the greatest buc of them all

The Flying Dutchman, Honus Wagner
from Wikipedia

We tend to only rate players that we've seen with our own eyes or heard our fathers talk about. And when you're looking at a franchise with over a century of rosters to check out, that eliminates a lot of names. But for my money, I'll back The Flying Dutchman, Honus Wagner, as the best player to ever wear a Pittsburgh uniform.

Johannes Peter Wagner was born in 1874 to German immigrants from Mansfield, now a part of Carnegie. He was one of nine children. As a child, he was nicknamed Hans by his mom, which would later evolve into Honus. Wagner dropped out of school at age 12 to help his father and brothers in the coal mines. In their free time, he and his brothers played sandlot baseball. One bro, Albert "Butts" Wagner, played in the bigs for a season.

Legend has it that he was discovered by scout Ed Barrow who had come to watch Butts play. But instead he spied Honus rifling rocks across the Monongahela River and signed him on the spot. Other stories say he was pulled out the stands to replace an injured semi-pro player, won a job on the team, and that's how the scouts found him. In 1897 he began his major league career at Louisville in the American Association, owned by Barney Dreyfuss, recent HOF selection and an early owner of the Pirates.

Dreyfuss took many of his top players, including Wagner, with him to Pittsburgh after the Louisville franchise folded at the end of the 1899 season. Hans would spend the rest of his career with the Bucs, retiring after the 1917 season. Today's owners would have loved Wagner. He never made over $10,000 a year as a Pirate, and resisted several efforts to lure him away from Pittsburgh. Talk about your hometown discount!

Still, he had to work to get that. Before the 1908 season, he missed spring training and told the team and media that he "was tired" and was thinking of taking the season off. Now everyone in the business knew that he was holding out for a bigger salary, but he never came right out and blustered for the money, and eventually got his paycheck doubled to $10K - Ty Cobb held out the same year and only got $4,800 - without losing the fans in a spitting contest with the team.

The players should appreciate him, too. In 1905, Wagner signed the first endorsement contract with a bat company. His deal with Hillerich & Bradsby, Co. called for them to supply Wagner with Louisville Slugger bats made to his specs. In return, the bat company added Wagner's name to their bats and sold them to starstruck fans. Since then, more than 8,500 players have done business with Louisville Slugger.

Wagner had a lifetime batting average of .327 (he hit .300 or better for 17 straight seasons) and collected 3,415 hits. He led the NL in batting 8 times, RBIs five times and stolen bases five times (he swiped 722 sacks in his career despite having bow legs that made him look like a Popeye caricature.) He also led the league in slugging percentage six times, on-base percentage four times, total bases six times, doubles seven times and triples three times. Wagner hit for the cycle once and stole second, third and home three times. He only hit 101 homers, but in the deadball era before Babe Ruth started mashing them, that was a decent show of power.

The rangy shortstop is considered by many to be the greatest gloveman at his position of all time, while others will only admit to him being the best of his era. He was so gifted with the leather that he played every position on the field except catcher during his career, even pitching a couple of times. He walked six batters in his eight innings on the mound, but Hans did not allow a run. He has a perfect 0.00 career ERA.

Wagner won a series ring in 1909 after bombing in his first series in 1903, hitting only .222 while playing hurt. The series win was against Ty Cobb and the Tigers. Hans redeemed himself by hitting .333 while stealing six bases, a series record, and Cobb's thunder. He had waited six long years to shed the rep as a choker, ala Barry Bonds, on the big stage, and came through in spades.

When the Baseball Hall of Fame held its' initial election in 1936, Wagner tied for second in the voting with Ruth, trailing only Cobb. On the 100th anniversary of professional baseball in 1969, a vote was taken to pick the greatest players of all time and Wagner was selected as the shortstop. In 1999, after 82 years had passed since his last game and 44 years since his death, Wagner was voted Number 13 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Players, making him the highest-ranking shortstop on the roster. That same year, he was selected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Not enough proof? Modern sabermetrician Bill James rates him as the second best player of all-time, right behind Ruth. Statisticians John Thorn and Pete Palmer rate Wagner as ninth all-time in their "Total Player Ranking" in their book Total Baseball.

The Pirates honored him by retiring #33 (although he played in the days before numbers were worn, that's the one most often associated with him) and hauled his statue from Forbes Field to Three Rivers Stadium to PNC Park, where it now rests a stone's throw from his original playing grounds, Exposition Park.


Honus Wagner's Statue from Wikipedia

There's are a couple of baseball tales about Honus, a clean living dude by all accounts except for his tobacco chaw. One involves Cobb in the 1909 World Series. During game two, Cobb told the "krauthead" Wagner of his plans to steal second on the next pitch. Wagner's response was to tag Cobb squarely in the mouth, resulting in three stitches and Cobb's lasting respect. It also effectively shut him up for the rest of series.

Once he was caught with his glove hand in his back pocket reaching for a tobacco chaw when a ball was spanked to short. He fielded the sharp grounder with his bare hand and easily threw the runner out, literally with one hand behind his back.

On another occasion, he used his wits to keep a runner from stealing second after a wild throw from the catcher. Wagner timed his leap for the wayward toss so that he came down on the clueless runner short of the base. As the players picked themselves up, the centerfielder threw the ball back in to Wagner, who tagged the embarrassed runner out.

Another story involves his famous player's card, the holy grail of collectors the world over. It's said he made American Tobacco Company pull the card because he didn't want kids to have to buy tobacco products to get it. At least that's what Cooperstown says. More cynical observers said he wasn't paid, or at least paid enough, by the company for the right to use his image, and that's why Wagner made them quit producing it. Either way, the card, like the player, is the best of its' kind. It sold for $2.8M in September 2007.

After Wagner retired, he took it easy by hunting and fishing, two of his passions, before coming back as the Pirate hitting coach from 1933-1952. He opened several Honus Wagner Sporting Goods stores, and though they lost money for him, one still exists on Forbes Avenue in town. Honus barnstormed with a local semi-pro team called the Wagner All-Stars well into his fifties. He was a county deputy sheriff for awhile.

He still lived in Carnegie in the Beechwood Avenue house he built for his wife Bessie and himself in 1916, and he was a popular and gregarious figure in his hometown. They named the Carlynton High football field Honus Wagner Stadium after him. He died on December 6, 1955 at the age of 81. Honus Wagner was buried at Jefferson Memorial Cemetery in the South Hills.

Sometimes you don't have to leave home to make it. As Honus said "There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer."


Lineup for Yesterday
W is for Wagner,
The bowlegged beauty;
Short was closed to all traffic
With Honus on duty.

Ogden Nash, Sport Magazine (January 1949)


Honus Wagner Card from Wikipedia

the homestead grays

The Greatest Negro League Team of All Time - the 1931 Homestead Grays
Picture from Negro National League Players Association

The history of baseball in Pittsburgh doesn't start and end with the Pirates. For decades, some of the best baseball here was played by the Homestead Grays, legendary barnstormers and Negro League powerhouse.

