3/7: Olivo Deal; Vic HoF; Maz Honored; Steady Freddy; 2019 Class Inked; Chirpy Camp; KBL; Ground Jordan; Spring Flip?; Box Ban; RIP Cool Papa, Pud; HBD Jason, Albert, Dick, Junior & Doc

• 1881 - RHP William “Doc” Scanlan was born in Syracuse. He started his career in Pittsburgh, tossing sparingly from 1903-04 before being sold to the Brooklyn Superbas. Doc was 1-4 with a 4.65 ERA here, but was steady on the slab for some bad Brooklyn teams over the next 6-1/2 years, winning 64 games with a 2.96 ERA and tossing over 1,200 innings. He made baseball history in 1905 when he became one of only a handful of National League hurlers in modern major league history to win two complete games in one day, beating St. Louis, 4-0 and 3-2, on October 3rd.  Doc’s nickname was straightforward enough; he became a doctor after he hung up the spikes. 

Doc Scanlan - 1907 photo via Detroit Public Library

• 1893 - Baseball began to take on its modern form. The NL eliminated the pitching box, a 6’ x 4’ area the pitcher could throw from, and replaced it with the pitcher's rubber, establishing both a set position for pitchers and today’s pitching distance of 60’ 6”. Also, bats had to be rounded - the semi-cricket style of one side being flat for ease of slapping/bunting was made illegal. 
• 1902 - James Pud Galvin, who had spent half of his 16 big league years pitching in Pittsburgh for the Alleghenys, Burghers and Pirates, passed away impoverished at the age of 45 of a stomach ailment. He left behind six kids and a wife in baseball’s pre-pension era; various local funders were held after his death to help the family. In his career, he tossed 6,003 innings and 646 complete games, behind only Cy Young. He was MLB's first 300-game winner in 1888 (he won 365 times), authored two no-hitters and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965. His original ground-level memorial stone at Calvary Cemetery in Hazelwood was replaced in a ceremony as a result of SABR's 19th Century Baseball Grave Marker Project and is now befitting a HoF player. 
• 1919 - RHP James “Junior” Walsh was born in Newark. Junior made his pitching debut in 1946 for the Bucs, returning during 1948-51 and never posted an ERA lower than 5.05; during his five years in Pittsburgh, his line was 4-10-1/5.88. He spent most of his 14-year pro career in the Pirates organization, once leading the Western League in whiffs. But he missed the dish even more often than he missed bats - in his years on the hill, he fanned over 800 but walked over 900. 
• 1931 - C Dick Rand was born in South Gate, California. Rand got into 60 games for the Bucs in 1957, batting .219 and ending his MLB career after three years. He was part of the cattle call of catchers the Pirates rostered in 1957 after starter Jack Shepherd earned a masters degree and surprised the club by retiring to go to work for his alma mater, Stanford. Rand joined Hank Foiles, Danny Kravitz and Harding “Pete” Peterson, who would find more success in the front office (he eventually became the Pirates GM) than on the field, as Bucco backstops during the season. 

Dick Rand - 1958 Topps

• 1958 - OF Albert Hall was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Hall spent his final MLB campaign in Pittsburgh after signing a minor league deal, closing out a yo-yo nine-year career (all but this stop as a Brave) with only two seasons spent entirely with the big club. He got into 20 September games in 1989 for the Bucs after playing with the AAA Buffalo club and hit .182. A noted base-stealer in the minors (he swiped 60+ sacks six times), Hall also was the first Atlanta Brave to hit for the cycle in late 1987; the last time a member of the Braves franchise, Bill Collins, had posted a cycle before then was 1910 when the team was the Boston Doves. 
• 1960 - The Pirates purchased LHP Diomedes Olivo from Poza Rica of the Mexican League, also throwing in an unnamed minor league infielder. He spent most of the year at AAA Columbus, before getting into four late-season games with the big club. When Olivo made his debut on September 5th, 1960, at age 41, he was the oldest rookie to pitch except for Satchel Paige in the post-WW2 era. He had another solid season at Columbus in 1961 and came north in ‘62 to post a line of 5-1-7/2.77 in 62 outings. Diomedes and Dick Groat were shipped in the offseason to the Cards for Don Cardwell and Julio Gotay. Age was just a number to the Olivo clan - his baby brother Chi-Chi took his MLB bow in 1961 when he was 33. 
• 1984 - It was a pretty chirpy day in camp, according to the Pittsburgh Press’ Bob Hertzel. First, John Candelaria called the Pirates “hypocrites” for not renegotiating his four-year contract, estimated to be worth $700K/year and running through 1986, after saying during the past season that the fans could “go to hell” and he wouldn’t mind a trade (and in fact, Joe Brown was talking to Toronto, Atlanta and Houston about possible deals). Later that week, he complained of a sore arm; that was legit and due to a bone chip in his elbow, which was a major stumbling block in contract and trade talk. Then Dave Parker chimed in from Cincy’s camp, complaining about his portrayal in the retired Willie Stargell’s “Out of Left Field” book; not even Pops was immune from the mud balls flying through the spring air. Chuck Tanner, as always, muffled all the noise and carried on. 

