- 1859 - 1B/OF Joe Visner was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Joe, part of the league’s first wave of Native American players, had a good year in 1889 for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and in 1890 jumped to the Pittsburgh Burghers of the Players' League where he was the starting right fielder. He batted .267, scored 110 runs and hit 22 triples. Joe played one more big league season after that and got on with his life after three more minor league campaigns. His post-baseball life was a story in itself; he inherited 400 acres of land and moved his family there. He tired of the farm life periodically and disappeared for long stretches to satisfy his wanderlust; he’d ride his bike across Canada, making his way augmenting his fur-trapping income by performing handyman chores.
- 1884 - 1B Alan Storke was born in Auburn, New York. He was a Bucco from 1906-09 and while primarily a first baseman, he played every infield position with a .255 BA while a Pirate. He attended Harvard Law School in the off season, joining the Pirates in early June after classes ended per his understanding with Barney Dreyfuss. Despite all his efforts, the 25 year-old Amherst grad sadly never got to earn his Juris Doctor degree; he died in 1910 of a lung infection stemming from the flu (or "grippe" as it was then known) during his final term at school.
- 1890 - RHP Jim “Willie” Adams was born in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. Willie worked two seasons for the St. Louis Browns before joining the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League in 1914, slashing 1-1-2/3.74 in 15 outings (two starts). He yo-yo’ed back-and-forth between the bigs and the farm until 1922, when he suffered a heart attack that ended his baseball career.
- 1891 - Utilityman Doug Baird was born in St. Charles, Missouri. He played for five teams in six years, starting his career in 1915-17 (in part) with Pittsburgh where he saw a lot of action (2B, 3B, LF, RF, CF) and hit .223 in 316 games. After his last MLB gig in 1920, Baird played for seven more years in the minors through the 1927 campaign, retiring at age 35.
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| Deacon Phillippe - Helmar T206 |
- 1901 - Deacon Phillippe tossed the Pirates past the Brooklyn Superbas, 5-4, at Exposition Park to clinch the National League pennant, the first of three straight Senior Circuit titles for the Bucs. Pittsburgh scored three times in the bottom of the eighth to rally past Brooklyn, which had taken the lead in the top half of the inning. Kitty Bransfield’s single to left chased home Honus Wagner, who had doubled home a pair, with the pennant-clinching run. From August 31st forward to this date, the Pirates had won 26-of-30 games. It was Pittsburgh’s first NL flag and the franchise’s first title since the Alleghenys began playing major league ball in the American Association back in 1882.
- 1905 - LHP Marty Lang was born in Hooper, Nebraska. He had a brief MLB stay with the 1930 Pirates, getting into two games covering 1-2/3 IP and being rattled for 10 runs. Lang spent a decade in the minors, mostly in the Western league, before last toeing the slab in 1938.
- 1907 - In a game that ended in a 5-5 draw, the Bucs lost Honus Wagner for the last dozen games of the season when he was hit in the hand in the first inning by the Boston Dove’s Rube Dessau and broke a bone. The contest went 11 innings at Exposition Park before darkness claimed it. The injury was moot so far as affecting the pennant chase. Although the Bucs won 91 games that season, they still finished second, 17 games behind the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance Chicago Cubs, the winners of the 1907 World Series.
- 1909 - The Bucs won their 16th straight game, the longest winning streak a Pirate club has ever put together, when they beat the Giants, 6-1, behind Babe Adams in the first game of a twin bill at Exposition Park. The streak finally came to an end when they dropped the nitecap, 8-7, despite four hits from Bill Abstein and George “Mooney” Gibson’s three knocks and three RBI. That powerhouse club took the National League pennant by 6-1/2 games over the Cubs with 110 wins and defeated the Detroit Tigers in the World Series in a seven-game battle.
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| Dick Lanahan - '40-41 photo by George Burke/Real Photo postcard |
- 1911 - LHP Dick Lanahan was born in Washington, DC. After a previous pit stop with the Washington Senators, Dick got into 47 games for the 1940-41 Pirates, compiling a line of 6-9-2/4.35. He appeared in 40 outings in 1940, ninth-most in the NL, during his most productive MLB year. He toiled in the minors, with a military break, after his Pirates gig through 1948.
- 1913 - The 20-year Bucco losing streak is seared in our memories, but today was the other side of the pillow as Pittsburgh won for the 78th time to cap their 15th straight winning campaign (1899-1913), the longest in franchise history. The Pirates won, 4-3, over the Cards at Robison Field behind Marty O’Toole and an attack that had almost as many stolen bases (6) as hits (8). They had guaranteed themselves a winning season earlier in the month, and as they weren’t a factor in the pennant race, the Bucs didn’t make up several rainouts. The club fell below .500 in 1914 at 69-85 to end the good times and wouldn’t finish with a winning slate again until the 1919 campaign.
- 1919 - IF Johnny Pesky was born in Portland, Oregon. Johnny made his name as a Red Sox player, coach, manager and announcer but in between served some time with the Bucs. From 1965-67, he was Harry “The Hat” Walker’s first-base coach. After Walker's firing in 1967, Pesky managed the Bucs' AAA Columbus Jets squad of the International League to a second-place finish and moved to the Boston booth before returning to his familiar role of Red Sox coach and instructor.
- 1930 - P/OF Dick Hall was born in St. Louis. Hall came up in 1952 as a light hitting outfielder; in 1955, he was converted to the mound and pitched until 1971. In his Bucco years (1952-59) he hit .218, and was 6-13-2/4.57 on the hill. He got better; Baltimore flipped him from starter to reliever, and he tossed for nine years in two stints as a Bird with a 2.98 ERA; he even threw a scoreless frame to earn a save against Pittsburgh in the 1971 World Series during his last campaign at age 41. He retired and later became a member of the Orioles Hall of Fame.
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| Dick Hall - 1955 Topps |
- 1930 - Paul Waner kept an 11-game hitting streak alive when he smacked a homer and single in an 11-8 win over St. Louis at Sportsman’s Park. That gave Big Poison 217 knocks during the year and 1,057 hits over his first five seasons, making him one of four players - Kirby Puckett, Earle Combs and Ducky Medwick are the others - to have 1,000+ hits in their first five campaigns. Waner had staying power; he finished his career with 3,151 hits and a place in the Hall of Fame.
- 1930 - 18-year-old rookie Josh Gibson was credited with drilling what at the time was the longest home run ever hit in Yankee Stadium, a blast that was estimated to be anywhere from 460-505’, off the back wall of the left field bullpen (he was said to have landed another ball there in 1946). The Lincoln Giant’s “Broadway Connie” Rector gave up the three-run smash in the first inning of the Homestead Grays 7-3 playoff victory. A week earlier, Gibson was credited with being the first hitter to clear the 457’ mark at Forbes Field during the same series.
- 1932 - The Pittsburgh Crawfords defeated the Casey Stengel National League All-Stars by an 11-2 count at York (PA) in front of 2,500 fans. The Pirates Bill Swift started for the All Stars and he gave up nine runs in three frames before another Bucco, Larry French, bailed him out. William Bell tossed for the Crawfords in a game that was part of the York County Fair schedule. They returned to the Hill and Greenlee Field the next day as the NL paid the Grays back in spades, romping to a 20-8 victory. The New York Giants Roy Parmalee easily bested the Crawfords Joe Williams, with Hack Wilson homering once and Pittsburgh’s Oscar Charleston twice during the barnstorming rematch.
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