In 1910, a group of black Homestead steelworkers formed a ball team. Cumberland Posey joined them the next year and by 1912 they had become the Homestead Grays, playing at the now gone Homestead Park until the 1930s. The Grays were the remnants of an old sandlot team from the Germantown area and would become one of the great franchises in baseball history.

Posey played for them, managed a few years later, and as owner would take on all comers, white or black, pro or amateur, on the diamond. He was such a highly regarded GM that he would enter the Hall of Fame in 2006, as adept with finances as he was at raiding other team's rosters for talent. He kept the Grays independent until 1935, with the exception of a couple of one year stints in different leagues, when they entered the Negro National League. The Grays dominated the league, once winning nine consecutive pennants.

The Grays prospered during the late 1930s through the 1940s, playing their games at both Forbes Field and the Washington Senator's Griffith Stadium when the white teams were on the road (They played at Munhall's West Field when they couldn't get the MLB parks.) DC still has a special place in its' baseball heart for the Grays. In fact, the Washington Grays was one of the more popular names recommended for the expansion team that eventually became the Nationals. But Branch Rickey and the inevitable integration of baseball finally ended the Negro League in 1948 and the Grays gave up the ghost in 1950.

MLB.com ran a survey among some experts to pick the best five teams to play Negro League baseball. The Grays had two of the five squads the pundits selected. The 1943 team was one. With HOF members Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard (they were known as the "Thunder Twins"), Cool Papa Bell, Jud Wilson and Ray Brown, it beat the Birmingham Black Barons to win the Black World Series that year.

Gibson, in 26 games, hit more home runs in Griffith Stadium in 1943 than the Senators did. Some people compared that edition of the Grays to the 1927 Yankees. It would have been an dream match up, watching Gehrig and Ruth battle Leonard and Gibson. And they weren't even considered the best Gray's team!

That honor went to the 1931 Grays, selected as the top team to ever take the field in black baseball history. They also featured 5 HOF players - the 19 year old Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Smokey Joe Williams, Willie Foster and Jud "Boojum" Wilson. They were barnstormers that played white teams, black teams, town teams, company teams, major league teams, all-star teams - anyone and anywhere that would give them a field to play on and a cut of the gate.

It was the Depression, and these guys were known for playing hard, day in and day out. It was tough to earn a buck in those times, and if you didn't play to Posey's exacting standards, it was the soup line for you.

And the pay was good. Posey had to compete with numbers writer Gus Greenlee, who bankrolled their bitter crosstown rivals, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. (It was common for players to jump teams for a better offer, just like today.) They rolled up a 163-23 record that season, an .881 winning percentage, and were unanimously declared the "Colored Champions."

In 38 years as the Homestead Grays, the team produced this roster of HOF'ers:

Cool Papa Bell, OF, 1932, 1943-46
Bell had a .337 lifetime batting average and his speed was the stuff of legends. Satchel Paige joked that once when facing Bell, the outfielder hit a line drive up that middle that went screaming past Paige's ear and hit Bell in the butt as he was sliding into second base. Satch also claimed that Bell was so fast that he could flick off a light switch and be under the covers before the light went out. And swore it actually happened, in a Kansas City hotel room.

Ray Brown, P, 1937-45
Brown compiled a 109-30 record, fifth in the league's all-time win list. The right hander was noted for his nasty curve ball.

Oscar Charleston, OF, 1930-31
Charleston was a tremendous power hitter and one of the finest defensive center fielders of all time. His career batting average was .353 and he regularly finished among the league leaders in both home runs and stolen bases. Charleston had a famously short fuse and enjoyed brawling, resulting in legendary encounters with umpires, opponents, agents raiding his teams, a Ku Klux Klansman, and several Cuban soldiers. He shined in exhibition play against the major league clubs, batting .318 with 11 home runs in 53 games. Contemporary observers compared his play to that of Tris Speaker and Babe Ruth.

Martín Dihigo, P, 1928
A Cuban who both pitched and played the infield (or anywhere else they penciled him in at, for that matter), Dihigo's career line in 12 seasons in the Negro Leagues was a .307 average and .511 slugging percentage, with 431 hits, 64 home runs, 61 doubles, 17 triples, 227 RBIs, and 292 runs scored in 1404 at bats. As a pitcher, he went 26–19 with a 2.92 ERA, with 176 strikeouts in 354 innings.

Although a two-time All-Star in the American Negro Leagues, Dihigo's best season came in the Mexican League in 1938 where he went 18-2 with a 0.90 ERA as a pitcher while winning the batting title with a .387 average. In his Mexican career he was 119-57 with a .317 batting average. In the Cuban League he was 107-56 with a .298 average. He is the only player to be inducted to the American, Cuban and Mexican Baseball Halls of Fame, and is also in the Dominican Republic and Venezuelan Halls of Fame.

Bill Foster, P, 1931
A southpaw with a good fastball, a devastating change-up, and pinpoint control, Bill Foster was one of the top pitchers in the Negro National League. On the last day of the 1926 season, he won both ends of a crucial doubleheader to clinch the pennant for the Chicago American Giants. In the ensuing World Series, he posted a 1.27 ERA. Foster was the leading vote-getter and winning pitcher in the inaugural East-West All-Star Game in 1933.

Unfortunately, his stats, like those of many Negro League players, aren't available. But he was in four Negro League World Series, and was known to have won 26 consecutive games in 1933 and had a 32-3 record in 1927. Bill Foster ended his baseball days managing at Alcorn State.

Josh Gibson, C, 1931, 1937-46
Baseball historians consider Gibson to be among the elite catchers and sluggers in the history of baseball, including the major leagues. The powerful 6-1, 210 pound Gibson was known as the "Black Babe Ruth." He won nine home run titles and four batting championships playing for the Crawfords and the Homestead Grays. In two seasons in the late 1930s, he not only hit over .400, but his slugging percentage was above 1.000.

The Sporting News of June 3, 1967 credits Gibson with blasting a home run at Yankee Stadium that struck two feet from the top of the wall above the center field bleachers, about 580' from home plate. Although it has never been conclusively proven, Chicago American Giants infielder Jack Marshall said Gibson slugged one over the third deck next to the left field bullpen in 1934 for the only fair ball hit out of Yankee Stadium. He was said to have hit over 800 home runs against all competition, from major league exhibitions to cow town barnstorming tours. Barry Bonds even referred to that number in his current quest to become baseball's alpha slugger.

Sadly, there is no published season-by-season breakdown of Gibson's home run totals for all the games he played in various leagues and exhibitions to prove that number, so....

But here's a bit of lore often told about Gibson and his legendary power. In the last of the ninth at Pittsburgh, down a run, with a runner on base and two outs, Gibson hit one high and deep, so far into the twilight sky that it disappeared from sight, apparently winning the game. The next day, the same two teams were playing again, now in Washington. Just as the teams positioned themselves on the field, a ball came falling out of the sky and a Washington outfielder grabbed it. The umpire yelled to Gibson, "Yer out! In Pittsburgh, yesterday!"

