6/12: JT's Return, KY Six Pack, Dock No-No; Hit Man Cycle, Game Tales; 10,000 Wins, Strike, Minor Swap, Groat, Kitten Days, HoF Opens, Trip Rips; HBD George, Willie, Dutch & King; Drafted - Baz, Mitchell

• 1868 - IF King Solomon “Sol” White was born in Bellaire, Ohio. An educated and gentlemanly guy, his multi-faceted career in black baseball was launched in Pittsburgh. White began his career in 1887 with the Pittsburgh Keystones of the National Colored League, with a return stop in 1892. Sol spread himself around the circuit - there were 18 clubs he played/managed for. In 1902, White and white sportswriter H. Walter Schlichter founded the Philadelphia Giants. For the next eight years White co-owned, managed and played for his team, one of the era's best. Sol then managed the Brooklyn Royal Giants and the New York Lincoln Giants. Following a period of semi-retirement, he led the Columbus Buckeyes, the Cleveland Browns and the Newark Stars, finally retiring after the 1926 season. White was also a sportswriter, author of the first definitive history of black baseball in 1907, and elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006. 
• 1884 - 2B Otto “Dutch” Knabe was born in Carrick. He got a cup of coffee with the hometown Buccos in 1905 and then returned to the fold in 1916, the last season of his 12-year career. The Bucs sent him to the Chicago Cubs in June, where he finished out as a player/coach. In between, though, he and SS Mickey Doolan formed one of the slickest and competitive DP combos in the league with Philadelphia. He then played/managed in the minors through 1922, ran a pool hall/gambling den (it was reported that he was going to bet on the “Black Sox” in the 1919 World Series, was tipped that the fix was in and switched his money to the Reds) and later operated a bar in Philadelphia. His moniker was common during his era - “Dutch” was a play on Deutsch, or German. 
• 1904 - LHP Willie Foster was born in Lorman, Mississippi. One of the top southpaws of his era (and perhaps any other), he pitched for the Homestead Grays in 1931 (9-2/2.34) and with the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1936 (4-3/4.30) on his way to the Hall of Fame. Willie later became an associate dean and coached at Alcorn State, where the Foster Baseball Field at McGowan Stadium, home for Braves baseball, is named in his honor. He passed away in 1978. 

Ray Kremer snip - 6/13/1928 Press

• 1928 - The Pirates set a record, later tied, by having seven batters collect three hits or more in a game when they beat the Phillies, 15-4, at the Baker Bowl. Ray Kremer, the Bucco pitcher, led the parade with four knocks. Pittsburgh had 25 hits, with every starting player chipping in. Paul & Lloyd Waner, Sparky Adams, Glenn Wright (five RBI), Pie Traynor and Fred Brickell had three knocks while Clyde Barnhart had a pair with four RBI. 
• 1933 - The Homestead Grays’ 38-year-old Lefty Williams tossed a no-hitter against the local Hazelwood Jehovic club at Greenlee Field, claiming a 3-0 victory over the cross-river foes. The club wasn’t as fortunate on the back end of a split twi-light twin bill as Hall-of-Famer Ray Brown (who also played CF) dropped an 8-6 decision to their Negro league foes, the Baltimore Black Sox, despite three hits from SS Leroy Mornay, who would skip to cross-town rivals, the Crawfords, the following season; he played for 14 teams during his career. That was vividly in contrast with Lefty - he pitched for Homestead from 1921-35, with the only gap being six games he worked for Detroit in a split season. 
• 1939 - The Baseball Hall of Fame opened to the public in the greatest gathering of old-timey baseball starpower ever assembled. The Hall named its first five inductees in 1936 (Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson) and the next wave voted in (Grover Alexander, Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, Connie Mack, George Sisler, Tris Speaker & others) prior to the building’s dedication. The Flying Dutchman, in the first HOF vote, tied for second with the Bambino. They were outpolled only by the Georgia Peach, Cobb. 
• 1946 - The Pirates traded OF Johnny Barrett to the Boston Braves for OF Chuck Workman. Both had started out in the 40’s as World War 2 MLB fill-ins. The guys finished out the campaign with their new clubs, but the return of the wartime players led the duo to spend the rest of their careers in the minor leagues. 

