hook for just $695K. Hughes later signed as an FA with the Milwaukee Brewers for $950K. He followed that campaign by signing for two-years w/an option with the Reds before retiring in early 2021 with 10 MLB years under his belt.