Judy Johnson, 3B, 1930, 1937
In 1930 Johnson (William Julius was his given moniker) was a player-coach for the Homestead Grays and was credited with discovering Josh Gibson. From 1935 through his last season in 1938, Johnson was the captain of the Pittsburgh Crawfords. He was a contact hitter who batted .416 in 1929 with a career .344 average, but his greatest asset was his glove. Along with Ray Dandridge and Ghost Marcelle, Johnson was one of the top fielding third basemen in the Negro Leagues.

Johnson retired nine years before the integration of the major leagues, but became the first African American to coach in Major League Baseball in 1954 for the Philadelphia A's. He also was one of the more respected talent scouts in baseball, signing Bill Bruton and Dick Allen among others. He was noted for his exemplary character on and off the field.

Buck Leonard, 1B, 1934-50
Leonard batted clean up in the Gray's lineup behind Josh Gibson. Since Gibson was known as the "Black Babe Ruth" and Leonard was a first baseman, he was called the "Black Lou Gehrig", a fair comparison in terms of their hitting numbers (although some consider Leonard superior to Gehrig as a fielder.) Leonard led the Negro League in batting in 1948 with a mark of .395, (his lifetime average was .341) and usually either led the league in home runs or was runner up to teammate Gibson.

In 1952, Leonard was offered a major league contract but believed that at age 45 he was too old and might embarrass himself and the cause. He passed on the opportunity.

Cum Posey, Founder-Owner, 1912-46
Posey, born in Homestead, was a player, manager and team owner of the Grays. He played with them in 1911, was manager by 1916, and became its' owner in the early 1920s. In a quarter-century of running the team, he built it into one of the powerhouse franchises of black baseball.

Posey, an aggressive talent hunter, at one time or another had a dozen Negro League Hall of Famers playing for him. He was often accused of raiding other clubs' rosters, enticing their best players to join his team. He reaped what he had sown in the early 1930s, when he lost several stars to the deep pocketed Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Courier sportswriter Wendell Smith once wrote of Posey: "Some may say he crushed the weak as well as the strong on the way to the top of the ladder. But no matter what his critics say, they cannot deny that he was the smartest man in Negro baseball."

Willie Wells, SS, 1932
Nicknamed El Diablo for his extraordinary intensity, Wells was a superb all-around player. He was a speedy baserunner who hit for both power and average. But Wells was at his best with his glove, playing the field flawlessly with the speed and range to run down anything hit his way. He is widely thought of as the best black shortstop of his day, and is credited with teaching Jackie Robinson the art of the double play. Wells' career stats were a .328 batting average with 126 home runs in 945 games played.

Smokey Joe Williams, P, 1925-32
Tall, hard-throwing righthander Smokey Joe (also known as "Cyclone Joe") Williams dominated early 20th century black baseball. He is said to have pitched dozens of no-hitters. Many were against amateur teams, but others were against the likes of the New York Giants. On August 7, 1930, at age 44, he struck out 27 Kansas City Monarchs in a 1-0, 12-inning victory.

Heated debate still exists over whether Williams or Paige was the best Negro League pitcher. Most modern sources lean toward Paige, but in 1952, a poll taken by the Pittsburgh Courier named Williams the greatest pitcher in Negro League history. The easy going Williams is known to have rung up a 115-31 record in his first 5 years at San Antonio, but his stats are sketchy after that.

Jud Wilson, 3B, 1929-31, 1941-46
"Boojum" was a third baseman, first baseman and manager in Negro league baseball. He played mostly for the Baltimore Black Sox, Homestead Grays and Philadelphia Stars. One of the Negro Leagues' more powerful hitters, Wilson compiled a career batting average of .351. He also enjoyed great years in the Cuban Winter League in the 1920s.

Wilson got his nickname "Boojum" because that was supposedly the sound his line drives made when they smacked off of the outfield walls. Pitcher Satchel Paige claimed that Wilson and Chino Smith were the two toughest outs he ever faced. Josh Gibson believed that Wilson was a better hitter than he was.



The Sporting News picked who it considered the 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 2000. The highest-ranking of five players to have played all or most of their careers in the Negro Leagues was Josh Gibson. Three of the other four were Grays - Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell and Oscar Charleston. Satchel Paige was the only member of the team not to play wearing the Homestead Gray flannels.

The Homestead Grays have been honored by the local MLB teams that donned their uniforms for a game. The Pirates did it twice and the Nationals twice more. They even had a bridge named after them, when in 2002 the Homestead Hi-Level Bridge became the Homestead Gray's Bridge. Pittsburgh's been blessed with a lot of great players over the years. Sometimes we forget that not all of them wore Pirate jerseys.


The 1943 Homestead Grays - As Good As the 1927 Yankees?
Picture from Carnegie Library Collection

the night the kitten roared

Harvey Haddix from The New York Times

Harvey Haddix was a rookie phenom in 1953, going 20-9 for the Cards and following up with an 18 win season. He was christened with his sobriquet "the Kitten" while with St. Louis. The Cards had lefty Harry Brecheen on their staff. He was known as "the Cat" because of his quick reflexes fielding balls hit through the box. The smallish Haddix was also slick at flashing the leather, and hence became "the Kitten."

But pitchers aren't thrown out on the mound every fourth day because of their fielding, and Haddix had settled in to become a .500 pitcher after his blazing start. He bounced from the Cards to the Phillies, from the Phils to the Reds, and in 1959 landed in Pittsburgh with Don Hoak and Smoky Burgess for Frank Thomas and three other players. These Bucs, with a weak attack, would finish 78-76 and nine games out of first, still a year away from capturing lightning in a bottle.

On May 26, 1959, Haddix was scheduled to take the mound at County Stadium against the back-to-back NL champs, the Milwaukee Braves. He was fighting a cold, but true to the pitcher's code of the era, Haddix took the ball and marched atop the hill. He ended the evening hurling what many people still call the greatest game ever pitched.

The Braves were loaded with hitters like Hammering Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Wes Covington. Haddix made them look like little leaguers, sticking primarily to a pair of pitches, the heater and a sharp slider. He sailed through the first nine innings, needing only 78 pitches as they went 27 up, 27 down. Ducky Schofield, subbing at short for Dick Groat, twice robbed Johnny Logan of hits, and the rest of the outs were recorded in fairly routine fashion. There was just one fly in the ointment.

Lew Burdette was matching Haddix goose egg for goose egg. The Pirates threatened only twice despite getting 12 hits (three double plays didn't help the cause.) Roman Mejias, playing right field for the injured Roberto Clemente, was thrown out going from first to third - on an infield single. The next batter singled. And Bob Skinner blasted one into right field, but a stiff breeze blowing in from a threatening storm held the ball up. Aaron put his back against the the wall and pulled it in.

And so it went, 10, 11, 12 innings. In the unlucky 13th, Felix Mantilla was jammed and hit a two strike roller to Hoak at third. The Tiger skipped his throw past Rocky Nelson at first and after 36 consecutive outs, Milwaukee finally had a baserunner. Mathews bunted him to second and Aaron was intentionally walked.