Bradenton street sign - photo/Altoona Curve 

• 1991 - The Pirates went to Winter Haven to play a spring exhibition against the Red Sox, and it was speculated that the two teams would be swapping training facilities before the next camp opened. For the Bucs, based in Bradenton since 1969, it was a matter of growing impatient with the City-County feud over updating McKechnie Field, which dated back to 1923. But all’s well that ends well; Pittsburgh got its renovations in 1993 (those improvements were freshened up again in 2008), and have held preseason work there for the past 50 years. 
• 1991 - OF Cool Papa Bell, who spent five seasons with the Pittsburgh Crawfords and five more with the Homestead Grays (he hit .300+ in nine of those 10 campaigns; the outlier season saw him hit .291), died at age 87 in St. Louis of a heart attack. His speed was legendary; Josh Gibson made the famous observation that Bell was so fast he could flip the light switch and be in bed before the room got dark. Cool Papa played for 25 years and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974. 
• 1994 - The Pirates got their first springtime look at Michael Jordan in Bradenton as he tried to transition from roundballer to hardballer. He didn’t have much luck, fanning once and bouncing three balls to the infield, reaching once on 2B Carlo Garcia’s error. The Pirates whipped the White Sox in Grapefruit League play, 3-2, as MJ’s teammates didn’t do much with the bats, either. 
• 1995 - The Veterans Committee selected RHP Vic Willis for the Hall of Fame. Willis pitched from 1906-09 with Pittsburgh, going 89-46 with a 2.08 ERA. The workhorse curveballer was inducted on July 30th with 249 career victories on his resume and eight 20+ win seasons, including all four years with the Bucs. Vic also was one of eight pitchers who tossed over 300 innings in a season without giving up a homer when he threw 322 frames in the 1906 campaign w/o yielding a long ball. 

Jason Delay - 2022 photo Justin Berl/Getty

• 1995 - C Jason Delay was born in Plano, Texas. The Pirates drafted Delay out of Vanderbilt in the fourth round of the 2017 draft. He caught for Altoona/Indy/Arizona Fall League from 2019 on (missing the Covid year of 2020) and got his first MLB call when he was activated off the travel taxi squad in 2022, starting the first game of a twin bill the following day, going 0-for-2 with a walk, then being returned to Indy between games. He came back in July and knocked incumbent Michael Perez out of a job with his play, even though he only hit .213 in 155 BAs. 
• 1996 - The Pirates and Prime Time KBL signed a three-year contract, good for 61 games/$3M per year for broadcast rights in ‘96, with Lanny Frattare and Steve Blass being the primary booth duo. It was the first multi-year deal signed between the team and KBL, and both sides were looking to jazz up the presentation by moving the announcers into the stands occasionally and using handheld cameras to involve the crowd more in the TV presentation. 
• 2001 - The day after being elected to the Hall of Fame, Bradenton declared it “Bill Mazeroski Day” and Maz threw out the first pitch for the spring game at McKechnie Field. The Pirates added their two cents worth: They named a field at Pirate City after him, then Kevin McClatchy announced that the team was going to change the Avenue of the Pirates by PNC Park to Mazeroski Way, and that Maz would have a special day at the ballyard in August, right after his induction. 
• 2007 - The main topic of the springtime Pirates chatter was whether or not the Bucs should keep defending National League batting champ Freddy Sanchez at second base; both the media and the team had questions about his legs being able to take the physical beating dished out to middle infielders on plays at the bag. Freddy proved tough enough. He had spent 2006-05 splitting time at 3B-SS-2B, and then closed out his career as a second sacker. His legs held up fine, but later injuries to his arm and then to his back eventually did end his MLB days. 

Freddy was ready - 2007 SP Rookie

• 2019 - In an annual rite of spring, the Bucs signed 31 pre-arb players for 2019. 30 of the players were on the 40-man roster plus Dario Agrazal, who was removed from the 40-man roster during the off-season but brought to camp as a NRI, so the team had just 10 guys with more than three years of service time on the active roster. It would be a short window; eight players would become arb-eligible in 2020. But even that club was peach-fuzzed with 27 pre-arb players.