1/3: Jo Jo, Joker, Spanky, Sure Shot Signed; Law OK; Hornsby Try; Pirate Profit; Roberto Fund; Lotsa HBDs - Carlos, Michael, AJ, Luis, Mark, Dick, Harry, Eudie, Gus & Red

• 1888 - 2B Fred “Sure Shot” Dunlap signed with the Alleghenys following the sale of his contract by the Detroit Wolverines. He agreed to a $5‚000 salary and a $2‚000 bonus‚ making him the highest-paid infielder of the time. The rangy defensive whiz played three years for the team, hitting just .240 (his lifetime BA was .292) at the backside of his career. Sure Shot is credited with earning his nickname from King Kelly, who was duly impressed with his fielding acrobatics and sure, strong arm. There is an alternate tale, per Wikipedia. In his book “The Complete History of the Home Run,” Mark Ribowsky claimed the nickname was won when Dunlap, then with the Cleveland Blues, hit a two-run, walk-off homer in the ninth to snap a 21-game Chicago White Stocking victory streak. One of the local papers called the blast the "...Shot Heard 'Round Cleveland," leading to the Sure Shot dub. Dunlap was also known as “The King of the Second Basemen.” Fun facts: Alfred Spink in “The National Game” wrote that Dunlap was ambidextrous and could catch/throw a baseball equally well with either hand. Moreover, Sure Shot reportedly never wore a glove. Continuing his dealing, club President William Nimick purchased RHP/1B/OF Albert Maul from Philly for $1,000 and immediately signed him to a $2,800 contract. Al played three years for the Pirates, batting .230 over that time while going 2-8/6.24 in 17 outings from the hill; he also spent 1890 with the Burghers of the short-lived Players League. 
• 1894 - RHP Kirby “Red” White was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. Kirby tossed parts of 1910-11 for the Bucs. He was traded to Pittsburgh by the Boston Doves early in 1910 and went 10–9/3.46 in 30 games. In 1911, he was used for just three innings, going 0-1/9.00, and was released, spending the next four seasons in the minors. We assume he was red-haired; Kirby also went by “Buck.” 
• 1906 - 1B Gus Suhr was born in San Francisco. He spent 9-1/2 seasons (1930-39) with the Pirates, hitting .279 with a .386 OPB and driving in 818 runs, earning an All-Star berth in 1936. Suhr started 1,389 games at first base for Pittsburgh, a team record, and once held the NL standard of 822 consecutive games played, which lasted until 1957. The game he missed wasn’t due to injury; he took off to attend his mother’s funeral. Gus retired after the 1940 season he spent with the Phils. 

Gus Suhr - 1935 Chicle Diamond Stars

• 1913 - C Euthumm “Eudie” Napier was born in Milledgeville, Georgia. His family moved from the farm to Pittsburgh when Eudie was a kid and he graduated from Allegheny HS. He was athletic and played baseball for Pittsburgh’s sandlot Monarchs, where he caught the notice of the black pro clubs. A defensive whiz (although he did hit .279 over his career as a Gray per Seamheads), he was yo-yo’ed on the Homestead roster, playing sporadically from 1939 until 1948 before moving on to Canadian and Latin American ball. Napier continued playing in the local sandlot leagues after he retired and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame (Western Chapter) in 1978. He passed on in 1983 and is buried in Union Dale Cemetery. 
• 1920 - Ralph Davis of the Pittsburgh Press wrote “...it is generally believed that the Pirates have been casting longing eyes in the direction of Rogers Hornsby and Milton Stock of the St. Louis Cardinals...but (St Louis) President Branch Rickey is apparently determined to demand a ‘pound of flesh’ if he relinquishes his hold…” No wonder; 2B Hornsby went on a six-season batting title streak beginning during the 1920 campaign to go with a 13-year .300+ skein (including three .400+ years) on his way to the Hall of Fame. It would have been a sweet sight indeed to see Hornsby and Pirates SS Rabbit Maranville together in the middle for five years had the deal been consummated. The lesser-known 3B Stock started for the next six years while batting .299 for the St. Louis Cards and Brooklyn Dodgers, but the Pirates already had in-house replacements flowing through the pipeline. After a 1920 apprenticeship, Clyde Barnhart kept the hot corner warm for the Bucs in ‘21 before moving to the OF after Pie Traynor locked up third the following season. 
• 1926 - PH/RHP Harry Fisher was born in Waterloo, Ontario. He was a two-way guy and appeared in 18 MLB games with the 1951–52 Pirates, split between pinch hitter and pitcher. Harry hit .278 for the Bucs, and went 1-2/6.87 on the hill. His last appearance was in August, 1952, before his return to the minors, where he played through 1959, yo-yo’ing between the mound and the pasture. 
• 1944 - RHP Dick Colpaert was born in Fraser, Michigan. Dick toiled in the minors for 13 years, 10 as a member of the Pirates system. He got his taste of the bigs in the late summer of 1970 after a hot start at AAA Columbus, getting into eight games and going 0-1/5.91, not as bad a line as it looks at first blush. He had seven effective outings (2.89 ERA), including his win over Atlanta when he blew through Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda and Clete Boyer, until the Mets beat him up in an August appearance. Unfortunately for Dick, that outing blew up his ERA and sent him packing back to the farm. He retired in 1974 at age 30 and did some scouting for San Diego and the MLB combine. 