Then Haddix left a slider over the plate and Joe Adcock crushed it over the 375' mark and out of the yard. He was only credited with a double, though, as Aaron, seeing the winning run score, turned and ran to the dugout after crossing second base. Adcock was called out for passing him. The final score was 1-0.

12-2/3 innings, one hit, one run (unearned), 8 strikeouts, and whatta ya get? A bunch of telegrams, the 1950 version of the text message, after the game. One said "Dear Harv - tough s**t." Haddix said of the wire "It made me mad, until I realized they were right. That's exactly what it was." To add insult to injury, in 1991 MLB changed its' rules so that a no hitter had to span the entire game, not just nine innings. So Haddix lost his perfect game in 1959 and his no hitter 32 years later.

Just how well did Haddix throw that night? Years later, Dick Groat, traded to the Phils, ran across new teammate Bob Buhl who was a Brave when Haddix tossed his gem. Milwaukee's batters had known in advance every pitch that was coming.

Groat said Buhl told him that he was in the center field bullpen and stole Burgess' signs. Buhl then signaled the hitters with a towel, letting them know if it would be a fastball or breaking pitch. I guess it goes to show that good pitching does ace good hitting.

Burdette used the game for his advantage, too. Trying to wring an extra $10,000 out of Milwaukee, he told them "I'm the greatest pitcher that ever lived. The greatest game that was ever pitched in baseball wasn't good enough to beat me. So I've got to be the greatest." The Braves, by the way, didn't buy the argument.

The Kitten had the last laugh. A year later he won the fifth game of the World Series as a starting pitcher and then the seventh game as a reliever, the beneficiary of Maz's shot. He was 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA against the powerhouse Yankees.

In 1964, Haddix was traded by the Pirates to Baltimore for Dick Yencha, a minor league infielder, and cash. His playing days were over two years later.

Haddix finished with 14 years in the majors and compiled a 136-113 record. He threw 2,235 innings, pitched in 453 games (285 as a starter), was a three time All-Star with a World Series ring and finished with a 3.63 ERA. Haddix then coached for five teams, including the Pirates, before passing away in 1994 at the age of 68.

mad dog, scrap iron & crazy horse

Pirate from Walt Disney.

We are fam-a-lee...who can forget that 1979 team, as brash a bunch to ever represent the Pirates, talkin' trash while their ladies danced on the dugout roof and eventually raising the Jolly Roger over the stunned Orioles?

Everyone remembers Pops. Wilver Dornel Stargell outdid himself as the maestro of those swaggering 1979 Bucs. The Hall of Fame first sacker was named the ML Player of the Year, NL MVP, and World Series MVP. But he had to share the infield with a crazy quilt collection of baseball misfits - Mad Dog, Scrap Iron, and Crazy Horse.

Scrap Iron Phil Garner was the old man of the trio in team seniority, following Chuck Tanner to Pittsburgh from Oakland in 1977. The Pirates sent half their team (Dave Guisti, Doc Medich, Doug Bair, Rick Langford, Tony Armas and Mitchell Paige) to the coast to get him and a couple of guys named Joe. He hit .293 for the Bucs in 1979, over 30 points higher than his career average, and moved over from the hot corner to play second base when Mad Dog arrived. Garner combined with Crazy Horse for 97 DPs and the pair generated an intensity level seldom seen in the middle of an infield. Garner's karmic twin, Yosemite Sam, would be proud of his doppelganger.

Crazy Horse Tim Foli came to Pittsburgh with Greg Field from the Mets for Frank Taveras on April 9, 1979 with the rep as a steady glove and a hot head. He was slow, seldom took a walk, had no power, wore owl-like specs and hardly ever struck out. In spite of that, he was the first player selected in the 1968 player draft. Tanner immediately plugged him into the two hole behind Omar Moreno, and though he only hit .264, his ability to put the ball in play was enough juice to start the Antelope blazing his way around the bases.

Mad Dog Bill Madlock was the final piece of the infield puzzle. He came over in late June 1979 with Dave Roberts and Lenny Randle from the Giants for Ed Whitson, Fred Breining and Al Holland in one of Brown's better deals. Madlock was the player that took Ron Santo's spot in Chicago as a rookie, but he had problems meshing with the G-Men. They had switched him from his familiar position of third base to second, and he was not a happy camper over the move. But his bat wasn't complaining - he would be a 4-time NL batting champion (twice with Pittsburgh) before his career ended, and he hit at a .323 clip for the Pirates in 1979. His arrival allowed Tanner to move Garner off third and to second, solidifying the infield.

Joe Brown wasn't a GM afraid to take a chance, and these moves paid off in spades in 1979. Other teams may not have been able to take a chance on three guys that had reputations as difficult players, but with Chuck Tanner at the helm and Pops and the Cobra in the locker room, Brown knew he wouldn't have any cancerous clubhouse meltdowns. And as much as their gloves and bats helped carry the Pirates to the 1979 NL East title after a heart thumping pennant race with the Expos (the Pirates won by a slim two game margin), they would really shine in the post season.

The Bucs swept the Reds in the NLCS, but it wasn't easy. The first pair of games went extra innings. Garner homered in the first game while Foli's 11th inning single led to the go ahead run. Foli was the man in the second game. He scored the first run, drove in the second with a double, and his sacrifice bunt in the 10th set up the game winning third run. They all contributed in the 7-1 NLCS clincher.

In the series, the Pirates split the first pair of games. Madlock drove in the first run in the Buc's victory and Foli started a tremendous DP to bail the Bucs out of a jam. But Pittsburgh lost the next two at TRS and when things looked darkest (not only were the Bucs down 3 games to 1, but Tanner's mom died that morning), our intrepid trio took over. Pittsburgh won 7-1 as Madlock, Foli and Garner went 8-12, scoring twice and driving in 5 runs as an ensemble. The Bucs needed a sweep in Baltmore, and Foli and Garner each scored a run in the 4-0 sixth game win, giving the Candy Man all the support he needed. Game 7 was the Pops show. He went 4-5 with 2-2Bs and a homer, and they rode on his broad shoulders to the Promised Land.

As a group, Mad Dog, Scrap Iron, and Crazy Horse went 31-78 (.397) during the fall classic. They drove in 11 runs, scored 12, and drew 10 walks, striking out only twice. Not too shabby a job for a cast of misfits.

Like so many others, their stop in Pittsburgh didn't last very long. Foli went to California in 1981 for Brian Harper and Garner was dealt to the Astros the same year for Johnny Ray and a couple of minor leaguers. Madlock was a mainstay until 1985 when he went back to the coast, this time to LA, for RJ Reynolds, Cecil Espy, and Sid Bream. But in Pittsburgh they'll always be fam-a-lee.

the freak show

Kevin Polcovich from Baseball Almanac

1996 saw a lot of goodbyes for the Bucs. They started when Jim Leyland left for the Marlins, and Cam Bonifay made sure a boatload of his players joined him in the bon voyage from Pittsburgh.

