7/13 From 1975: Ritchie Gem, Giant Sweeps, Game Tales; Win #500, ASGs; Team Meet, Littlefield Hired, Hans Honored; HBD Casey & Ryan

• 1976 - The National League nine put a hurtin’ on the American League squad by a 7-1 count in the All-Star game at Veterans Stadium after President Gerald Ford tossed out the first ceremonial pitch. OF Al Oliver was the only Bucco All Star and went 0-for-1 off the bench. 
• 1978 - OF Ryan Ludwick was born in Satellite Beach, Florida. The 32-year-old vet was purchased from San Diego at the 2011 deadline and hit .232 with two homers in his brief Bucco stay. He left after the season to join the Reds, where he ended his playing days after the 2014 campaign. Ludwick is now a roving hitting instructor for St. Louis’ minor league teams. 
• 1982 - The AL fell, 4-1, to the NL in the All-Star game at Stade Olympique (Olympic Stadium) in Montreal in the first All-Star Game ever played outside the United States. C Tony Pena stole a base as a pinch runner and went 0-for-1 at the dish, as did 1B Jason Thompson. Former Bucco Al Oliver, now an Expo, went 2-for-2 with a run scored and double in his sixth ASG. 
• 1983 - The Bucs raced ahead of the Giants, 5-0, but frittered away the lead by the ninth to fall behind, 6-5, at Candlestick Park. With two down and Greg Minton on the hill, Johnny Ray bombed a tying homer to right, then the baseball gods smiled. Mike Easler hit a drive the opposite way that would have hit off the wall, but as LF Jeffrey Leonard tried for a leaping catch, the ball ticked off his glove and cleared the fence to give The Hit Man an assisted game-winning four-bagger. Kent Tekulve pitched a clean ninth to save the game for Manny Sarmiento. The victory gave the Pirates a three-game sweep of San Francisco during a 9-1 West Coast swing. 

Mike Easler - 1983 Topps

• 1984 - The Pirates swept the Giants in a Three Rivers Stadium twilite (it started at 5:05) double-dipper by 8-2 and 4-3 scores. The first game featured four RBI from Lee Lacy and three hits from Lee Mazzilli as John Candelaria got the win with help from Kent Tekulve. For Candyman, it was his 12th consecutive July win. The second one, well, that victory was a little tougher to come by - it went 18 innings and five hours, 11 minutes before Jason Thompson’s knock chased Mazzilli home with the game winner. It was Thompson’s second RBI; Jim Morrison also had two RBI while Tony Pena collected three hits and scored twice. The two teams used nine pitchers; Teke gave up runs in the eighth and ninth to let the G-Men knot the score. The bullpens ruled; San Francisco’s pen tossed 10 shutout innings; the Bucco relief corps put up nine zippos, seven by Don Robinson. The game ended at 1:32 AM; the Zambelli fireworks were still shot off, much to the dismay of sleeping ‘Burgers, but per the Pittsburgh Press, most of the 22,176 at the yard happily stayed to the end for the show. 
• 1990 - RHP Casey Sadler was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Drafted in the 25th round of the 2010 draft, he worked seven games (one start) for the Pirates in 2014-15, slashing 1-1/6.46. Sadler missed the 2016 season due to TJ surgery and after some bouncing around (he’s made MLB outings for five different clubs) is now with the Seattle Mariners organization. 
• 1993 - The American League nine banged the ball all around the Camden Yards lot in a 9-3 win over the National League club. Bucco rep 2B Jay Bell went 0-for-1 while Andy Van Slyke, slated to be the NL's starting center fielder, sat out the game with a broken collarbone suffered when he crashed into a wall at Busch Stadium. AL manager Cito Gaston didn’t make any friends in Baltimore. The fans got fired up when the hometown Birds’ Mike Mussina warmed up in the bullpen in the ninth and roared "We Want Mike!", but Gaston never made a call for him. The Camden Yard crowd littered the field after the final out until Moose quieted them down. He said afterward that he warmed up on his own because it was his day to throw (he did pitch on July 16th), but most believe he was trying to catch Cito’s attention so he could make a hometown appearance. 

