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12/5: Romo - Jones, Blake - Adams, Hutch - Westlake, Marco, Dale & Lefty Join, Waner Released, Bream To Bravos, '73 Exits, No Deal; RIP Joe, HBD Cam, Oscar, Tony, Sam, Bill, Pink, Snake & Frank

Thursday, December 5, 2024 7:07

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1868 – C Frank Bowerman was born in Romeo, Michigan. He spent a couple of his 15 pro seasons, 1898-99, in Pittsburgh, batting .265 while throwing out 49.5% of attempted base stealers and also playing 1B. But Bowerman had a hair-trigger temper, once giving manager Fred Clarke a shiner during a brawl, and incidents of that ilk led to a short stay in the Steel City.
1871 – LHP Lewis “Snake” Wiltse was born in Bouckville, New York. He began his brief three-year stay in the show with Pittsburgh in 1901. Snake put up a line of 1-4/4.26 and was released in July, signing with the Philly Athletics. He also tossed for the Orioles and NY Highlanders before being sent down in May of 1903, then toiling in the minors through the 1910 campaign. Wiltse might have done better as a position player. His MLB line from the hill was 29-31/4.59, but at the plate he compiled a .278 lifetime BA; Baltimore played him at first, in the OF and even at second base once. Snake got his nickname in the minors thx to his twisty delivery. Wiltse family tree branch: Snake’s brother was George “Hooks” Wiltse, who pitched for 12 big-league seasons, mostly with the Giants.
1872 – RHP Emerson “Pink” Hawley was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. He tossed for Pittsburgh from 1895-97 with a slash line of 71-61-1/3.76. He was a workhorse, appearing in 56 games in 1895 while throwing 444-1/3 innings, both league-leading numbers. Pink was a stand up guy, once turning down a bribe to throw a game. But then again, he came from good stock. His ancestor was the noted essayist Major Joseph Hawley, who joined with Samuel Adams and James Otis, Jr., as a revolutionary leader during the Stamp Act/Boston Tea Party era. Pink is his given middle name; he was part of a set of twins, and his family, as the story goes, put a blue ribbon on his brother and a pink one on Emerson so they could tell them apart. Fact of the day: The ribbon color really didn’t mean much. Up until the baby boomers came along, baby’s clothes colors were either considered sex-neutral or if anything, the opposite of today, with pink for boys and blue for girls.
1922 – OF Bill Rodgers was born in Harrisburg. Bill was a wartime special – he played for the Bucs from deep off the bench from 1944-45, got into three games and went 2-for-5 with one run scored. Rodgers was drafted by the New York Yankees in 1946, but never again made it back to the major leagues, spending nine years on various farm clubs.

Spencer Adams (PCL) – 1924 Zee Nuts

1922 – The Pirates sent RHP Fred “Sheriff” Blake, OF Ray Rohwer and $15,000 to the Seattle Indians of the Pacific Coast League for IF Spencer Adams. After a year with Seattle, Blake went on to pitch for nine MLB seasons while Rowher became a PCL fixture, playing in the league through 1931. Adams spent a year in Pittsburgh (.250 BA in 56 AB) before being traded back to the PCL (Oakland this time), and later played three more big league seasons as a backup.
1940 – Paul Waner was released by the Pirates. The Hall of Fame OF’er played 15 seasons in Pittsburgh, hitting .340 with 2,868 hits, 1,627 runs and 1,309 RBI. A party hearty type, Waner was famous for his ability to hit hung over. He gave up the bottle for a year in 1938 at management’s request, and only hit .280, the first time he failed to reach .300+. Needless to say, the teetotaler experiment ended after that campaign. Another bit of lore was that the Bucs discovered he was nearsighted late in his career and made him wear glasses. He gave those up when he found the large fuzzy object he had been swinging at all those years turned into a small spinning BB that was nearly impossible to hit when he had his peepers on. Paul and his younger brother Lloyd (Little Poison), one of baseball’s premier sibling duos, set the career record for hits by brothers with 5,611 and became the first set of player sibs to enter the Cooperstown Hall.
1946 – The Bucs sent Johnny Hutchings to Oakland of the PCL to complete the deal for OF Wally Westlake (Pittsburgh had sent $35K to the Oaks on September 25th; Hutch was the PTBNL who was the second part of the swap). Wally spent 1947-51 as the Bucs starting outfielder, mostly in center and right, hitting .281 with one All-Star nod before being traded to St. Louis. He played through 1956, although he only had one strong season after he left the Pirates. It was a busy day; they also swapped LHP Al Gerheauser to the St. Louis Browns for IF Eddie “The Fiddler” Basinski. Al worked one more season and The Fiddler hit .199 for the Bucs in his final MLB campaign. Finally, they sold OF Tommy O’Brien to the Cards. He spent four years toiling in the minors, then came back to play for parts (61 games total) of two final MLB tours in 1949-’50.
1949 – The Bucs took LHP Paul LaPalme from the Boston Braves in the minor league draft. Lefty gave the Bucs four years of service, slashing 14-33-2/4.99 for the terrible Pirates clubs of the early fifties. LaPalme went to the Cards after the ‘54 season, and was converted to a reliever. He lasted three more years, and with better teams and a consistent role, put up a line of 10-12-11/3.29. In all, the Bucs claimed seven players during the two-day draft and lost six others; Lefty was the only player with notable MLB chops involved in the roster shuffling.