Dick Colpaert - 1971 Topps

• 1961 - The Pittsburgh Press reported that the Pirate owners collected their first dividend check since buying the club from the Dreyfuss family in 1946, citing the increased attendance attributed to the 1960 World Series championship season as the major contributor to the coffers. They got $4/share. The Galbreath family held majority team ownership from 1946-85. 
• 1962 - Vern Law, who had suffered for years with muscle tears in his shoulder, was given a clean bill of health by the team doctors in Pittsburgh whose opinions were seconded by a Columbus specialist a couple of days later. Law agreed that he felt no pain in his wing, but by August his record was 4-5/4.93 in just 12 starts. Danny Murtaugh suggested it was time for Law to retire and he did. But a cure did exist - in the off season, he was blessed by a High Priest (Law was a devout Mormon) while in Salt Lake City, and came back to post a 12-13/3.61 line in ‘64, followed by a 17-9/2.15 slash in ‘65, winning the Comeback Player of the Year award. 
• 1965 - RHP Mark Dewey was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mark went 3-3-8/3.23 for the Bucs out of the pen from 1993-94, with ‘93 being a particularly strong campaign as he converted seven saves with a 2.36 ERA. After six years in the show, he retired and since has coached for the Washington Wild Things and is now with the Milwaukee Brewers organization. 
• 1965 - IF Luis Sojo was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He spent 13 years in the show, the last eight with the Yankees except for a 61-game spell in 2000 when he was a Bucco. He hit .284 here after signing as a FA, and in August the Yankees got him back by sending RHP Chris Spurling to the Pirates. He retired from the Pinstripe Mob in 2003 and has coached in their system since then except for a break as the manager of the Venezuelan national/WBC squad. 

Luis Sojo - 2000 Getty Images

• 1973 - President Nixon gave a $1,000 check in Roberto Clemente's memory to the Nicaraguan embassy. At the President's request, Dan Galbreath, owner of the Pirates, along with Dave Giusti and Steve Blass, met with him at the White House to discuss setting up a fund in Clemente's honor to aid the survivors of the earthquake. Thus was born the Roberto Clemente Memorial Fund to aid the earthquake victims with Tricky Dicky as the first donor. 
• 1977 - RHP AJ Burnett was born in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The veteran tossed for two years in Pittsburgh (2012-13) after being obtained from the New York Yankees in a Gotham salary dump, with a line of 26-21/3.41 ERA while averaging a whiff per frame. After a rough campaign in Philly, he returned to the Pirates for his final year in 2015. He went 9-7/3.18 in 26 starts, coming back in September after losing time to an elbow inflammation at All-Star break to close out his 17th season, collecting 164 wins and 2,513 whiffs for five teams over those years. AJ was credited with leading the charge to reverse the team’s decades-long losing culture through his mentoring and clubhouse presence. 
• 1979 - OF Michael Restovich was born in Rochester, Minnesota. He spent parts of six seasons in the bigs, with the second half of 2005 in a Bucco jersey. He hit .214 in 52 games, mostly as a pinch-hitter, and moved on to the Cubs in 2006. After playing for seven different organizations (five at the MLB level) and in Japan, Restovich retired after the 2011 season. 
• 1979 - C Carlos Maldonado was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. After playing in the Mariner and White Sox systems, he signed with the Pirates in 2004. He got into 21 games in two years, but was here long enough to make his MLB debut, swat his first big league homer (he banged three in his career) and stole his only base. Carlos was released after the 2005 campaign and played his final eight games in the show for the Washington Nats, taking his final at bat in 2012. He’s been a minor league coach and manager for Texas since 2015 after spending time in the Venezuelan and Italian leagues. 

Carlos Maldonado -2007 Fleer Rookie

• 1992 - GM Larry Doughty inked C Mike Lavaliere to a three-year/$6.3M contract that included a $600K signing bonus. The move didn’t pan out as hoped; the Pirates released Spanky in April of 1993 after he played one game, eating over $4M worth of Lavaliere’s salary as Don Slaught took over behind the dish with Tom Prince in reserve. Lavalliere finished his MLB days in 1995 after a three-year run with the Chicago White Sox.
• 2006 - 3B Joe Randa was officially signed as a free agent for his second go-around with the Pirates. He inked a $4M deal, nearly double his 2005 salary at Cincinnati. The Joker hit .267 in 89 games in his last MLB season, losing his job to Freddy Sanchez and then retiring in November. 
• 2012 - LHP Jo Jo Reyes, who became a thing when he tied a MLB record for consecutive starts without a win (28) between 2008-2010, signed a minor league deal with the Bucs. The 27-year-old was coming off a 7-11/5.57 AL campaign, but was given a shot to land a back end/long man spot for Pittsburgh. It didn’t happen; he had a lousy spring, was sent to Indy and never took the hill for the Pirates. After his November release, he worked one game for the Angels in 2015 and another for the Marlins in 2016, with most of his remaining time on the hill spread among Korean, Mexican, and AAA ball clubs.