Denny Neagle, Dave Clark, Charlie Hayes, Carlos Garcia, Orlando Merced, Dan Plesac, Jay Bell and Jeff King were all dealt. Bonifay explained the first McClatchy plan (of many), which was to strip the club to the bone and invest in the minors and Latin America so they could hit the field running when PNC opened in 2001. Well, they got the "slash costs" part down to a science - they trimmed the $21M Buc payroll of 1996 down to $9M in 1997. The part about them making moves for the future? Well, that didn't work out quite so well. The only starting player Pittsburgh got was the Joker, Joe Randa, and a couple of bench warmers, Abraham Nunez and pitcher Jose Silva. Craig Wilson joined the organization too, as a minor league catcher.

But as Greg Brown said, the 1997 Bucs were a freak show. How else can you explain a lineup of Randa, Jason Kendall, Kevin Young, Tony Womack, Kevin Polcovich, Al Martin, Jermaine Allensworth and Jose Guillen hanging around the top of the Comedy Central division until the last week of September? These guys actually were tied for first in mid July, and spent 32 days of the season in the top spot.

Mainly it was because they overachieved, just the kind of players that Neal Huntington is looking for today. Womack stole 60 bases, Randa and Young were .300 hitters, Martin and Kendall hit in the .290's and the rest all chipped in with respectable offensive numbers. The bench of Dale Sveum, Mark Smith, and Turner Ward had more than its' share of moments during the year too.

The starters were solid, and in fact the trio of Jason Schmidt, Jon Lieber, and Esteban Loaiza would become quite competent pitchers, although not in Pittsburgh. Francisco Cordova had his best year and Steve Cooke rounded out the staff. Cordova was the only one with a sub-4 ERA and each won between 9 & 11 games. Rich Loiselle was our closer, with a 3.10 ERA and 29 saves. He was joined by a cast of thousands in the bullpen, notably Marc Wilkins, Clint Sadowsky, Ricardo Rincon, Matt Reubel, Chris Peters, Jason Christiansen and Dave Wainwright.

Gene Lamont, who took over the reins from Leyland, did a Hall of Fame job guiding his group through the season. The Bucs got just 39 games out of their one big pick up, free agent shortstop Kevin Elster, who managed to break his arm after hitting 7 homers in 139 at bats. He and Martin, both $2M men, were the only Pirates that made over $400K. Kevin Polcovich rode to the rescue – no, seriously. The baby faced dude played short like he belonged, fielding the ball well and hitting .273. He wouldn’t be the only feel good story of this unlikely season.

The team got it's name in late May against the Expos. In a wild game punctuated by some oddball plays, Kevin Young came up in the ninth with the bases loaded against Lee Smith. Announcer Bob Walk mentioned it'd be freaky if he hit one out, and of course he did, winning the game for the Bucs 8-6. Greg Brown cried "It's a freak show," which would become his tagline for the season. The Pirates even changed their ad campaign from "Let's Go To Work" to "The Freak Show." It caught on in a town hungry for a ball team to believe in.

Besides playing some decent baseball - their 79 wins would be the highwater mark of the McClatchy era - the Pirates gave us some memorable moments. It started May 2 when Turner Ward ran through the right field wall at TRS flagging down Mike Piazza's drive even though his team was down 9-0 to the Dodgers. The play was aired season-long as the highlight of the year on TV.

On July 12, Francisco Cordova and Ricardo Rincon combined on a 10 inning no hitter against the Astros, won by a dramatic two-out, three run shot by pinch hitter Mark Smith. It's still the only combined extra inning no hitter ever tossed. The win put the Pirates into a first place tie with the Astros. And it happened in front of a sellout crowd of 44,119 who came out to honor Jackie Robinson's 50th anniversary before the game and catch some Zambelli fireworks afterwards.

On July 17, they were still tied for first place. Four days later, the Bucs beat Curt Schilling and the Phillies. Polcovich missed a suicide squeeze sign and Keith Osik, breaking from third on the pitch, was easily tagged out at home. Wondering if the missed sign would get him a seat on the next bus to the minors, Polcovich banged the next pitch into the seats for the game winner. Schilling chirped at him as he rounded the bases, unable to believe what just happened.

And Pittsburgh became a stretch run buyer for the only time since 1992 when they picked up Shawon Dunston on August 31. He hit .394 for the Pirates during September, but his Superman act wasn't enough to pull the little train that couldn't up the hill.

They ended the season five games behind the Astros by the time the smoke cleared, last hitting the .500 mark on August 30. (Houston got knocked out in the first playoff round by the Buc's old nemesis, the Atlanta Braves.) Allensworth, Womack and Randa left in the offseason. Polcovich had one more year in the bigs before he was out of baseball. Guillen was traded in 1999 for Humberto Cota and Joe Oliver after Kendall splintered his ankle hustling to first base. The core players - Young, Martin and Kendall - slowly faded away.

The pitching staff was broken up, too. Cooke went to the Reds as a free agent in 1998. Loaiza was traded to Texas after the 1998 season for Warren Morris and Todd Van Poppel. Jon Lieber was sent to the Cubs for Brant Brown in 1999, and 2000 was Cordova's last season in baseball. Loiselle had 19 saves in 1998 and his career ended after the 2001 season. Schmidt lasted until the middle of 2001 when he and John Vander Wal went to the Giants for Armando Rios and Ryan Vogelsong.

Gene Lamont managed through 2000 with the Pirate's blue light special rosters when he was replaced (perhaps mercifully) by Lloyd McClendon. Two last bits of trivia - the current Pirate logo was unveiled in 1997 (the Pirate with the red bandana), and one of the Buc's 2008 free agents, Elmer Dessens, was on the Freak Show roster. A good omen, no?

I say long live the Freak Show. They were the last Pirate team to show a pulse in Pittsburgh.


1997 Pirate logo from Pirate's website

downtown dale long

Dale Long from Wikipedia

A native of Springfield, Missouri, the 6-4, 210 pound teenager Dale Long turned down a try out from the Green Bay Packers just as WW2 was ending in 1945. He wanted to try his hand at baseball instead. At first, it looked like he may have made the wrong decision.

Long spent six seasons in the minor leagues playing for five different organizations before he finally got his shot with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1951. He played sparingly, hit less (his average was .167), and was waived. The St. Louis Browns picked him up in mid season and let him go at the end of the year.

He spent 3-1/2 more years toiling in the minors (he ended up playing for 15 minor league clubs) before the Bucs gave the 29 year old Long another chance in 1955. He took advantage of the opportunity, batting .291 with 79 RBI, 19 doubles, 13 triples and 16 home runs.

In 1956, Long posted career-highs with 27 home runs and 91 RBI. He added 7 more triples to his resume, a tribute to the vast expanse of Forbes Field's outfield more than the big galoot's speed around the basepaths. He much preferred a home run trot. Long earned a spot on the NL All-Star team that year.

But he made his claim to baseball fame that season by hitting home runs in eight consecutive games. Since then, the mark has been matched only by Don Mattingly in 1987 and Ken Griffey, Jr. in 1993. Not bad company to be in, hey? And the Pirates needed a bright spot - they would end the year in seventh place, 27 games behind the NL champion Brooklyn Dodgers.

