11/6: Sadowski-Carroll, Bartell-Thevenow Swaps; Nealon Signs; Cutch, Neil Silver Sluggers; '21 Housekeeping; NY Rumor; Rickey GM; Rene Returns; HBD Candy Man, Adam, Matt, Don, Bob & Tommy

• 1877 - 3B Tommy Sheehan was born in Sacramento (some sources say his BD is on the 5th, c’est la vie). Tommy played for Pittsburgh from 1906-07 and hit .255. He also spent a year with the New York Giants and Brooklyn Superbas before and after his Bucco stint. He played a lot of ball near his west coast home, though - he put in 11 years of minor league ball at Sacramento, Portland, Tacoma, Oakland and Stockton. A word of caution - make sure to keep your Sheehan’s straight. This old timer is not to be confused with Tommy Sheehan, a pitcher from the mid-20s who tossed for the Bucs from 1925-26. 
• 1905 - The Pirates signed a hot shot prospect, San Francisco Seals 1B Jim (aka Joe, his middle name) Nealon, for a reported $6,500 in a bidding battle with the Cincinnati Reds (the New York Highlanders, Boston Americans, St. Louis Browns and Chicago Cubs were also on his scent). Manager Fred Clarke spent a week by the Bay working on Nealon and his father, with the Reds rep arriving too late on the scene. Signing Nealon allowed the Pirates to include 1B Dave Brain as part of a package to the Boston Beaneaters that added Vic Willis to their staff a month later without losing any firepower. Joe led the NL in RBI in 1906, but reported to camp in 1907 overweight and with a bad hand, the result of a fracture suffered in the off-season. He also fell out of favor with management; as a son of a wealthy family, they felt he didn’t have his focus on baseball but on business. Nealon retired after the season - the Pirates were already auditioning replacements - and returned to the coast, playing in the California State League. Joe didn’t have time to leave his mark in either the sports or business world as he died at 25 of typhoid fever. 
• 1925 - OF Bob Addis was born in Mineral Springs, Ohio. He closed out his four-year MLB career with Pittsburgh, going 0-for-3 with a pair of whiffs and one pinch-running assignment. Bob finished his pro career that season with Toronto of the International League. Addis later became a successful baseball coach/Athletic Director at Euclid (Ohio) HS, and was inducted into the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1975. 

Tommy Thevenow - 1933 Goudey Big League

• 1930 - SS Dick Bartell was traded by the Pirates to the Phillies for SS Tommy Thevenow and P Claude Willoughby. Defensive whiz Thevenow spent six seasons with the Bucs and hit .251 while Willoughby went 0-2 in his final MLB season. Bartell played 14 more seasons, made a couple of All-Star teams and ended up with a .281 lifetime BA. But the seemingly one-sided swap of SS’s worked out OK - Thevenow hurt his leg in 1931, and in 1932 was replaced in the lineup by Hall-of-Famer Arky Vaughan. Thevenow factoid: he didn't homer in his final 3,347 at-bats, the most consecutive at bats without a home run in MLB history. 
• 1950 - Branch Rickey signed a five-year contract with the Pirates to become the team executive vice president/GM, replacing Roy Hamey. His son, Branch Jr. was named Pittsburgh's VP and farm system director. Branch plowed the field for future success by developing a productive farm system, but the Bucs put together just a 269-501 record (.349) during his tenure as GM. 
• 1953 - LHP John Candelaria was born in New York. The Bucs selected the LaSalle Academy (Brooklyn) star in the second round of the 1972 draft. In 12 years (1975-85, 1993) with the Pirates, his line was 124-87-16/3.17, with a 1-1/3.91 ERA slash in his four post-season starts. The Candy Man tossed a no-hitter, led the MLB in ERA once, earned an All-Star nod and won a World Series ring while a Bucco. Overall, he had a 19-year MLB career, twirling for the Pirates, California Angels, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Montreal Expos, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, and Los Angeles Dodgers. 
• 1969 - RHP Don Wengert was born in Sioux City, Iowa. Don had spent 1996-97 full-time with Oakland and got a look after the Pirates signed him as a FA in 2001. The 32-year-old got four starts in May, went 0-2/12.38, and spent the rest of the year back on the farm. That ended his MLB days; he tossed one more year for the Boston system and retired to Iowa. 

