4/26 Through the 1970s: Otter & Bert Beauty, Maz Muscle, Game Tales; HBD Francisco, Curtis, Amos, Ron & Fire

• 1900 - The Bucs drew 11,000 to the newly expanded Exposition Park, the biggest Pittsburgh baseball turnout to date, with a couple of thousand more fans trying to get in. The Pirates were fortified by the recent influx of Louisville players like Honus Wagner, but dropped a 12-11 slugfest to Cincinnati as the Reds lit up Rube Waddell and Jack Chesbro. The Bucs made a game of it by rallying for seven ninth-inning tallies and left the tying run at second base. The rooters caused a delay when the 11th run scored by showering the field with cushions to celebrate, but were a tad premature in their revelry. 

Expo Park postcard (lower right)

• 1905 - The Chicago Cubs beat Pittsburgh at Exposition Park, 2-1, as Cubbie center fielder Jack McCarthy became the only major league outfielder to throw out three runners trying to score in one game; all three assists were on tag-up tries on flies following triples (they whacked four three-baggers during the day; the other was stranded; so much for clutch hitting). The game story in the Pittsburgh Press stated simply in the headline that “McCarthy Made the Throws.” 
• 1917 - Coach Virgil “Fire” Trucks was born in Birmingham, Alabama. After a long pro career, he became the bullpen coach/batting practice pitcher for Pittsburgh in 1960 and stayed with the Pirates until 1963, later operating baseball camps for the Bucs. Jack House of the Birmingham News gave him the apt moniker “Fire,” not because he enjoyed chasing hook and ladder trucks but because of his blazing heater; Trucks tossed two no-hitters for Detroit in 1952. 
• 1920 - Coach Ron Northey was born in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, near Hazelton. An outfielder with some pop and a good eye (he walked more than he whiffed), Northey played 12 MLB seasons, missing some time for WW2. After his playing days, he spent three years as a coach on Danny Murtaugh’s staff from 1961-1963 before becoming a White Sox scout. 
• 1940 - After rallying for four runs in the eighth inning the day before but falling just short, the Bucs crossed home seven times in the eighth frame on this day to roll over the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-4, at Forbes Field. Debs Garms and Joe Bowman both had homers with three RBI to spark the comeback outburst and earn Mace Brown his second relief win in four days. 

Joe Bowman - 1940 Play Ball

• 1947 - OF Amos Otis was born in Mobile, Alabama. He played the final year of his 17-season career with the Pirates in 1984, coming over after 14 campaigns with the KC Royals. (He actually had been dealt to the Bucs during the 1976 off season, but as a 5 & 10 year player vetoed the trade of him and Cookie Rojas for Al Oliver.) His TRS season wasn’t much of a swan song for the 37-year-old: in 97 at-bats, he hit .165 and he was released in August. Amos then worked briefly for the San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies as a hitting instructor before retiring. 
• 1958 - With Pittsburgh and Cincinnati knotted, 4-4, at Crosley Field heading into the eighth, Bill Mazeroski took the game into his hands. First, he drilled an eighth-inning solo shot to put the Pirates on top, then his three-run bomb in the top of the ninth sealed the deal, 8-4. It was the first of eight multi-homer games in his career, with his next coming less than a month later on May 10th. 1958 was also the year Maz earned his first of seven All-Star spots. Billy’s heroics gave the Bucs third pitcher, Don Gross, the win after he spun four innings of one-hit relief, with Roberto Clemente, Bob Skinner and Ted Kluszewski adding three hits apiece. 
• 1961 - IF Curtis Wilkerson was born in Petersburg, Virginia. Wilkerson spent 11 years in the show as mainly a bench guy, getting into 85 games for the Pirates in 1991 and hitting .188. After he retired, he managed for three years in the Rangers system and then three more years (1999-2001) for the Buccaneers squads in Williamsport and Lynchburg. He then skippered in the indy leagues and at last look was managing in a collegiate summer league in Texas. 

Curtis Wilkerson - 1992 Score

• 1972 - RHP Francisco Cordova was born in Cerro Azul, Mexico. He spent his five-year MLB career (1996-2000) as a Pirate, first as a reliever who notched 12 saves in his rookie year, then joining the rotation. His slash was 42-47-12/3.96. Arm injuries derailed his career, but he did continue to toss in Mexico through the 2011 campaign. He was the main man in one of the great Pirate red letter moments on July 12th, 1997 at a sold out Three Rivers Stadium when he pitched nine innings of a combined 10-inning no-hitter, with Ricardo Rincón closing out the no-no, winning the game on Mark Smith's pinch-hit home run in the extra frame. 
• 1978 - Ed Ott hit an 11th-inning home run at Shea Stadium to give the Bucs and Bert Blyleven, who pitched a complete game six-hitter, a 1-0 win. It took 35 years for another Pirate, Neil Walker, to homer for the only run in a Bucco extra inning victory in a 2014 win over the Cubs.