pittsburgh-pirates

Number Nine Was Pretty Good

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

After a good, long life, Maz is gone. After years of cellar dwelling and general organizational ineptitude, the Pittsburgh Pirates showed some life in 1956. It was not an organization that could, like the Yankees of those days or the Dodgers of these days, spend themselves into championship contention. They had to be smart, know their baseball, and find good players.

The Brooklyn Dodgers had Duke Snider and Carl Furillo in their outfield, but they had gotten sloppy about protecting a valuable Puerto Rican investment named Roberto Clemente who suddenly appeared in the Pirates’ lineup as their right fielder in 1955. He would remain there through 1972 in a legendary Hall of Fame career that ended with his death in a horrible plane crash when he was heroically helping earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve. Suddenly Pittsburgh had a semblance of defense to help their promising young pitching staff including Vernon Law and Bob Friend. Then, in’56, the Pirates added a 19 year old rookie named Bill Mazeroski and their infield was much more serious as well. No one has ever made double plays as well or as frequently as number 9, Mazeroski, and he also would remain through 1972, winning eight Gold Gloves and hitting with occasional power. Shrewd general manager Joel L. Brown added a brilliant center fielder acquired from St. Louis, Bill Virdon and the Pirates began winning respect. Gone were the days of statues in the outfield like Ralph Kiner, Preston Ward, and Jerry Lynch.

I will always remember delivering a Sunday edition of the Pittsburgh Press that showed the ’56 Pirates suddenly in first place with a record of 29 wins and 20 losses, best in the National League. How could this be? Only two years earlier, Pittsburgh had finished dead last, winning 53 out of 154 games, eleven games behind the seventh place Chicago Cubs. Behind brash manager Bobby Bragan the Pirates were getting interesting but they fell out of contention soon enough. Bragan over used his best pitchers and the roster was still a bit thin despite the addition of young talent. They ended up trading places with the Cubs. 1957 was Mazeroski’s first full season and he did well, batting .283 and impressing the league with his glove work.

The Mlwaukee Braves were the big story in baseball that season, though, winning the World Series over the Yankees with the power of Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Wes Covington along with their big three starting pitchers Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, and Bob Buhl. The Pirates became serious contenders in 1958, finishing 8 games behind Milwaukee for second place with their own big three starters in Bob Friend, Vern Law and Ron Kline and Roy Face in the bullpen. Mazeroski won his first Gold Glove and batted .275 with 19 home runs at age 21. Even though the Pirates solidified the roster even more by by trading with Cincinnati for Don Hoak and Smoky Burgess they finished fourth with a 78-76 record in 1959. But the following year was the one they had waited over two decades for.

They held a rather comfortable lead over the aging Braves all season and won the National League pennant by seven games. The usual New York arrogance made the Yankees a strong favorite to win the World Series. The series, however, went to a fateful seventh game. After blowing an early 4-0 lead the Pirates entered the bottom of the ninth inning at old Forbes Field tied 9-9. Maz was the first batter and he delivered the winning blow and Yogi Berra watched it fly over the left field wall and the Pirates were champs. It was Mazeroski’s eighth hit of the series, second only for the team to Clemente’s nine, and his second homer.

Eleven years later, at age 34, Maz played in another World Series. This time it was against another heavily favored team, the Baltimore Orioles. That Baltimore team featured Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Don Buford and four 20 game winners on the pitching staff—Mike Cuellar, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, and Pat Dobson. Dave Cash had become the Pirates’ regular second baseman that year and Maz was limited to a single pinch hit appearance. He and Clemente were the only remaining from the 1960 winners. Clemente was the Series MVP as Pittsburgh again won the seventh game, this time on the road.

So the passing at 89 years old of a real icon to Pirates fans and fans of great defense leaves us with great memories. Seven times Maz was an All-Star. Two World Championships. 1,076 double plays, including 161 in 162 games in 1966. The kid from Wheeling, West Virginia was damned good.

The Two Week Tour

~ latskojerry ~ 3 Comments

Spring, as always, brought us baseball but the wide geographical span over which major league baseball gets played assures that, while it may be Spring on the calendar, it most definitely has variations across North America. Is it still called North America? Or has the acting president and his circle of varlets changed it to North Par-a-Sago? So while the fortunately located San Diego Padres can draw 40,000 plus for a weekday home game in April, we have the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins entertaining 7-8,ooo customers. I guess Miami can’t blame cold weather so much.

The Pirates are further hampered by their unwillingness to compete for capable players on their roster. They have the very talented Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes and Brian Reynolds but beyond that? I mean, Tommy Pham–are you serious?

