- 1952 - LHP Mickey Mahler was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Mickey had an eight-year MLB career and signed a free agent deal with the Pirates in 1980. He spent two September games with the Bucs, giving up seven runs in one frame though he did go 14-8/2.65 for AAA Portland of the PCL. In the off season, he was sent to the California Angels as part of the Jason Thompson deal. In all, Mahler tossed for seven big league teams, slashing 14-32/4.68.
- 1956 - Bing Double Dips: Sports Illustrated wrote that “Bing Crosby, one of the 11-man syndicate that made the winning $5,500,000 bid for the Detroit Tigers, is also 16% owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. When baseball Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that Crosby could own an interest in only one club at a time, the Groaner said he would keep the Pirates.”
- 1957 - Clint Hurdle was born in Big Rapids, Michigan. After a 10-year stint as a player and later manager of the Colorado Rockies from 2002–2009 with a World Series appearance, Hurdle took over the Pirate reins in 2011, replacing John Russell. He broke the Pirate 20-year losing season streak in 2013 when he guided the club to 94 wins and the playoffs, with two more wild card postseason appearances in 2014-15. His tenure lasted through the 2019 season (he finished with a 735-720 slate with Pittsburgh), when he was replaced by Derek Shelton.
- 1958 - The Pirates got to .500 for the first time in five weeks with a 7-1, rain-shortened victory over the Cubs at Forbes Field. Winner George Witt scattered seven hits and fanned 10 before getting some eighth inning help from Bob Porterfield; the rains fell after Porterfield squelched a Cubbie rally, and 36 minutes later, the umpires called it a night in Oakland. The attack was carried by Hank Foiles’ three-run homer and a three-RBI night from Dick Stuart.
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| George Witt - 1959 Topps |
- 1962 - In the second All-Star game of the year, this one played at Wrigley Field, the Americans bashed the National League nine, 9-4. Dick Groat went 2-for-3 and was HBP while driving home two runs. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-2 and Bill Mazeroski was 0-for-1. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy tossed out the Midsummer Classic’s ceremonial first pitch.
- 1968 - The Bucs swept the Milwaukee Braves, 8-5 and 5-4, at Forbes Field. In the opener, Donn Clendenon’s error led to three unearned runs, but the battery (and 8-9 hitters) of the Bucs, Milt May and Steve Blass, drove in a combined five runs to overcome the boot. There was a memorable bit of glovework to help make up for the error when Roberto Clemente robbed Mike Lum. Les Biederman of the Pittsburgh Press wrote “Clemente took off in pursuit and ran as hard and as fast as he could. Just as he approached the wall, Clemente reached up and caught the ball, still with his back to the diamond. He crashed into the wall...and was stunned for a second but held the ball." The Great One didn’t start the evening match, but entered in the eighth inning. The game went 10 innings before Manny Mota’s roller scored Matty Alou from third. Maury Wills and Clendenon each went 4-for-5 to help Ronnie Kline tossed 4-1/3 innings of shutout relief for the victory.
- 1970 - Pirates Manager Derek Shelton was born in Carbondale, Illinois. He replaced Clint Hurdle as skipper following the 2019 campaign after serving as a bench coach for the Twins for two seasons. Before that, Derek was a quality control coach at Toronto, the Tampa Bay Rays’ hitting coach from 2010-16 and worked as the Cleveland Indians’ hitting coach for five years before that. Shelton started out managing in the Yankees system for three years (GCL, Class A short-season) and won two league championships after serving as a minor-league catcher in the NYY organization in 1992-93, with elbow surgery derailing his career. He played at Southern Illinois University.
