4/23: Babe Goes; Happy Jack HoF; Cotton Top; Fan Fare; Big Bet; Game Tales; RIP Art; HBD Dave, Blackie, Iron Man, Connie & Bob

• 1875 - OF Bob Ganley was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Bob started his five-year MLB run with the Pirates in 1905-06, hitting .270 off the bench as a rookie and started in his second year before losing his spot to rookie Goat Anderson. Bob’s last MLB campaign was in 1909 with the Philadelphia A’s and he was out of baseball after spending the 1912 season with Atlanta of the Southern Association. Per BR Bullpen, he moved around so much as a player that he was called "the globetrotter of organized baseball." He played for Pittsburgh, Washington and Philadelphia as a big leaguer and for New Haven, Albany, Brockton, Columbus, Toledo, Marion, Schenectady, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland, Johnstown, Des Moines, Newark and Atlanta as a farm hand. Bob also managed the Fredericton Pets in 1913 and the Perth Amboy Pacers in 1914. 
• 1882 - RHP Cornelius “Connie” Walsh was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Walsh got his big league call in 1907 for the Pirates and apparently one was his magic number: he got into one game, pitched one inning, and gave up one run on one hit with one walk. Connie went to Cedar Rapids in the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League the following year and found a home there, pitching for six different IIIL clubs over the next seven seasons before retiring after the 1914 campaign. 

Charlie Gray - 1890 image via OOTP Developments

• 1890 - Charlie Gray and the Alleghenys beat the Cleveland Spiders, 20-12, at Recreation Park in front of an alleged crowd of 17 (with six paid) in a yard that held 17,000 (spoiler: that figure isn’t confirmed but anecdotal as a part of a Frederck Leib team history written decades after the fact; the Press just called the attendance “meager.”). The Alleghenys set another franchise record that day; five batters were beaned by the Spiders. Don’t fault the fans for the low turnout - the team finished last in the NL with a record of 23–113, 66-1/2 games behind the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Recreation Park was also known as Union Park and later, the Allegheny Athletic Association Grounds. It was tucked between Allegheny Ave, Pennsylvania Ave, Galveston Ave and Behan St in Allegheny West. No pictures of it as a baseball yard are known to exist, though there are a couple of field-level newspaper shots of Pitt playing football there. The baseball team left for Exposition Park in 1891 and Pitt followed suit in 1904, also playing their games at Expo Park. 
• 1902 - St. Louis Cardinals owner Frank Robison reportedly put up a $10‚000 challenge that the Pirates wouldn’t repeat as NL champions. Pittsburgh players pooled their money to meet the bet and then collected easily as they won the pennant by 27-1/2 games. St Louis finished sixth, 44-1/2 games back. 
• 1906 - RHP Ray “Iron Man” Starr was born in Nowatka, Oklahoma. Ray tossed for the Bucs during the second half of his career between 1944-45 in his age 38-39 seasons with a line of 6-7-3/5.33. He was a product of wartime baseball; after tossing for three years in the show, he spent from 1934-40 in the minors (in all, he spent 15 years on various farm clubs) before he was called back up by the Reds in 1941. Ray picked up his nickname because he was said to have tossed both ends of more than 40 double-headers while in the minor leagues. 

Ray Starr - 1944-45 photo via Find-A-Grave

• 1913 - The Pirates were held to three hits by St Louis hurler Bill Steel and lost, 3-1, despite Claude Hendrix’s two-hitter (six walks hurt) at Robison Field. The runs were hard earned; the Cardinals scored on a bases loaded walk, steal of home and sac fly while the Bucco run came on an error. The bright spot of the Pirates’ day was a nifty triple play. With the bases loaded, Hendrix speared a comebacker and went home to catcher Billy Kelly for a force; his relay to Dots Miller at first beat the batter to the sack, and Miller’s return throw home nailed the Card runner who had kept on truckin’ from second, trying to steal a score during the exchange. 
• 1917 - RHP Gene “Genie” Smith was born in Ashley, Louisiana. He pitched for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays between 1946–1947. During his career, he threw three no-hitters, played in the East-West All Star game and in the Negro World Series, although not with Homestead. He joined the local nines after spending two years in the service and never had another big season afterward, retiring from the low minors after the 1953 campaign with a bad arm. 
• 1922 - Second baseman Cotton Tierney collected a career-high five hits, doubled three times, and knocked in a game-high four runs in Pittsburgh’s 14-3 rout of the Cubs in Chicago. The Bucs broke the game open with an eight-run second inning and then added two more tallies an inning later to make it 10-0. It was Pittsburgh’s sixth straight win after beginning the season with losses in each of the first three games. Hal Carlson cruised to the victory at Wrigley. 
• 1935 - RHP Ron “Blackie” Blackburn was born in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. His MLB career lasted two years, from 1958-59, both spent with the Bucs where Blackie slashed 3-2-4/3.50. Blackburn spent 11 campaigns in the minors, the last for Asheville from which he retired after the 1964 season to become a teacher and baseball coach at Western Carolina University, and from there he became the recreation director at the Western Correction Center in North Carolina. 