The streak started at home on May 19 when he homered off the Cub's Jim Davis. In the next half dozen games, Long took Ray Crone, Warren Spahn, Herman Wehmeier, Lindy McDaniel, Curt Simmons and Ben Flowers deep.

He came home to a frenzied sell out crowd of 32,000 at Forbes Field howling for another blast. It wouldn't be easy. The Brooklyn Dodgers were in town and throwing Carl Erksine at the Bucs. He had no-hit the Giants just two weeks earlier.

His first at bat resulted in a weak infield roller. But his next appearance put him in the history books. After painfully fouling a ball off of his ankle, he launched one over the right field screen.

Bob Skinner sat patiently on deck as the delighted Forbes Field faithful erupted. The din went on for ten minutes until his teammates finally pushed him out of the dugout to take a bow. It was said to be the first curtain call in baseball history.

But fame is indeed fleeting. He was traded to the Chicago Cubs in May 1957 with Lee Walls for Gene Baker and Dee Fondy. Long belted 55 homers for the Cubs in two and a half seasons in the cozy confines of Wrigley Field.

And he got his name into the record books yet again. In 1958 Long became the first left-handed throwing catcher since 1906. He was behind the dish for all of two games, wearing his first baseman's glove (there was no such thing as a lefty catcher's mitt), and was credited with one assist and one passed ball in his brief time sporting the tools of ignorance. Another Buc, Benny Distefano, was the last lefty to catch, back in 1989.

In 1959 he tied another record when he hit back-to-back pinch-hit homers.

In 1960 Long split the year between the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees. He got to face the Pirates again in the World Series, and went 1-3 as a pinch hitter against his former mates.

Long played for the Washington Senators from 1961-62 and ended the season as a member of the Yankee team that won the World Series over the Giants. Long went 1-5, spelling Moose Skowron at first base. He finished his playing days with New York in 1963.

After an 10 year MLB career, he retired to become a Yankee coach and later worked as a minor league umpire and executive. He hit .267 with 132 home runs and 467 RBI in 1,013 games and got a world series ring during his time in the majors.

Dale Long died of cancer in Palm Coast, Florida in 1991 at the age of 64.

"You can shake a dozen glove men out of a tree, but the bat separates the men from the boys." - Dale Long

the last hurrah

Sid Bream Scores from Jefferson Perkins

Not much was expected from Jimmy Leyland's 1992 edition of the Pirates. They had won the NL East two years running, losing the NLCS to the Reds in 1990 and the Braves in 1991 after leading the best of seven series 3-2. But Bobby Bonilla left for free agency and big lefty John Smiley was traded for financial relief - an omen of things to come.

Led by all star performances by Barry Bonds (.311, 34-103, 127 walks) and Andy Van Slyke (.324, 14-89), the Bucs ended up winning 99 games in 1992. With the TRS speakers pumpin' out Van Halen's "Right Now", they clinched the pennant on September 27 as the Expo's faded down the stretch. The attack wasn't pretty, but it was effective, and the pitching was top notch. Still, taking this team to the pennant may have been Leyland's best coaching job in Pittsburgh.

Even with an anemic team batting average of .255 and a paltry 106 home runs, the Pirates led the league in scoring with 693 runs. Along with the dynamic duo of Bonds and Van Slyke, the other Bucs penciled in as every day starters were 2B Jose Lind (.235 0-39), shortstop Jay Bell (.264, 9-55) and usually Orlando Merced (.247, 6-60) at first base.

Third base was shared by Steve Buechele and Jeff King, who played all four infield spots. The catching was by platoon, shared by Spanky LaValliere and Don Slaught. The spare outfielder was the three headed combo of Cecil Espy, Gary Varsho and Gary Redus, who also filled in at first. The bench consisted of Alex Coles, Lloyd McClendon and John Wehner.

Ah, the pitching. Their 3.35 ERA was third in the league, behind Atlanta and Montreal by a hair. The regular rotation consisted of Doug Drabek, Bob Walk, Randy Tomlin and Zane Smith with Danny Jackson, Tim Wakefield and soon to be closer Jeff Robinson also getting some starts. The bullpen was headed up by Stan Belinda with 18 saves. Bob Patterson and Roger Mason saved 17 more, and even Denny Neagle, who worked as a reliever and spot starter that year, chipped in with a couple.

But the season was mere prologue to the NLCS rematch against the Braves, led by John Smoltz and Tom Glavine, Terry Pendleton, David Justice and Ron Gant. The Bucs were looking for revenge and a fast start, but instead got clocked by the Braves in Atlanta 5-1 and 13-5 as Glavine and Steve Avery easily outpitched Drabek and Jackson.

Returning to TRS for three games, the Bucs split the first two, with Wakefield outdueling Glavine for a 3-2 win, the winning rbi scoring on a sac fly by Van Slyke in the 7th. Drabek was rocked again, losing 6-4 to Smoltz. Staving off elimination, they stayed alive with a 7-1 romp behind Walk's complete game as the Pirate hitters solved Avery this time around. The bats stayed afire in Atlanta when they chased Glavine in a 13-4 runaway with Wakefield notching his second victory. The deciding game was set for October 14, 1992, a day that will live in infamy for Pirate fans.

Smoltz was going against Drabek, and at first everything was going the Buc's way. Pittsburgh took a 1-0 lead in the first when a Merced fly ball scored Coles, who had reached third on a Van Slyke double. The Pirates added another run in the sixth when Van Slyke singled home Bell, who had doubled to lead off the inning.

Then Pittsburgh misfired on a couple of chances that they needed, in hindsight, to seal the deal. The Bucs almost iced it in the seventh when Van Slyke's bases loaded, two out shot was flagged down in deep right center. In the eighth, Merced was thrown out at the plate by Justice trying to score from first on King's one-out double up the right field line. Bonds had led off with a single, but was forced out by Merced, a left handed batter who couldn't move him over to second base.

Still, the Pirates were only three outs away from a trip to the series. Should Patterson get the call from the bullpen with switch hitter Pendleton and lefties Justice and Bream due up or should closer Belinda work the ninth? Neither, as it ended up. Leyland let Drabek start the ninth, although he had thrown some 120 pitches. Pendleton, the first Brave hitter, doubled in front of defensive replacement Espy, who got a poor jump on the ball. Then Lind booted Justice's ground ball. Drabek walked the bases loaded on four pitches - yes, it was Sid Bream he walked - and Stan Belinda was waved in from the bullpen.

Gant drove one to the track in left, but Bonds gloved it as Pendleton scored. Damon Berryhill walked to load the bases again (and the Pirates to this day believe he should have been called out on strikes, but ump Randy Marsh blew the call. Several calls, in fact.) Belinda got Brian Hunter on a pop up to Bell. Two gone and only one out left to reach the world series.

But Francisco Cabrera, the last position player left on the Brave's bench and who would be out of MLB after the 1993 season, got the nod to hit for reliever Jeff Reardon and lined a sharp single into left. Bream kept on chugging around third and down the line as Bonds began his legend as a playoff bust with an off line throw that LaValliere couldn't slap on the sliding Bream. It was crying time again. The entire city was deflated, and the worst was yet to come.