Dale Long – 1955 Topps Double Header

1951 – Pittsburgh purchased 1B Dale Long from the St. Louis Browns. After 10 games, he was released and the Browns reclaimed him. Then in December, they sold him back to the Bucs, who stashed him in the minors for three years while he smacked 91 dingers. In the next 2-1/2 years and 400 games, he was with the big club, banging out 64 long balls, including an eight-game homer streak in 1956, before being part of a trade with the Cubs in 1957.
1963 – SS Sam Khalifa was born in Fontana, California. A prep QB who received D-1 offers and an All-America SS, Khalifa was a first round pick (#7 overall) from Arizona’s Sahuaro HS, but in his three year MLB career, all as a Pirate (1985-87), he hit just .219. Sammy was the first player of Egyptian ancestry to play major league baseball. He now lives in Tucson and coaches HS football and baseball.
1966 – Coach Tony Beasley was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia. A minor league infielder who spent time with the Pirates, Beasley became a farm coach/manager in the Bucco organization after his playing days. Starting out as a player/coach and roving batting instructor in 1998, Beasley then managed in the Pirates system for the next five seasons, making the playoffs every year. Tony became the Pirates roving minor league infield instructor (he was considered instrumental in the transition of Neil Walker into a second baseman) and was named third base coach in 2008 by John Russell. After JR left after 2010, Beasley spent four seasons in the Washington organization before getting the call from Jeff Banister to become the third base coach of the Texas Rangers. In 2016, he was diagnosed with cancer. After surgery and chemo, he was back in uniform at Arlington, albeit primarily as a quality control coach, and later reclaimed his third base box.
1973 – The Pirates did some addition by subtraction: LHP Luke Walker was sold to the Tigers, RHP Chris Zachary was sent to the Phils for UTIL Pete Koegel (whose last MLB outing was in 1972, with no more to come) and a couple of days later, RHP Bob Johnson was flipped to Cleveland for career minor leaguer OF Bill Flowers. Johnson worked 29 more games in two seasons, Walker lasted one year with Motown, and Zachary never appeared in another MLB game.

