10/5: Tracy Axed, Coaching Shakeouts, Klinger Claimed, Pud's 300th, Reds Swept In '79, Pops NLCS-MVP, WS Split, Grays Win NLWS; RIP Woody & Oscar, HBD Onix, Jim, Felix & Claude

• 1873 - Middle infielder Claude Ritchey was born in Emlenton along the Allegheny River in Venango County. He played for the Pirates for seven years (1900-06), batting .273 with 709 runs scored/675 RBI, and was the starting 2B for the 1901 pennant winners and 1903’s World Series team. The combo of his size (5’6”) and ability to drive in clutch runs gained him the nickname of "Little All Right." 
• 1887 - IF Felix Chouinard was born in Chicago. He played infield and outfield in 88 contests for four big league years. He was with the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League for nine of those games in 1914, hitting .300. It was one of three clubs (Brooklyn and Baltimore were the others) he played for that year; he got into four games next season with the Tip Tops before joining the Navy. 
• 1888 - Pud Galvin won his 300th big league game against the Washington Nationals at Swampoodle Grounds, throwing a four-hitter in a 5-1 Allegheny win. He was the first player in MLB history to reach the 300 win total, finishing his career with 361 victories, with 138 of them earned with various Pittsburgh clubs. (Some credit the date of win 300 to September 4th against Indianapolis; the National Association, where Galvin won his first four victories as a member of his hometown St. Louis Brown Stockings, isn’t recognized as a true major league.) 
• 1889 - RHP Jim Bagby Sr. was born in Marietta, Georgia. He joined the Pirates in 1923 at age 34 during his last MLB campaign, going 3-2/5.24 in 21 outings (six starts). He had a solid career at Cleveland (122-86/3.03 in seven seasons), was the first pitcher to hit a homer in a modern World Series, and was a 30-game winner (31-12) in 1920. Jim also left the Bucs with a legacy - his son, Jim Bagby Jr., who tossed for the Pirates during Big Jim’s final big league season in 1947. The pair were the first father - son tandem to pitch in the World Series as Sr. appeared for the Indians (1920) and Jr. for the Red Sox (1946). Jim Sr. was known as “Sarge,” inspired by "Sergeant Jimmy Bagby,” a character in the 1919 Broadway play “Boys Will Be Boys” that his teammates had seen. 

Harry Smith (NYY) - 1903 photo via Detroit Public Library

• 1901 - UT Wid Conroy and C Harry Smith jumped from the American League to Pittsburgh (the date is approximate; this is when the unconfirmed signings were announced in the Pittsburgh Press). Wid, a utility player, played for a season and hit .244 before he hopped back to the junior circuit, joining the Yankees in 1903. Harry was part of the Pittsburgh catcher rotation for three years and hung around for three more seasons as a deep bench piece, hitting .202 as a Bucco. 
• 1903 - Rain delayed the first Pirates home game of the World Series, with Pittsburgh holding a 2-1 lead after three contests at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds. So the teams took it easy after three straight games and headed to the Duquesne Theater, where the two clubs took in a vaudeville revue (“The Great Orpheum Show”) before rejoining combat at Exposition Park the next day. There was a SRO crowd in the house; we assume some of Beantown’s visiting “Royal Rooters” contingent of 200 fans took in the show, too. 
• 1905 - The Pirates took their show on the road, playing an exhibition at Charleroi that drew 2,500 paying Mon Valley fans along with “...spectators in trees, houses and every available nook…” per the Pittsburgh Press. After a fairly sloppy first inning that saw each team score four runs, the Bucs took control and rolled to a 10-4 victory, helped by five errors and four walks by the hosts. 
• 1927 - Pittsburgh’s Ray Kremer and the Yankees’ Waite Hoyt, who would later join the Bucs in 1933, opened the World Series at Forbes Field. The Bucco wheels came off in the third when a pair of walks coupled with two errors and a muffed double play gave the Bronx Bombers three runs on one hit and a 4-1 lead. The Pirates kept the contest interesting - they collected nine hits, led by Big Poison Paul Waner’s 3-for-4 day - but fell short of overcoming the Yanks, 5-4. 
• 1937 - The Pirates selected RHP Bob Klinger, 29, from the St Louis Cardinals in the Rule 5 draft after the nine-year minor league vet had won 19 games in the Pacific Coast League. He burst on the scene in ‘38 with a 12-5-1/2.99 line, and while never again quite matching that performance, he was a workmanlike 62-58-9/3.74 over six years and 209 outings (129 starts) with the Bucs. He missed the 1944-45 seasons while serving in the Navy, then spent his last two years with Boston before toiling through 1950 on the farm before retiring at age 42. 

