- 1863 - RF/1B John Coleman was born in Saratoga Springs, NY. He was an Allegheny during the 1886-88 & 1890 campaigns. He began his career as a pitcher, tossing 65 games as a Philadelphia Quakers rookie in 1883 with a line of 12-48/4.87. By 1885, Coleman had transitioned into a position player who occasionally tossed, which considering his early mound showing was a wise career move. John could handle the bat, putting up a .266 BA in his Pittsburgh days.
- 1878 - RHP Bert Husting was born in Mayville, Wisconsin. A two-sport star at Wisconsin-Madison, he got a two game audition with the 1900 Pirates (eight IP, five runs, 10 hits, five walks) and then jumped to the American League’s Milwaukee Brewers the following year to get a chance to pitch near home. He lasted just for two more seasons, and then got on with his life’s work as a lawyer, eventually becoming FDR’s US Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
- 1904 - IF Walter “Rev” Cannady was born in Lake City, Florida. Cannady played 25 years of Negro League ball for 13 different teams, with several Homestead Grays stops(1923-24, 1929, 1932, 1944) and one with the Crawfords in 1932 (the Craws were still independent and barnstorming then). He saved the best for last; he batted .356 for Homestead in 1944. A player who was noted for versatility (mostly a middle infielder, Rev played all four infield positions and even pitched) and durability, he failed in his bid to make the Hall of Fame cut in 2006.
- 1940 - 1B/OF Wilver Dornell Stargell was born in Earlsboro, Oklahoma. Pops played his entire 21-year MLB career (1962-1982) for the Pirates. Captain Willie hit .282, with 2,232 hits, 423 doubles, 475 HR and 1,540 RBI. His teams captured six National League East division titles, two NL pennants and two World Series (1971, 1979). In 1979, he became the only player to win the NL MVP, the NLCS MVP and the World Series MVP in one season. He was a seven-time All Star and led the NL in homers twice. The Pirates retired Stargell’s number (1982), built him a statue (2001) and enshrined him as part of the first class of the team Hall of Fame (2022). Willie was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988. He passed away in 2001 at the age of 61 after a stroke.
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| Willie Stargell - 2023 Donruss Diamond Kings |
- 1969 - Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and Jim Bunning confirmed that they had been contacted by the Global League, a third major league in the works that was reported to be backed by Howard Hughes (spoiler: it wasn’t). The tentative bids were for a four-year deal at $150,000 per season and a 2.5% equity stake in the league offered to 10 top MLB’ers. They wisely passed on the promises as the league itself ended up to be a house of cards, starting the year with rosters mainly of minor-leaguers, then folding in mid-May under a mountain of unpaid bills.
- 1973 - In a spring exhibition game against the Bucs, the Twins’ Larry Hisle, in most (but not all) historians minds, became the first DH in MLB history. He did his best to sell the rule, too, hitting two HR and collecting seven RBI. It was the first year the rule was in effect, and five teams used a DH that day, which is why there’s still some debate over who took that first swing.
- 1979 - SS Clint “Don’t Stop Believing” Barmes was born in Vincennes, Indiana. The slick fielding, stick-challenged (he hit .224 as a Bucco) infielder joined the Pirates in 2012 when he signed a two-year, $10.5M free agent contract. He returned in 2014 for $1.5M but was hurt much of the year, and during the off-season he signed with the San Diego Padres. He retired in 2016.
- 1985 - SS Arky Vaughan was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. Vaughan batted .318 with a .406 OBP over a 14-year career with the Pirates (1932-41) and Brooklyn Dodgers, hitting .300 or better in 12 of those campaigns. He was inducted on July 28th. Earlier, in 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him among the elite in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. Twenty years later, in his 2001 New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James rated Vaughan as the second-best shortstop in MLB history, behind fellow Pirate and mentor Honus Wagner.
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| Cervy - photo via MLB.com |
- 1986 - C Francisco Cervelli was born in Valencia, Venezuela. He joined the Bucs in November of 2014 from the Yankees in a swap for LHP Justin Wilson. Originally an infielder, they flipped him to catching, where he was considered one of the better defensive players with a solid bat, although injury prone, throughout his career. In his first year as a Buc, Cervy was healthy as a horse, playing 130 games and hitting .295. That wasn’t quite the tale in 2016, as he got behind the dish 95 times due to various injuries and hit .264. It was worse in the following campaign when Fran was again banged up and started just 75 games, batting .just 249. Fran got into 104 games in 2018, though still dinged a bit, and put up a 123 OPS+ with 12 HR and a line of .259/.378/.431, his best offensive showing as a Bucco. He was hurt through much of 2019, released, and moved on to Atlanta as a free agent in late August. Cervy then went to Miami, retiring following the 2020 campaign after suffering his seventh concussion, then coached for San Diego in 2022.
- 1999 - 1B Kevin Young signed the richest contract to date in Pirate history, a $24M, four-year deal based on anticipated revenues from the team's soon-to-be-built stadium. The deal called for a $500,000 signing bonus and salaries of $5.5M in 2000, $6M in 2001, $5.5M in 2002 and $6.5M in 2003. That agreement carried him to the end of his 12-year career, with all but one campaign spent as a Pirate. KY’s record deal didn’t last for long - Jason Kendall inked a six-year/$60M extension after the 2000 campaign. Young rejoined the team in 2015 as a special assistant of baseball operations and a part-time color man in the AT&T booth.
- 2001 - 2B Bill Mazeroski was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee after what seemed to be an interminable wait. He was inducted on August 5th, giving a tearful speech after discarding his notes, saying "I think you can flush these 12 pages down the drain." The Pirates retired his number, built a statue of him, named a way for him, put him in the team Hall of Fame and every October 13th fans meet at the Forbes Field wall to celebrate his famed longball, selected by ESPN as the “Greatest Home Run of All Time.”
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| Maz Gets His Plaque - 2001 photo Henny Ray/Abrams/Getty |
- 2006 - RHP Kip Wells had surgery to remove a blood clot from his right armpit, returning on June 19th. He was traded at the deadline to Texas, beginning a 10-team exodus that finally ended when he retired in 2013. From the surgery on, he pitched in 108 more MLB games, topping 100+ IP just once and went 14-34/5.66 over that span, while more clots were found in his hand in 2008. In the seven years before the clot was found, Kip had posted a 55-69/4.36 line.
- 2007 - The Bucs signed Cuban righty Yoslan Herrera to a three year/$1.92M deal. He made it to the show in July, 2008, and in five starts, he went 1-1/9.82. The Pirates released him during the 2009 off-season after he split the year between Indy and Altoona, and he was out of baseball after another year. Herrera did rebound though, pitching for the Los Angeles Angels in 2014 before moving on to Japan, where he finished his career after the 2016 campaign.
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