Other questions abound, like is Max Muncy having trouble at the plate because he’s playing for two teams at once? Think of the air travel alone! No, I’m kidding, there really are two Max Muncys. The one who plays for the Dodgers is batting .167 and the rookie playing for Sacrovegas is batting .185. Also, Kyle Tucker looks good as a Cub but Justin Turner? He enjoyed Fenway Park at age 38 but he’s 40 now and it appears that his offensive ship has sailed.

More questions: Will Ronald Acuna Jr. return to the faltering Atlanta Braves before Sean Murphy gets hurt again? Can you name three Tampa Bay Rays players without looking it up? When watching games on MLB TV, do you bet on the mascot races?

We all know that April and October are not good months for hitters, particularly in places like Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minnesota. Minnesota Spring is June and July; there is no Summer, everything else is Winter. The warmer days are coming and the players won’t look like snow boarders out there forever. In the meantime, everybody except Colorado and the White Sox is still in contention. That’s the definition of fun.

The Goal Was Parity

~ latskojerry ~ Leave a comment

The most noticeable thing about the 2024 major league baseball season so far, other than the high number of broken bats and strained hamstrings, is the absence of many teams from the races for first place. Coming into this weekend, eight of the fifteen American League teams had winning records, but four of those were in the Central Division. There,the Cleveland Guardians held a five game lead over Kansas City. Both of those clubs are considered pleasant surprises by the National Committee of Baseball Know It Alls but, as the opthalmologists say, we will see. The fifth team in that division, the Chicago White Sox, are not in contention for anything other than 122 defeats at their current rate of play. In the A.L. West, the Costa Mesa Angels are in a race with Oakland for fifth place and Seattle is the only team that has won more than it has lost. Baltimore and the New York Yankees are the only teams above .500 in the East, and they are the two teams clearly superior to the rest of the league. In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, and Los Angeles Dodgers are your three good teams out of fifteen –so far, I have to add, since we are only a bit more than a third of the way through the schedule. It is no doubt fun to be a follower of those successful franchises, but success in competitive sports associations (business) is dependent on, well, competition. When the people know who is going to win most of the time, the interest in each individual game sags to a dangerous low and not even television can adequately compensate.

Back in the days of Elvis, Ed Sullivan, and ubiquitous movies about World War II, the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers dominated the post season, which consisted of the World Series only unless there was a tie for a pennant. So all of us got to be familiar with Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford. Those were very good teams but the sad sack teams like the St. Louis Browns, Pittsburgh Pirates, and any team from Philadelphia were usually not really worthy opponents. Things began to change as the sixties appeared, and the lords of the diamonds made an admirable leap toward progress, otherwise known as parity. The amateur draft was instituted in 1965. Rick Monday was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics and the team with the worst record each season would get that first “draft pick” followed in order by each of the other teams in reverse order of the standings. The goal was to help the losers catch up to the winners and, to a certain extent, it helped. Before long, teams like Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and, yes, even the expansion teams won pennants and World Series.

Years later, free agency came along and it was very good for the players as far as salaries and other conditions of employment. Expansion and subsequent widening of the post season participation helped the game become more popular and television contracts enriched all teams and increased the money available. At long last, we may have reached the point that, like most big businesses, MLB had so much cash at its disposal that some teams, like some corporations, had a whole lot more to spend on things like free agents than others. That may account for today’s disparity. Now is a good time, by the way, to tell all baseball commentators around North America that a “ton” equals 2,000 pounds, although Webster says that it can also mean a great quantity, but I would not use it a “ton” of the time.

OTHER MATTERS: May 26 marked the 65th anniversary of one of the weirdest baseball games ever. On that date in 1959, Harvey Haddix of the Pirates pitched 12 perfect innings against the Braves in Milwaukee. He lost the game in the 13th when Felix Mantilla reached on Pirate third baseman Don Hoak‘s throwing error. Eddie Mathews sacrifice bunted Mantilla to second base. Henry Aaron was then intentionally walked. Joe Adcock then delivered a home run except it wasn’t. Adcock passed Aaron between second and third base because Aaron stopped, thinking the ball had landed inside the fence. The umpire ruled Adcock out (correctly) and said the Braves won 2-0. Later, National league president Warren Giles ruled Adcock’s hit a double and the score therefore 1-0. Lew Burdette was the winning pitcher with a 13 inning 12 hitter (all singles). The question is, how many pitches did they throw? They were not counted. Haddix walked one (Aaron) and Burdette none.

More trivia:Who were the first Most Valuable Players to wear glasses at the time? Jim Konstanty of the 1950 Phillies in the National League and Dick Allen of the White Sox in the 1972 American League. You needed to know that, right?