Bob Klinger - 1939 Play Ball

• 1948 - The Washington/Homestead Grays won their third Negro League World Series four games to one when they defeated the Birmingham Black Barons and their 17-year-old rookie outfielder Willie Mays, 10-6, in Birmingham by scoring four runs in the 10th inning. The Grays were led by player/manager Sammy Bankhead and had Luke Easter, Buck Leonard and Wilmer Fields as their stars. It was the last WS for the Negro Leagues as they moved into the integration era. 
• 1954 - OF/manager Oscar Charleston died in Philadelphia (some sources cite the date as October 6th) after suffering a stroke. Oscar was one of the sport’s elite black ballplayers with a career that stretched from 1915-41. He spent seven years with the Pittsburgh Crawfords, his longest stint with one club, after owner Gus Greenlee lured him from the Homestead Grays. He played in three Negro league All-Star games and won a World Series during his time (1932-38) with the Crawfords. Called the “Black Ty Cobb,” Oscar entered the Hall of Fame in 1976. 
• 1957 - IF Onix Concepcion was born in Dorado, Puerto Rico. After six years with KC, he closed out his career with one at bat, a pinch hit single, for the Bucs in 1987. He was Jose Lind’s cousin, and the Pirates signed him as a free agent in ‘87, but he spent most of his time either injured or at Class AA Harrisburg. He retired afterward and is now an instructor at JROD Sports Academy. 
• 1960 - Roger Maris became the seventh player to homer in his first World Series at-bat. His round-tripper off Vern Law got the Yankees off to a quick 1-0 lead, but the Pirates persevered to win Game One of the Fall Classic at Forbes Field, 6-4. Pittsburgh replied by scoring three times in the first, and a two-run homer by Bill Mazeroski in the fourth was the early game winner. The score wasn’t quite as close as it looked; the Yankees’ Elston Howard hit a two-run, ninth-inning homer off ElRoy Face to narrow the gap. The game was highlighted by a great grab by Bill Virdon and even featured some pre-game action. An unauthorized parachutist tried to drop into the ballyard, but missed by a couple of blocks and landed on the roof of the Board of Education building across from Heinz Chapel, where he was rescued by police and then arrested. The Bucco victory ended a 15-game Yankee winning streak and was Pittsburgh’s first WS win since 1925. 

