5/16: Travis Fiver; Whack-A-Mack; BB Bops; Denny, Randy Gems; Grimm Streak; Slick Vic; Fan-Atics; Game Tales; Jimmy Comes Home; Pack 'Em In; HBD Williams, Mitch, Bob, Rick & Big Daddy

• 1904 - The Pirates rallied from a 5-0 deficit against Christy Mathewson by scoring a run in the fifth and following with five more in the sixth for a 6-5 win over their heated rivals, the New York Giants. The big blow was Claude Ritchey’s three-run, bases-loaded double. Starter Sam Leever hung on for the win at Exposition Park. The crowd of 6,360 provided the fuse to ignite the rally, per the Pittsburgh Press: “...every mother’s son of them became a howling, raving rooter...They yelled like maniacs in one continuous roar...Women threw their hankerchiefs (sic) in the air, men tossed their hats...and all cheered with all the power of their vocal organs.” After the game, the fans rushed the field to mingle with the hometown heroes and taunt the Giants “with cries of derision.” 
• 1906 - Vic Willis started a personal three-game shutout streak with an 11-0 win over the New York Giants at Exposition Park. Willis led the staff with 23 wins (and one save, for good measure), tossed six shutouts and posted a 1.73 ERA for the Pirates, winners of 93 games and third-place finishers in the National League. The Pirates collected 15 hits, many of them bunts that they dropped to torture lumbering NY 1B Frank Bowerman by rolling the ball to the right side (he was usually a catcher); they could get to first faster than he could get to the ball. 
• 1923 - Charlie Grimm extended his hitting streak to 25 games, the NL record for the longest streak to open a season, against the NY Giants’ Jack Scott in a 6-2 loss at the Polo Grounds. Grimm hit .416 during the span, which ended the next day against the Boston Braves’ Dick Rudolph. Grimm’s streak was actually 30 games as he closed out 1922 with a more modest five-game streak. 
• 1925 - The Pirates used three hits, a walk and two sac flies to score three runs in the 10th inning to defeat Boston at Braves Field, 7-5. Max Carey went 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles, one run, one RBI and a stolen base, but he had lots of help - all nine Pirates starters, including pitcher Babe Adams, had hits with Johnny Gooch, Kiki Cuyler and George Grantham adding a pair of raps each in a day that the Bucs shot themselves in the foot with four DPs. Emil Yde got the win in relief. 

Max Carey - 1925 Exhibits

• 1937 - The Pirates drew MLB’s largest crowd of the day, 39,571, to Forbes Field on a Sunday afternoon to watch Joe Bowman pick up a 2-1 win over the Cards. Gus Suhr and Arky Vaughan drove home Paul Waner and Johnny Dickshot while Bowman ran his record to 5-0. 
• 1949 - RHP Rick Reuschel was born in Quincy, Illinois. Reuschel pitched for the Pirates from 1985-87, going 31-30/3.04 and picked for the 1987 All-Star game. He was a reclamation project who won The Sporting News’ 1985 NL Comeback Player of the Year award, going 14-8 for the last place Bucs after being left off the Cubs postseason roster the season before. “Big Daddy” (he was on the roundish side physically) had a 19-year big-league career with the Cubs, Giants, Yankees and Bucs, making 519 starts, working 3,548 innings and winning 214 games. 
• 1953 - Rick Rhoden was born in Boynton Beach, Florida. The righty spent eight seasons (1979-86) with the Pirates, going 97-93/3.51 during that span. He was an All-Star in 1986 (15-12/2.84) and won three Silver Slugger awards (1984–1986; he hit .251 with five homers as a Pirate). A talented golfer, Rhoden also starred on the Celebrity Players Tour, becoming the CPT’s all-time leading money winner. 
• 1959 - RHP Bob Patterson was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He pitched from 1986-92 for the Bucs in many roles, putting up a record of 25-21-17/3.97 in Pittsburgh. The righty appeared in five NLCS games, with a save and 1.93 ERA. He tossed for 13 MLB seasons, and started up a cottage industry while hanging out in the bullpen; Patterson became the “Glove Doctor.” Players from his team and around the league would ask Patterson to repair their mangled mitts, and Bob would spend his down time in the bullpen patching tattered leather. 
• 1959 - OF Mitch “The Natural” Webster was born in Larned, Kansas. Webster spent 13 seasons in the show as a good glove guy; in 1991, he played for three teams, with the middle one being the Pirates, hitting just .175 after 97 at-bats. Mitch became a Bucco when Mike York was sent to Cleveland for his services, then he was later flipped to the Dodgers for Jose Gonzalez. He coached and scouted for the Dodgers for nearly two decades before joining the Royals as a regional supervisor in 2009. He got his nickname after homering in four straight games with the Montreal Expos in 1986. 