Kevin Young - 1998 Circa Thunder

• 1998 - After dropping a twin bill for their sixth loss in a row and 13th defeat in 16 games, Kevin Young asked manager Gene Lamont for the OK to hold a players-only team meeting for the struggling Bucs. Permission was granted and he, Al Martin, Jason Kendall & Jose Guillen spoke, touching on the teams’ inexperienced but talented roster and the need to grow and progress. Martin said it was “It was more of a family talk...We wanted to get everything out in the open.” It worked that night as the Bucs beat the Cubs, 6-2, behind Jon Lieber and an inside-the-park homer by Tony Womack, the 500th in franchise history. It launched the club on an 8-of-11 victory run, but it was just a temporary fix as the Pirates still finished last in the division with 69 wins, 33 games back. 
• 1999 - Honus Wagner was named to the All-Century team selected by fan vote and honored at the All-Star game. Locals included on the ballot of the were Negro League standouts Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson, along with Buccos Wagner, Hank Greenberg, Pie Traynor, Barry Bonds, Roberto Clemente, Ralph Kiner, Willie Stargell and Paul Waner. 
• 1999 - The AL took a 4-1 win from the NL in the All-Star Game at Fenway Park. 3B Ed Sprague was the Pirate rep and went 0-for-1. Pedro Martínez added to his legend when he became the first twirler to begin the ASG by striking out the side. He fanned out five of the six batters he faced and was named MVP. The game began 15 minutes late after Ted Williams came out in a golf cart for the pre-game ceremonies and was mobbed by the players who wanted to honor the all-timer. Two days earlier, Pirates pups Nashville 3B Aramis Ramirez and Lynchburg C Yamid Haad played for the World team in the Futures game; Buc coach Trent Jewell participated as a USA coach. 
• 2001 - Lotta pitching goin’ on: Todd Ritchie lost a no hitter against the Royals when Luis Alicea bounced a one-out, ninth-inning single through the infield. In the bottom half of the frame, Aramis Ramirez singled through a drawn-in infield to score Brian Giles - it was A-Ram’s third walk off hit of the campaign - for a 1-0 win at PNC Park and the Pirates second consecutive shutout win. Jimmy Anderson and Mike Williams had combined for a 2-0 whitewash against Kansas City the day before, with Kevin Young’s two-run homer being the only offense du jour. 

Todd Ritchie - 2001 Upper Deck Vintage

• 2001 - Dave Littlefield began his term as GM, replacing Cam Bonifay. Hampered by ongoing financial restraints, he was noted for a stretch of losing seasons, yo-yo rental players and the erosion of both the farm system and the Latino player market, although he did have some successes. He drafted Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker and hired Rene Gayo to scout Latin America. Littlefield was fired in 2007 and eventually replaced by Neal Huntington. 
• 2004 - The junior circuit pounded out a 9-4 win over the National League All-Stars at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. SS Jack Wilson was the lone Bucco representative and went 0-for-2 at the plate. At age 73, Jack McKeon, the MLB poster boy for graybeards, became the oldest All-Star manager after becoming the oldest World Series skipper in 2003 with the Florida Marlins. 
• 2010 - The Senior Circuit finally solved the American League in the All-Star Game, taking a 3-1 win at Angels Stadium at Anaheim and snapping a 13-year losing streak. Pitcher Evan Meek was the Pirates rep and didn’t get in the game. Matt Capps, ex-Bucco who was now with Washington, got the win. It was the first game where the DH was made a permanent lineup fixture (before it only was used in AL parks) and took effect in 2011 when the game was played at Chase Field. 
• 2021 - The All-Star game was held at Coors Field in Denver after being moved by MLB from its original site, Atlanta’s Truist Field, to protest Georgia's passage of a controversial voting bill. The two Pirate reps, 2B Adam Frazier and CF Bryan Reynolds, who replaced the injured Ron Acuna, started for the NL. Fraze went 1-for-2 with the NL’s first hit and a couple of glovely plays while Reynolds went 0-for-2 with a long fly out to the RF fence. The Americans won their eighth straight match by a 5-2 score. Shohei Ohtani started and won, pitching and batting leadoff.