Billy Maz - 1960 Topps

• 1970 - Johnny Bench and Tony Perez homered off Bob Moose in the first inning and the Reds beat the Pirates, 3-2, to sweep the NLCS at Riverfront Stadium. After the Pirates had tied the game in the eighth, Cincinnati scored the winner after two outs when a walk, single and Bobby Tolan’s knock off reliever Joe Gibbon plated the game winner. The Pirates collected 10 hits during the contest, but shot themselves in the foot by stranding a dozen runners. Willie Stargell went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI while Roberto Clemente, Al Oliver and Richie Hebner had two hits each. The Reds mojo wore off after thumping Pittsburgh, and they lost the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles in five games. 
• 1971 - Richie Hebner's homer off Juan Marichal in the eighth inning gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 victory over the Giants at TRS and a 2-1 lead in the NLCS. Bob Johnson went eight innings of five-hit ball with seven strikeouts and Dave Giusti closed it for the save. The Bucs’ first tally came in the second frame on another solo blast, this one by Bob Robertson. For Hebner, the game winner was an act of redemption as his throwing error on a bunt led to SF’s only score in the sixth inning. Robertson’s homer was his fourth of the series, setting a record. 
• 1973 - After taking over the coaching reins from Bill Virdon in September, Danny Murtaugh announced a shakeup of The Quail’s field staff for the following season, firing pitching coach Mel Wright and bullpen coach Dave Ricketts while adding Bob Skinner, adding that he planned to retain Don Leppert and Bill Mazeroski. Don Osborn took over the pitching chores, but Maz didn’t come back (he never took a liking to coaching but did remain as a spring instructor), with Jose Pagan instead coming aboard. Leppert ended up the sole survivor from Virdon’s brain trust. 
• 1974 - Don Sutton held Pittsburgh to four hits at TRS in the first game of the NLCS to claim a 3-0 win. It was a 1-0 duel between him and Jerry Reuss until the Dodgers added a pair of ninth inning tallies off of Dave Giusti. Willie Stargell had two of the Pirates four hits. The Dodgers reversed their usual Three Rivers trend as they had been 0-6 at the ballyard during the regular season. 

Willie Stargell  - 1974 O-Pee-Chee

• 1975 - Fred Norman limited the Bucs to five hits at Riverfront Stadium as Cincinnati easily took a two games to none lead in the NLCS by a 6-1 tally. Rennie Stennett and Richie Zisk had two knocks each; the only other Bucco hit was Willie Stargell’s RBI double. Jim Rooker took the loss. 
• 1979 - The Pirates swept the NLCS, beating the Reds, 7-1, at TRS behind Bert Blyleven, who went the distance (eight hits, nine whiffs) for the series clincher. Willie Stargell, who homered, doubled and had three RBI, was named Series MVP. Bill Madlock also went long for the Bucs. The blowout was an outlier; it had taken the Bucs extra innings to win the first two contests. 
• 1984 - 3B coach Joe Lonnett, 1B coach Al Monchak and pitching coach Harvey Haddix were let go by GM Pete Peterson and manager Chuck Tanner. Lonnett, who had spent 14 years with Tanner, had raised hackles earlier in the year with criticism of some of the players, Monchak had health problems, and The Kitten was replaced by Grant Jackson. Haddix’s dismissal was a surprise, as the Pirates led the National League in ERA, but the front office felt that much of the credit belonged to Tanner, who was deeply involved in the pitching schematics. Steve Demeter and Milt Graff replaced the base coaches, with Bob Skinner and Rick Peterson remaining as holdovers. 
• 1990 - The Reds tied the NLCS at a game apiece with a 2-1 win at Riverfront Stadium as Tom Browning bested Doug Drabek. Paul O’Neill drove in both runs for Cincinnati, with both tallies set up by stolen bases, while Chico Lind’s solo homer was all the offense Pittsburgh could muster. Both pitchers were in command; the Reds managed five hits and the Pirates six. 

Woody Jensen - 1936 National Chickle Fine Point

• 2001 - Forrest “Woody” Jensen passed away in Wichita, Kansas. Woody spent his nine-year MLB career as a Pirate from 1931-39, batting .285 over that span. The left fielder was most productive in the mid-thirties, starting and hitting leadoff from 1935-37. Between being named Forrest and getting his start in the semi-pro Timber League, his nickname Woody was a natural. He was recognized in 2004 when he was selected to the Wichita Sports Hall of Fame. 
• 2007 - The Pirates fired manager Jim Tracy after two years and a 135-189 (.417) record. He was replaced by John Russell, who had been Lloyd McClendon’s third base coach (2005-05) and had managed in both the Twins and Phillies systems. As part of the purge by new GM Neal Huntington, director of player development Brian Graham, scouting director Ed Creech, director of baseball operations Jon Mercurio and Tracy's entire coaching staff also lost their jobs.