Don Wengert - 2001 photo Tom Pidgeon/Getty

• 1972 - RHP Matt Skrmetta was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. Matt got to toss briefly in the bigs during 2000, first getting into a half-dozen games with the Expos and finishing with eight outings and an 0-2/9.26 line with Pittsburgh. Matt was a determined hurler: he played for 25 teams, believed to be a record, and 13 organizations, including a couple of seasons in Japan and an indie campaign. He’s now a scout for Softbank in the Japanese League. 
• 1972 - While home in Ponce, Roberto Clemente proved to be a better ball player than prognosticator. In an interview with the Associated Press, The Great One said that the Pirates were negotiating to either trade for or buy the contract of Philly’s ‘72 Cy Young winner, Steve Carlton. But Roberto was either misinformed or the Bucs were short of assets (it would have been a blockbuster deal) as Lefty not only stayed put in 1973 but tossed for the Phils into the 1986 campaign. 
• 1976 - In a swap of 22-year-old righties, the Bucs traded Jim Sadowski to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Tom Carroll. The deal ended up a wash; neither Sadowski nor Carroll ended up pitching in the majors again. 
• 1979 - 1B Adam LaRoche was born in Orange County, California. He played for the Bucs from 2007-09, hitting .265 with 58 HR. During his last Pirate season, he got to play with his brother Andy (their pop was P Dave LaRoche) and also became the first player in major league history to lose a home run to video review. He left baseball in 2016 after a messy clubhouse beef about him bringing his teen-aged son to the Chicago White Sox clubhouse too often. A devout family man and Christian, LaRoche quietly retired rather than give in on his stance, passing on a $13M contract for the season. 

Adam LaRoche - 2001 Topps Heritage

• 1981 - Dave Anderson of the NY Times wrote that the Bucs and Yankees were discussing a deal for RF Dave Parker with the departure of Reggie Jackson on the horizon. The Pirates originally wanted five pitchers; the Yankees countered with an offer of hurlers Ron Davis and Gene Nelson along with SS Andre Rodgers. There were two sticking points: Pittsburgh wanted lefty Dave Righetti, whom New York considered an untouchable, and the Gotham gang wanted Parker to agree to a playing weight of 210 pounds, which the Cobra ho-ho-ho’ed off. No match was made and Parker played as a Pirate for two more seasons, then signed as a free agent with his hometown Cincinnati Reds. 
• 2003 - Rene Gayo was hired as the Bucs’ full-time Latin scout, a position that Pittsburgh had inexplicably left vacant for five years. Rene was actually making a homecoming; he had started in Pittsburgh in 1989 when Cam Bonifay hired him as a part-time area scout. He later worked for the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians, for whom he became scouting director for the Indians in Latin America in 1999. Among others, he signed Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco, Jose Osuna, Alen Hanson, Elias Diaz, Willy Garcia, Tito Polo, and Harold Ramirez; among his failures were Luis Heredia and Miguel Sano. Gayo was let go in 2017 following a scandal involving kickbacks for recommending lesser players for top-shelf bonuses and then pocketing some of the difference. 
• 2014 - CF Andrew McCutchen won his third consecutive NL Silver Slugger award and 2B Neil Walker took home his first. Cutch became the first Pittsburgh outfielder to earn three consecutive Silver Sluggers since Barry Bonds in 1990-92 while Walker was the first Pirate second baseman to earn the honor since Johnny Ray was the 1983 winner. Cutch and SS Ian Desmond of the Nats were the only NL repeat members of the squad. 

Chase De Jong - 7/18/2021 photo/Pirates

• 2021 - The housecleaning began: the Bucs outrighted IF Wilmer Difo, LHP Chasen Shreve and RHPs Chase De Jong, Connor Overton, Kyle Keller, Enyel De Los Santos and Shea Spitzbarth to AAA. LHP Chasen Shreve became a free agent. Difo was on the bubble as the victim of too many young middle infielders who needed 40-man consideration while Shreve's peripherals didn't support his 3.20 ERA. The Buccos needed the space to move six pitchers off the 60-day IL and back onto the 40-man: LHPs Steven Brault & Dillon Peters and RHPs Blake Cederlind, Jose Soriano, Duane Underwood Jr. & Bryse Wilson. Soriano didn't last long; the Pirates added IF Diego Castillo to their 40-man and DFA'ed Jose. If the FO had not placed Castillo on the 40-man, he could have declared for free agency while Soriano, who had a second TJ-related surgery in May, was iffy physically to be ready to pitch in 2022. The churn started earlier in the week when RHPs Shelby Miller and Trevor Cahill, along with 1B/OF Yoshi Tsutsugo, became free agents.