Ron Blackburn - 1960 Topps

• 1946 - RHP “Happy Jack” (he was an upbeat guy) Chesbro was elected to the Hall of Fame. A spitballer who won 41 games in 1904 for the NY Highlanders, he tossed for the Pirates at the beginning of his career from 1899-1902 with a line of 70-38/2.89. Also selected was Rube Waddell, a colorful hurler who started his career with Pittsburgh in 1900-01. They were inducted on June 12th. 
• 1946 - The Bucs sold 1B Ellsworth “Babe” Dahlgren to the St. Louis Browns. Dahlgren hit .271 with 176 RBI in his two-year stint with the Bucs, but faded badly with the Browns as a 34-year-old and ‘46 was his last season in the show after 12 big league campaigns with eight clubs. He’s noted as the man who replaced Lou Gehrig in 1939 while with the Yankees. 
• 1947 - The Pirates broke out of the gate in a hurry, winning their sixth of the first seven games of the season by an 8-5 count over the Cards at Sportsman’s Park. Billy Cox and Eddie Basinski each homered and combined for seven RBI. Ed Bahr tossed 6-1/3 shutout innings to win in relief. But it’s how you finish that counts, and 62 wins on the year netted the Bucs seventh place in the NL. 
• 1959 - The Pirates were awarded trophies like it was Little League appreciation day at Forbes Field - Joe Brown was presented with The Sporting News’ GM of the Year honor, Bill Mazeroski and Harvey Haddix were given Golden Gloves, and the local Baseball Writers named Danny Murtaugh the Outstanding Sportsman of the Year with George “Red” Witt winning the Rookie of the Year nod. The team, with Witt on the hill, didn’t win any prizes for their performance on the awards day though, eking out just five hits in a 5-2 loss to the Reds in front of 18,819 fans. 

Red Witt - 1959 Topps

• 1966 - The Pirates homered three times in the ninth inning to pull out a 5-4 win against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Pittsburgh trailed, 4-2, heading into the ninth before Bob Bailey, Jim Pagliaroni, and Jose Pagan each hit solo homers off Dennis Aust and Hal Woodeshick to power the Bucs past the Cards. Pete Mikkelson got the win after tossing two scoreless frames and ElRoy Face worked the ninth for the save. The Bucs were hot; the win pumped their record to 9-2. 
• 1982 - C Tony Peña went 2-for-5 with two doubles and three RBI in the Pirates 12-10 victory over Chicago at Wrigley Field. The Pirates kept the Cubbies alive with three errors that led to four unearned runs, but the Buc bats atoned for the threadbare leather by banging out 17 hits as every starter tallied at least one rap, including starting pitcher Eddie Solomon, who came away with the victory. Kent Tekulve pitched the final 1-1/3 innings to earn his first save of the season. Bill Madlock and Mike Easler each had three hits while Jason Thompson homered to pace the attack. Pena (3), Easler (3) and Omar Moreno (4) combined to chase home 10 of the 12 runs. 
• 1984 - LHP Dave Davidson was born in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The Pirates drafted him out of HS in 2002 and he got a September call up in 2007, giving up five earned runs in two innings. He was sent to Altoona, playing in the Summer Olympics and the 2009 WBC for Canada before the Pirates released him. He was picked up by the Marlins, where he had a sore arm and was let go after the 2009 campaign, ending his career in the indie leagues before retiring in 2011. 
• 1988 - The Pirates-Cubs match at TRS was the NBC Game of the Week, the Buccos first GOTW slot since 1985. The network brass knew what they were doing as the game ended up a 5-4 squeaker in favor of the Buccos. Pittsburgh overcame a 2-0 deficit when Bobby Bonilla and RJ Reynolds homered in the sixth to put the Buccaneers up by a run. The Cubs struck back quickly in the next frame, putting up a pair off Jeff Robinson to retake the lead. The Bucs loaded the bases with an out in the eighth, and Spanky LaValliere came through, dropping a two-run single into short center to make it a 5-4 game. Jim Gott made it hold up to claim the win, the Pirates 12th in 16 games. 

Jim Gott - 1988 Topps

• 1996 - Ballpark announcer Art McKennan passed away at age 89. Starting out as a Forbes Field errand boy, he did odd jobs around the park, eventually working his way up to bat boy and scoreboard runner. Art got a job in the real world while moonlighting as an usher. In 1930, he was diagnosed with polio, but it didn’t stop him. Art was the voice of the Pirates at Forbes Field from 1948 until it closed, and then at Three Rivers Stadium until 1987 (he did Sunday games after that until 1993). He also had stints with the Penguins, Pitt football & Duquesne hoops along with a 30-year career in Pittsburgh’s Parks Department, becoming the director of the City-sponsored youth sports organizations.
• 2005 - The Pirates rallied to win, 4-3, against Chicago at Wrigley Field. The game-time temperature was 36 degrees with a wind chill of 24, and the Buc bats were almost as cold as the weather, with the Pirates down by a 3-2 count going into the ninth after the Cubs broke a two-all tie in the eighth on Corey Patterson’s dinger. Then came the needed thaw: a one-out homer by Jason Bay knotted the score and an out later, Freddy Sanchez banged a pinch-hit triple to right center, chasing home Craig Wilson, who had walked and stole second, with the eventual game-winner. John Grabow picked up his first win of the season and Jose Mesa earned his sixth save of the campaign, stranding Cubbies on the corners by whiffing Patterson on three pitches. 
• 2022 - The Pirates had taken the first two games of the Chicago series at Wrigley, and the Cubs were having no more of it. They laid the worst defeat in franchise history on the Bucs, walloping them, 21-0. Four Pittsburgh pitchers, the last being utilityman Diego Castillo, gave up 23 hits (and oddly enough, only one left the yard), four walks and a bopped batter while Kevin Newman booted a pair of DP balls to allow four unearned runs to plate. The Pirates had no answer; they were held to three hits, and that’s all the runners they had aboard during the game. Prior to today, the worst Bucco loss was a 20-0 beating at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers in 2010. Starter Zach Thompson took the loss while Miguel Yajure and poor Diego just took some lumps.