Harvey Haddix Night - 5/13/1959 Press

• 1959 - To celebrate his 12 perfect innings against the Braves, the Pirates held Harvey Haddix Night at Forbes Field. The leadoff hitter singled on the third pitch to ruin the vibe, and it was an omen of things to come: the Kitten was chased after four innings and the Pirates lost a see-saw contest, 9-6, to the Cards in front of 27,970 fans. However, the pregame gifts set up tea time at the Haddix household - NL President Warren Giles presented Harvey with a silver set with 12 goblets (one for each perfect inning, inscribed with the batters that were retired) and Bucco owner John Galbreath also gave him a $1,000 silver set. 
• 1970 - During the first game of a twin bill at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, Dock Ellis walked eight batters but no-hit the Padres, 2-0, to become the fourth Pirate pitcher to toss a no-no. He later famously claimed he was high on LSD while pitching that day. Pops Stargell provided the muscle with a pair of solo shots. The Friars took the nitecap, 5-2. 
• 1980 - Mike Easler, the aptly named Hit Man, hit for the cycle as the Bucs won, 10-6, over the Cincinnati Reds at Riverfront Stadium. John Milner and Dale Berra homered while Phil Garner drilled a pair of doubles to make a winner of Jim Bibby, with help from Enrique Romo, who tossed the final four innings for the save. For Easler, it was a breakout campaign - in six prior years, he had never gotten over 62 PAs in any one season. Finally playing regularly led to a 1980 line of .338 with 21 HR and a 167 OPS+. From 1980 until his final season, 1987, he hit .295 with 115 homers, a 120 OPS+ and averaged 130 games/486 PAs per year. 
• 1981 - The players went out on strike over free agent compensation. It was the first work stoppage in MLB since the 1972 strike that resulted in regular season games being canceled (86 in all that year - the owners refused to pay the players for the games they were on strike, so they chopped the unplayed matches). The strike forced the cancellation of 713 games before the two sides reached an agreement on July 31st. The season started on August 10th, with championships determined by the hybrid “split season” title format. Ironically enough, ushers and ticket-takers at TRS agreed on their contract the same day that the players walked out. 

Tony Pena - 1982 Donruss

• 1982 - Don’t overlook the bottom of the order. The Bucs 6-7-8-9 hitters (Tony Pena, Lee Lacy, Dale Berra, Manny Sarmiento) went 8-for-16, scored seven runs, chased home five more, walked three times, stole two bases, and hit a sac fly in a 9-2 romp over the Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium. Berra provided the muscle with a homer and double while Sarmiento backed up his six-hit, complete game outing with his stick, going 2-for-3. 
• 1985 - RHP George Kontos was born in Lincolnwood, Illinois. The Pirates picked up the veteran reliever off the waiver wire from San Francisco, where he had spent six campaigns, in August of 2017. He was nearly a Bucco a decade earlier, though - he and Phil Coke were supposed to go to Pittsburgh in 2008 in the original configuration of the Xavier Nady deal. Kontos won an eighth inning set-up spot by going 1-1-1/1.84 in 15 outings but wasn’t nearly as effective in 2018 as he slashed 2-3-1/5.03. The Bucs let him go in late May; he finished the year with stints with New York and Cleveland, spent 2019 in the minors/indie ball and retired in 2020. 
• 1999 - Ed Sprague, Kevin Young and Jason Kendall homered, Al Martin had four hits and the Bucs banged out five doubles among their 17 hits to edge the KC Royals, 9-8, at TRS. Sprague singled home Adrian Brown in the ninth to earn a walk-off win for Jason Christiansen. 
• 2000 - Kevin Young was off to a hot start and so were the Bucs - KY doubled in the first, homered in the second and had six RBI after two innings as the Pirates piled up an 8-3 lead over the Braves at TRS. But Atlanta didn’t mail it in; they cut the margin to 8-6 after five frames. Then the Bravos scored twice in the eighth and twice more in the ninth to hand Jason Christiansen his sixth straight loss by a 10-8 count. It was a harbinger for the season - Atlanta won the Eastern Division while the Pirates came in last in the Central Division. 