When the wheels finally came off the Bucco ride, they came completely off. The Pirate's inability to compete financially became apparent when Bonds fled to San Fran and Drabek signed with the Astros. Van Slyke went the free agent route in 1995 after two more injury filled years in Pittsburgh. McClatchy's penny pinching drove Leyland away in 1996. And to prove that the wheel keeps on turnin', Sid Bream was just hired as a minor league coach by the Pirates.

The BoSox eventually overcame the curse of the Bambino, and I'm hoping the Bucs can recover from the curse of the Bondino a little more quickly. But judging by the last 15 years...

A poem: My Heart Did Not Burst

my heart did not burst
when ex-Buc Sid Bream
slid his dirty slide
all over the once white plate
just past our pudgy catcher's
too late tag
and the umpire
in the same instant spread both arms
in either direction
signaling an end to world serious hope
for my precious Pirates

my nerves did not snap
despite eight and two-thirds frames
of tension
I did my deepest breathing to relax
control I did not have
over loaded bases and balls that were strikes
that were not called
in the bottom of the 9th
at the unlikely sound
of Francisco Cabrera's homicidal single
my brain did not crack
under tons of promise and possibilities
that twist and untwist but can never undo
the undisputed truth
of 3-2

my arms did not rip
the TV from its cabinet
I could not shatter
the televised outcome
It happened, like a bad wreck
I could not help but watch
the explosion of Atlanta madness
I wished was mine, ours
days, months after the damage
Happened

- written by Frank Bienkowski (Pittsburgh musician, Ambridge native, die-hard Pirates fan), April 1993. Published in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review October 14, 2007

flip a coin

Clemente Catch at Shea from Presidential Medal of Freedom

Who's the greatest Bucco right fielder? Why Roberto Clemente, of course...maybe. Maybe not. But it's a very short list to choose from.

Clemente's stats are impeccable. In 18 seasons, he played in 2,433 games, all as a Pirate. He collected 3,000 hits, compiled a .317 lifetime average and won 4 batting titles. The Great One had a little more power than credited for, socking 240 homers even though he switched to a heavy bat early in his career to slow down his swing, while driving home 1,304 runs from the three spot in the order. His slugging average was .475.

His arm and range were unquestioned. Clemente won 12 golden gloves. Who can forget his whirling dervish bullet of a throw to third in the 1971 world series? (He threw out 266 runners in his career.) How many times did he catch a careless runner taking a wide turn by throwing behind him after a single or challenging a hitter that dogged it up the line after stroking a grounder into right? The runners weren't the only ones that had to stay on their toes. I remember one game when he drilled Dick Stuart, the Bucco first sacker better known as Dr. Strangeglove, square in the back with a throw when Stu turned towards the infield, thinking there was no possible play at first.

Roberto also was selected MVP in 1966 and had two world series rings (he was MVP of the 1971 series.) He was whisked into the Hall of Fame without the five year waiting period after that tragic New Year's Eve crash that claimed his life, the first Latin American player to enter Cooperstown.

Clemente was famous as a spokesman for Latino players and a humanitarian. He was also known as a hypochondriac by the press and a jake by some of his team mates because of his non stop griping about his physical condition. He had hurt his back in a 1955 car accident and had surgery on it years later after aggravating it in winter ball.

Still, with his persona, pizazz and production on the field, who could possibly compete with Arriba for the title of best right fielder in Pirate history? Just one guy.

That guy would be Paul "Big Poison" Waner. He had a 20 year career, 15 spent with the Pirates, and played in 2,549 games while wracking up 3,152 hits during the 1920-30s for a .333 lifetime average and 3 batting titles. Though more known as a speedster than a hammer, Waner had a .473 slugging average while driving in 1,309 runs, numbers almost identical to Clemente's. And like Clemente, he was considered one of the era's great baserunners.

Waner was no slouch in the field either. He threw out 241 runners that tested his arm, and was considered an outstanding outfielder. His fielding average of .975 is just a tad better than Clemente's .973.

Big Poison is also a Hall of Famer and was the 1927 MVP. But as a human, he was not quite up to Clemente's standards. Waner was renowned for playing with a hangover. (Casey Stengel said of Big Poison: "He had to be a very graceful player, because he could slide without breaking the bottle on his hip.") When the Pirates finally put him on the wagon in 1938, he responded by hitting a mere .280. It was only the second time in his 15 years as a Buc that he didn't hit .300 or better.

Waner was also near sighted. When he complained that he couldn't read the ads on the right field wall near the end of his Pittsburgh career, the Bucs fitted him with glasses. It was a short lived experiment. The ball that had floated up to the plate like a big fuzzy grapefruit suddenly looked like a tightly spinning BB to him, and he ditched the specs.

His brother Lloyd patrolled center field beside him, and they became Big and Little Poison. (Paul was Big Poison as the elder of the pair.) The nicknames, according to baseball lore, go back to a Brooklyn Dodger game at Ebbets Field, when a fan with a thick Flatbush accent said "Them Waners! It's always the little poison (person) on thoid (third) and the big poison (person) on foist (first)!" The Waner boys still hold the record for most hits by brothers, outdoing the Alou and DiMaggio siblings.

Roberto's #21 was retired by the Bucs, along with Waner's #11. And though they are two distinct personalities from two different eras, who's to say which one was the superior ballplayer?

Now there's a couple of guys just a tick behind them statistically and in tenure. One is Kiki Cuyler, who spent the first seven years of his Hall of Fame career in Pittsburgh before a feud with manager Donie Bush chased him to Chicago. Waner took his spot. The other is Dave "The Cobra" Parker, who has marginal HOF stats but whose 19 year career was beset by injuries, weight problems, and cocaine. But his batting stats are top notch, and he was a well above average fielder with a rocket arm. The Cobra was Arriba's successor in right field.

Brian Giles and Bobby Bo? Fuhgetaboutit!


Paul "Big Poison" Waner from Wikipedia

o ye of little faith

1960 Bucco logo from Baseball Almanac

Does this sound familiar? A new general manager takes over a Pirate team that's laughably incompetent on the field. He blows up the roster, builds up the minors, and promises that he'll produce a contender. But the team fails to produce and goes eight more years before it comes up a winner - for a different GM. The new guy dumps a couple of vets, makes a tweak or two and viola, a world championship a decade after the plan began.

No, it's not the story of today's Bucs. But it worked for us before, and maybe it'll work for us again.

In 1950, Branch Rickey was faced with a Pirate team even worse than our current version. He blew it up and home grew some ballplayers. But by 1955, his time had come and gone. The Pirates lost 100 or more games three times in five years (they called his teams the "Rickey-Dinks"), and Joe Brown took over the reins. But Rickey, the father of the farm system, didn't leave Brown with a bare cupboard.