Mitch Webster - 1991 Topps Stadium Club

• 1970 - Bill Mazeroski's ninth inning single ignited the Pirates to 4-3 Pirates walk-off win over the Montreal Expos at Forbes Field. It was Maz's first ever pinch-hit knock in a big league career that began in 1956. Bob Robertson had a big day at the dish, falling a single short of hitting for the cycle with two RBI. Luke Walker, the Pirates third pitcher, earned the win. 
• 1989 - Randy Kramer shut out the Reds, 5-0, at Riverfront Stadium. The rookie righty tossed one of the gems of Bucco history; the only hit he surrendered was to Ron Oester, who cleanly doubled with two outs in the eighth frame. An inning earlier, the no-no was kept alive when a hot shot that bounded past 1B Sid Bream was ruled an error; the call could have gone either way. Rey Quinones led the attack, going 3-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored. 
• 1992 - Barry Bonds put on a show at TRS, banging out three hits (two were homers, including a grand slam) and chasing home six runs, but it was in vain as the Bucs lost to San Diego, 10-9. The Pirates had jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead, but were down 9-6 by the fifth frame as the Friars teed off on Bob Walk (whose throwing error & wild pitch didn’t help the cause) and Vincente Palacios. A ninth-inning Bucco rally fell a run short with the tying run aboard. 
• 1992 - LHP Williams Jerez was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic. A second round pick out of Grand Street Campus HS (Brooklyn) in 2011 by the Boston Red Sox, he had cups of coffee with the Angels and Giants in 2018-19 before Pittsburgh claimed him off waivers and put him to work for six outings (no decisions, 7.36 ERA). He fit the Pirates “let’s take a shot” mold as a high strikeout, high walk guy in the minors whose stuff hadn’t translated to the MLB in a small sample size. He elected free agency after the 2020 campaign, spending some time with Seattle in ‘21. He’s tossed indie ball and in the Latin Leagues since that time and is now pitching in Mexico this season. 
• 1995 - Denny Neagle and Dave Clark teamed up to drop LA, 2-0, at Dodger Stadium. Neagle tossed seven scoreless frames while Jim Gott and Dan Miceli kept the zeros coming; Clark drove in both runs with a homer and single. The game was one of four scoreless contests in the NL, the first time there had been that many goose eggs posted in a single day in the past five years. 

Dave Clark - 1995 Score Platinum

• 1997 - Jim Leyland returned to TRS for the first time wearing a uniform other than that of the Pirates. Leyland, who spent 11 seasons as skipper in Pittsburgh before leaving for greener pastures in 1996, and his Marlins beat the Pirates, 3-1, on the way to a three-game sweep, the Fish’s first ever at Pittsburgh. The Bucs weren’t the only team he beat that year; Florida won the World Series, a feat Leyland couldn’t pull off in the Steel City despite three division titles. To add injury to insult, SS Kevin Elster, who the Biucs signed to fill a shortstop hole and as a veteran leader, broke his wrist and was lost for the year. 
• 2004 - Rob Mackowiak broke out of an early season slump with three hits, banging out two homers and four RBI, to lead the Bucs to an 8-1 thumping of the Giants at San Francisco’s SBC Park. Craig Wilson added three more knocks as Kip Wells, backed by four scoreless frames from the pen, took the win. 
• 2013 - Led by Travis Snider, who went 3-for-5 with a homer, three RBI, two runs scored and a stolen base, the Pirates defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-1, at PNC Park. He had a lot of help as Starling Marte, Andrew McCutchen, Garrett Jones and Russ Martin each chipped in two hits. Frankie Liriano was the winner with late support from Justin Wilson, Bryan Morris and Jose Contreras. It was an early leg of a 11-of-14 game winning streak by the Buccos, who would finally break out of the pity party doldrums and snap a 20-year losing streak by putting together a 94-win campaign to earn a playoff spot.