- 1975 - The Pirates had to delay the start of the game at Three Rivers Stadium by 18 minutes to let the Ladies’ Day promotion crowd of 43,260 get their fannies into their seats. It was worth the wait as the Bucs pounced on the Phils’ Steve Carlton and rolled to an 8-1 win. Jerry Reuss went the distance for the dub and Manny Sanguillen had a big day, going 5-for-5 with a homer. Al Oliver (HR, 2B), Willie Stargell (2B) and Dave Parker (2B) each had two-hit days. There were 21 knocks banged out between the two clubs, but the game still took just 2:25 to play.
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| Manny - 1975 Post-Gazette profile |
- 1978 - IF Josh Bonifay was born in Macon, Georgia. The son of Bucco GM Cam Bonifay, the Pirates drafted Josh in 1999. He had a long and successful minor league career, mainly at Altoona. He hung up the spikes after the 2007 season and became a coach in the Pirates system. In 2011, he moved to the Houston organization and is now the Texas Rangers farm director.
- 1995 - RHP Vic Willis, who spent 1906-09 with the Bucs with a slash of 89-46-3/2.08, was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with Mike Schmidt, Richie Ashburn, Leon Day and William Hulbert. Vic won 249 games in a 13-year major league career with eight 20+ win campaigns.
- 2006 - Pittsburgh concluded a five-game winning streak by taking a 2-1, 10-inning victory from the San Francisco Giants at PNC Park. Jose Castillo’s leadoff homer in the ninth frame forced the game into extras, and Jose Hernandez’s single in the 10th scored Jack Wilson with the walkoff run. Both starters, Zach Duke and Matt Morris, put up zeroes but were gone before the seventh inning was done, and it took 11 more pitchers to finish up the contest that they had begun.
- 2013 - Lucky Bounces: The Pirates swept a doubleheader from the Cards by 2-1 and 6-0 scores at PNC Park to vault over them into first place in the NL Central. The opener went 11 innings, with the winning run scoring after Alex Presley’s apparent DP ball deflected off pitcher Kevin Siegrist’s glove and into left field to plate Russ Martin. Vin Mazzaro got the win. The big blow in the nitecap was Andrew McCutchen’s two-run homer, aided by Lady Luck, that bounced off Matt Holliday’s glove and into the second row of seats in left. Rookie Brandon Cumpton went seven frames for the win, tossing three-hit ball. C Tony Sanchez took his MLB bow behind the dish and became one of seven Pirates to call a shutout in his first game; the last was Jason Kendall in 1996.
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| Vin Mazzaro - 2013 Quarry |
- 2014 - The San Francisco Giants broke a six-game losing streak largely thanks to a DP via a walk. The Pirates, who had won three in a row, led 5-4 in the sixth when Chris Stewart drew a one-out walk with runners on second and third. Giant hurler Jean Machi got the ball back from the catcher and noticed Travis Snider had drifted off second base, apparently thinking it was a bases-loaded walk (he admitted after the game that was the case). Machi picked the wanderer off, and Gaby Sanchez, who was at third, was baffled in the backwash and caught napping, too. The Bucs lost, 7-5, at AT&T Park, wasting long balls by Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer.
- 2017 - The Pirates were in a four-game losing streak that had dropped them from 2-1/2 to 5-1/2 games off the National League Central lead when a pair of the Bucs big dogs, Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, got off the leash. Cutch was up five times; he homered during three of them and walked the other two while Cole Train tossed seven innings of one-run ball with eight whiffs as the Pirates took a much-needed 7-1 win from the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. The runaway was further fueled by Josh Bell’s pinch-hit dinger and Jose Osuna’s two-run triple.
- 2021 - The Bucs were on a four-game losing streak and had given up 34 runs in that span while scoring just four times. They sent Wil Crowe (2-5/5.89) against the Phils at PNC Park, and he proved he had some stopper stuff in him by spinning six innings of one-hit, shutout ball. Chasen Shreve and Duane Underwood Jr. closed out with three more hitless frames as the Bucs snapped out of their doldrums, 7-0. The offense was balanced from top to bottom, as five guys collected two hits, six different Bucs scored and five more added RBI.
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