Abraham Nunez - 2001 Upper Deck Victory

• 2001 - The Pirates put up nine runs in the fourth inning to run away with a 13-3 win over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Abraham Nunez had a bases-loaded triple, Rob Mackowiak banged a two-run homer and John Vander Wal added a two-run single in the big frame. Brian Giles homered and doubled for four RBI to match Nunez’s game total as the Bucs hammered seven extra-base hits among their 15 knocks against five Motown hurlers. 
• 2013 - The Pirates/Alleghenys collected their 10,000th franchise win when they beat the Giants, 12-8, at PNC Park. 236 wins were collected as the Alleghenys of the American Association and 9,764 dubs were notched in the National League (the NL dubs are the only victories the team officially recognizes). The top of the Pirate order (Starling Marte, Jordy Mercer, Andrew McCutchen, Gaby Sanchez) powered the win against San Francisco, going 13-for-19 and scoring eight runs while driving in four mateys. It marked the fourth time in the last 59 seasons that the top four hitters in the Bucs starting lineup each had at least three hits (it last happened in 2004), and Marte became the first Pirates leadoff hitter since 1916 with a four-hit, four-run, two-steal day. 
• 2015 - The Pirates took 13 innings, prolonged by an 86-minute rain delay, to defeat the Phils, 1-0, at PNC Park. Despite the score, it wasn’t much of a pitching duel - the teams were a combined 1-for-19 with RISP and stranded 30 runners; the Phils had multiple men aboard in six of the innings and the Bucs in five. Both sides used seven pitchers, with Antonio Bastardo getting his first Pirate win thanks to Starling Marte’s walk-off single that scored Chris Stewart. 
• 2017 - The Pirates drafted Texas prep RHP Shane Baz first (#12, $4.1M) of Concordia Lutheran HS in the draft. They raided the high schools on the first day, also selecting RHP Steven Jennings (#42 - $1.9M/DeKalb HS, Tennessee), and OF Calvin Mitchell (#50 - $1,357,300/Rancho Bernardo HS, California, with a commitment to San Diego State). Baz was later traded to Tampa Bay as part of the Chris Archer deal (he’s just getting back into action after TJ surgery) while Mitchell got a call to the show by the Bucs in 2022, hit .222 over parts of two seasons and is now playing in the San Diego system. Jennings was with the Bucs through 2022 and is currently in the Texas organization. 

Shane Baz - 2017 Bowman's 1st Card

• 2017 - Jameson Taillon returned to the bump five weeks after undergoing surgery for testicular cancer and worked five scoreless innings of five-hit, five-K ball to earn the win in the Pirates 7-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies at PNC Park in front of a welcome-back crowd of 16,320 rooters. The Bucco attack behind Jamo was balanced; Josh Harrison was the offensive leader with two hits, including a homer, two runs scored and two RBI. 
• 2018 - The City of Pittsburgh declared “Dick Groat Day.” They held a ceremony for the Swissvale HS/Duke multi-sports star in Council Chambers and presented him with a resolution that, in part, reads that he “may be the greatest athlete to come out of Pittsburgh.” Groat was a five-time MLB All-Star who played nine seasons with the Pirates and the NL-MVP in 1960. He batted .290 during nine seasons with the Pirates and as a college ballplayer, led Duke to the College World Series as a senior. Dick also played for the NBA's Fort Wayne Pistons in 1952, was the Helms National Player of the Year in 1951 as a Blue Devil and is in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame - not too shabby for a 5’11” guard/shortstop.