Dick Groat, Bob Skinner, Bill Virdon, Bill Mazeroski and Roberto Clemente were already in place. The pitching was set at the top end with Bob Friend and Vernon Law. ElRoy Face was in the bullpen as baseball's first great closer, a Danny Murtaugh innovation (Murtaugh, in my mind, is a much underappreciated manager.) Brown added Dick Stuart and Rocky Nelson in the 1958 draft and picked up super sub Dick Schofield from the Cards for Gene Freese and Johnny O'Brien, one of our twin infielders. Ducky Schofield showed the wisdom of that move when he filled in for 1960 MVP Groat in September, when he broke his wrist after getting plunked by Lew Burdette. Schofield hit .333 in that span and played golden D, helping the Bucs pull away from the Milwaukee Braves and St. Louis Cards.

He made one big deal before the 1959 season, getting Don Hoak, Harvey Haddix and Smoky Burgess from the Redlegs for slugger Frank Thomas, Whammy Douglas, Jim Pendleton and Johnny Powers. He had the starting lineup now in place and a solid middle of the pack starter.

Brown added to his depth after the 1959 season by getting Gino Cimoli and Tom Cheney from the Cards for aging vet Ronnie Kline. His blockbuster was getting Hal Smith from KC for Dick Hall, a dependable starter, Ken Hamlin and Hank Foiles. He had his catching platoon set up and a talented if wild hurler in Cheney for the bottom of the pitching rotation (not much call for the fifth starter back in the day except for doubleheaders and injuries) and long relief. Rookie Joe Gibbon served as what passed for that era's set-up man.

And sometimes the best deal is the one you don't make. During the off season, the Bucs almost traded Dick Groat straight up for Roger Maris. But Murtaugh squelched the swap, and Groat went on to win the batting title and NL-MVP in 1960.

Brown only had to make one more move early in the 1960 season, getting Vinegar Bend Mizell from the Cards for Julian Javier, who was effectively blocked by Maz, and Ed Bauta (the Cards threw in Dick Gray, too) to replace Hall in the rotation. And we all know what happened in 1960. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now do we have a core of ballplayers in place like Brown did? Does Huntington have Brown's eye in making up a lineup and deciding the role players from the position players? Do we have an excess in one position or players blocking other younger guys to deal to fill needs? And is Russell another Murtaugh? Or are we closer to the stage when Rickey took over, a decade away from respectability? Time will tell the answers. But at least we can take some solace in knowing its' been done here before.

1960 and that magic moment

Forbes Field from Ballparks
The weather outside is most assuredly January-ish. It's brrrrrrr with some snow rolling in late tonight, which I'm sure our splendid City road crews will salt and plow as soon as the first flake flutters *hysterical laughter*. But thanks to my sports nut son, I'm thinking warm thoughts. He asked me about the 1960 Bucs, the most unlikely collection of World Series champeens ever collected.

Just thinking of the player's names - Roberto (Arriba, The Great One) Clemente, Bob (The Dog) Skinner, (Shake Rattle and Roll) Smoky Burgess, Dick (Don't Boo Stu, He'll Come Thru) Stuart, Dick (Ducky) Schofield, Don (The Tiger) Hoak, Bill (Billy Maz) Mazeroski, Bill (The Quail) Virdon, Rocky (Don't Knock The Rock) Nelson and Dick Groat, who oddly enough was just known as Dick Groat, pitchers Wilmer (Vinegar Bend) Mizell, Harvey (The Kitten) Haddix, Vernon (The Deacon) Law, ElRoy (The Baron of the Bullpen) Face, a menagerie choreographed into a title team by manager Danny (The Smiling Irishman) Murtaugh, is enough to make me grin. All the nicknames, of course, came compliments of Bob (The Gunner) Prince, homer announcer extraordinaire and his partner Jim (The Possum) Woods. What moniker can you stick on one of today's ballplayers except for the Million Dollar Man - and they all answer to that.

The 1960 World Series was the strangest ever contested - the stumblebum Pirates win by a run and then lose by a dozen the next time around to the great Yankee team of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and company, back and forth through six games. But somehow the Bucs manage to stagger to a game seven at Forbes Field where a ground ball off the throat of Tony Kubek, a three run shot by Hal Smith, and Billy Maz lifting the ball over the scoreboard and Yogi Berra in the ninth inning leads to the most dramatic finish ever staged in a game seven. That's what baseball is about.

I listened to the game on my transistor radio on the way home from St. Wendelin's school, and floated on air to the crib just in time to see the live, black and white mob scene after the game on TV. My dad was on, helping hold the crowd back from the announcer, who was busily occupied interviewing ecstatic if somewhat incoherent Pirate fans. And no, he didn't have a ticket. If you gave a ticket to an Oakland guy, he'd scalp it and sneak in anyway. It was a matter of pride - and 1960 economics.

He gets home, the clan jumps in the old clunker, and we ride into Oakland. Paper is flying around like a ticker tape parade in Times Square. Everyone's happy - no gunshots, no couches on fire, no road rage in traffic that's gridlocked worse than the Parkway and Route 51 combined at rush hour. Just partying Buc fans in love with the world.

And Forbes Field, whatta ballyard. It wasn't heaven, as many old timers like to reminisce. There were steel beams everywhere that you couldn't see around. If you were stuck in the left field corner, the third base grandstand blotted out your view of the game. But it was a real baseball park, quirks, blemishes and all. Center field was so far away from home plate - 456', as I recall - that they parked the practice batting cage against it during the games. Some guys would sit in the plaza behind the ivy covered brick walls with their radios, waiting for a home run ball to fly over the wall. Yet right field was a mere 300'. Go figure. Pops woulda threatened Ruth's record if he played his entire career there.

Other fans would perch in the nearby tree limbs and catch the game. Or you could wait until the seventh inning, when the ushers left the bleacher gates open for all comers. They had a lady and her kids that sold hot dogs in left field, sizzling on a charcoal grill, before the FDA and Aramark ruled the ballpark junk food world. Heck, I remember after a game when a flock of us rugrats surrounded Clemente as he left the park. The Great One asked how we were doing in school and scolded us for not looking when we went across the street. Nothing fake about that guy. And if you walked through Oakland on a hot summer night when the Pirates played, everyone would be sitting on their stoops, listening to the Gunner on the radio, sipping an Iron City beer and talking to their neighbors. I guess more than baseball has changed over the years.

And people came to Forbes Field to watch the game - no racing pierogies, no blaring theme songs, no Bucco babes shooting tee shirts and hot dogs into the stands, no post game concerts, fireworks or bobbleheads. Sunday doubleheaders were the norm, and you got to see two games while shelling out for one ticket. Everything was just baseball. What a concept. (Well, except for Benny Benack and his jazz band..."The Bucs Are Going All the Way, All the Way, All the Way, the Bucs Are Going All the Way, All the Way this Year...")

My kids (one is two years out of college and the other a senior) most vivid Pirate playoff memory is Sid Bream trudging down the line like a beer league softball player and beating Barry Bond's soft, errant toss home, hook sliding past a diving Spanky LaValierre. But the dismal play of the past 15 years can't take the sheen off those 1960 guys. I've seen what baseball can do to a town. I hope my boys get to live long enough to experience it, too.