Luke Walker – 1972 Topps

1978 – 37-year-old Pete Rose signed a four-year/$3.2 million deal with the Phillies. He had been hotly pursued in free agency by several clubs including the Bucs, and owner Dan Galbreath had even invited Rose to his Columbus home & the Darby Dan stables in Lexington. The Pirates admitted that their cash offer was half that of the Phillies (four years/$1.6M), and their equine lure fell short. Rose had told the Pittsburgh Press a week earlier that “The Galbreaths may offer me a couple of horses, but in the end it will come down to dollars and cents.”
1978 – Pitchers Enrique Romo and Rick Jones along with shortstop Tom McMillan were sent to the Pirates by Seattle for pitchers Rafael Vasquez, Odell Jones and shortstop Mario Mendoza in return. Romo pitched four years for the Pirates (1979-82) pretty effectively, going 25-16-26/3.56 and was part of the 1979 World Series club. Romo only tossed six seasons total in the MLB, but with good reason – he started late. He pitched 11 seasons in Mexican baseball prior to making his major league debut for the Mariners in 1977 at the age of 29. McMillan and Rick Jones both ended up minor league players. Odell Jones tossed six more years, including a brief 1981 return to Pittsburgh, Mendoza played for four more seasons and Vasquez appeared in nine 1979 games for Seattle.
1978 – The Pittsburgh Press published a rumor mill report that the Pirates had offered the Red Sox Jerry Reuss for Andy Hassler. That swap fell through, but the Bucs came up roses when they traded the southpaw to LA in April of 1979 for Rick Rhoden and then signed swingman Hassler as a free agent during the off season.
1982 – Pitching coach Oscar Marin was born in Los Angeles. He took a roundabout route to the show, never tossing pro ball but jumping straight from playing/coaching college baseball to a job with the Rangers as their minor league pitching coordinator in 2010. He worked a variety of minor league jobs, then became an MLB’er with the Rangers in 2019 when he was named their bullpen coach. Marin was hired to join Derek Shelton’s staff in December 2019 to replace Ray Searage.

Sid Bream – 2015 Topps Archives

1990 – The Atlanta Braves signed Bucco free agent 1B Sid Bream to a three year/$5.6M contract. The Pirates reportedly offered three years/$4.5M, with the FO leery of Sid’s knees, and his request for a no-trade clause. Manager Jim Leyland was a fan of his, and told the Pittsburgh Press that “I just feel terrible that he left. I think it was a mistake not signing him…I’m not looking at this like we lost Babe Ruth. But he stood for something,” referring to Bream’s All-American demeanor helping to restore the Pirates image after the drug scandals. His heir-apparent was Carmelo Martinez going into camp, but he lost the 1B job to Orlando Merced.
1993 – LHP Cam Vieaux was born in Novi, Michigan. A sixth round pick of the Bucs in 2016 from Michigan State. He worked his way through the levels, first as a starter, then as a swingman and finally as a reliever by 2021. He got his call to the show in 2022, working eight outings for the Pirates with a 10.38 ERA; he struck out 15 in 8-2/3 IP, but also gave up 15 hits, including two dingers, and five walks. He elected minor-league free agency at the end of the season and signed with the Angels, spending the year at AAA Salt Lake. Cam tossed in Mexico in ‘24.
2011 – Pirates coach Joe Lonnett, 87, passed away in Beaver Falls after battling Alzheimer’s Disease. Joe, who spent four years in MLB, met future Bucco manager Chuck Tanner in 1957 on a barnstorming tour. The two were about the same age, born 25 miles apart (Lonnett in Beaver Falls, Tanner in New Castle) and hit it off. Chuck told him that if he made it as a manager, he’d call. Tanner kept his promise and called Joe to join his staff in 1971 at Chicago, then Oakland and Pittsburgh (1977-84). Lonnett handled third base and as an ex-catcher tutored Ed Ott and Steve Nicosia. After Tanner left Pittsburgh, Joe stayed with the organization and dabbled a little in managing at the lower levels before spending his later years as a scout and roving instructor for Pittsburgh and Toronto. He was inducted into the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.
2023 – The Bucs traded for the Braves LHP Marco Gonzales (the Bravos had acquired him from Seattle two days before) pending his physical. Atlanta sent Pittsburgh cash ($9.25M – Gonzales was due $12M in 2024 with a $15M team option with no buyout in 2025) and will get a PTBNL. He had a weak 2023 campaign (5.22 ERA in 10 starts), but was dealing with a nerve issue that eventually required surgery. In his five seasons prior as a Mariner, he averaged 175 IP and had a 3.94 ERA to go with a 46-30 record, and the Bucs were banking on his return to workhorse status, though rolling the dice on a guy coming off injury. The Pirates lost that toss of the bones – he went on the 60-day IL twice and finished the year with just seven outings. He wasn’t tendered and is now a FA.

Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2024/12/125-romo-jones-blake-adams-hutch.html

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