September 29, 1967: Bob Moose earns first major-league win as Pirates beat Astros

Bob Moose’s strong pitching at two levels of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor-league system in 1967, punctuated by a pair of outstanding starts in the International League’s championship series, led to a September call-up that made him the Pirates’ first-ever amateur draft selection to reach the majors. On September 29, 10 days before his 20th birthday, the locally-raised right-hander capped his season-long ascent, carrying a shutout into the eighth inning and earning his first major-league win in Pittsburgh’s 4-1 victory over the Houston Astros at Forbes Field.

Robert Ralph Moose grew up in Export, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. The Pirates selected him out of Franklin Area High School in the 18th round of baseball’s inaugural amateur draft in June 1965.1 Soon after signing,2 the 17-year-old Moose – who had attended the Pirates’ opener that April as a ticket-buying fan, excused from school for the afternoon3 – joined Pittsburgh’s major-league club for a charity benefit exhibition at Forbes Field and threw three scoreless innings against the Cleveland Indians.4

Moose spent 1966 in Class A, then reached big-league spring training in 1967.5 Danny Murtaugh – Pittsburgh’s manager from 1957 through 1964 but serving as a scout after stepping down for health concerns – told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he ranked Moose among the organization’s top prospects, alongside catcher Manny Sanguillén and infielder Richie Hebner.6

Moose’s preseason work landed him an Opening Day 1967 slot with the Triple-A Columbus Jets, rather than an expected assignment to the Double-A Macon Peaches.7 “Moose is by far the No. 1 surprise of our spring period,” Columbus manager Harding Peterson gushed, praising his “ability to throw curves for strikes at any time – and consistently.”8

But Moose, stuck behind more experienced pitchers on the Jets’ staff, made only four appearances before getting sent to Double A on May 25.9

There, he found his groove, winning six of eight decisions for a poor Macon club10 and pitching a one-hitter in a seven-inning game on June 29.11 Moose made another Forbes Field appearance when the Pirates summoned him for an exhibition game against Cleveland on July 6. He held the Indians to one run in five innings.12

Back with Columbus in early August, Moose struck out 15 Toledo Mud Hens for his first of four regular-season Triple-A wins.13 The Jets reached the International League championship, the Governor’s Cup, against Toledo, a Detroit Tigers affiliate.

Moose opened the best-of-seven series with a six-hit shutout on September 12,14 but the Mud Hens won the next three games. Facing elimination on September 15, Moose stretched his scoreless streak to 17 innings but lost, 1-0, on a ninth-inning run.15

By then, Pittsburgh had announced that Moose was coming to the major-league club when Columbus’s season ended.16 The Pirates began 1967 with high expectations after contending for the National League pennant in the previous two seasons.17 But they were eight games out of first place on July 18, and manager Harry Walker was fired and replaced by interim manager Murtaugh.18 Twenty-one losses in their next 34 games extinguished Pittsburgh’s pennant hopes.19

Pitching had turned out to be a weakness for the Pirates. Pittsburgh allowed 693 runs in 1967, more than any NL team besides the Astros. “There’s one thing certain – the Pirates need pitching help,” Al Abrams wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The club has proven it can’t win with its present staff.”20

Moose pitched in the final Governor’s Cup game on a Friday, spent the weekend performing Marine Reserve duties, 21 and joined the Pirates in Houston on Monday, September 18.22 A night later, in a start at the Astrodome for his major-league debut,23 Moose’s five-hit pitching, RBI triple, and run scored staked the Pirates to a 5-1 lead with two outs in the sixth. But Doug Rader’s RBI single and Bob Aspromonte’s two-run triple chased him from the mound, and Moose finished with a no-decision.24

He waited 10 days for his second start, in the opener of a three-game series between the sixth-place Pirates and ninth-place Astros on the season’s final weekend. “Pirate brass is hoping many of the local fans will skip the high school football games tonight to get a look at Export’s Bob Moose who pitches against [the] Astros,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.25

Still, only 2,269 fans – 1,951 paid – showed at Forbes Field on a chilly Friday night.26 Many were “huddled under blankets and heavy coats,” noted the Houston Post, as temperatures dropped through the 40s.27 Moose afterward estimated that “about 50” of his family and friends were there, including his parents and 13-year-old sister.28

Against the Astros, winners of just 22 of 78 away games so far in 1967,29 Moose fanned Joe Morgan to end a one-two-three first inning and negated Rusty Staub’s second-inning single with Aspromonte’s double-play grounder.

Houston catcher Hal King, who had made his major-league debut on September 6 after leading the Class A Carolina League with 30 home runs, led off the third inning with a single and took third on starting pitcher Wade Blasingame’s one-out double.

King was still on third with two outs when Moose’s low pitch bounced away from catcher Jerry May. When King strayed from the bag, May recovered the ball and threw to third baseman Maury Wills, who tagged King for the third out.

The Pirates were hitless in the first two innings against Blasingame. The 25-year-old lefty,30 making his second start after missing four weeks in August and September with a sore arm,31 seemed headed for another successful inning in the third when Moose followed May’s one-out single by hitting into a force at second.

Pittsburgh’s offense, tops in the majors in 1967 with a .277 club batting average, then got in gear. Wills singled Moose to second. Manny Mota’s single drove in Moose. Wills scored from second when Clemente – hitting .356 and headed for his fourth career batting title – singled.32 Willie Stargell’s single brought Mota home, giving the Pirates a 3-0 advantage.

Moose quashed several middle-inning uprisings to preserve the lead. Sonny Jackson’s leadoff walk and Jim Wynn’s one-out hit-by-pitch put runners on first and second in the fourth,33 but Bill Mazeroski turned Staub’s grounder to second into an inning-ending double play. The Astros squandered King’s one-out triple in the fifth when Bob Watson popped up to Mazeroski and Blasingame struck out.

The Pirates added another run in the sixth. Big-swinging first baseman Bob Robertson was a September promotion from Columbus after hitting 19 homers and striking out 128 times in 108 Triple-A games; “Bob Robertson Hits Ball a Mile; Fans Frequently,” summarized a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headline.34 He had hit his first major-league home run during Moose’s debut game at the Astrodome.35

Robertson struck again at Forbes Field, three days before his 21st birthday. He led off the sixth by pulling a Blasingame changeup between the scoreboard and light tower in left for his second big-league homer and a 4-0 lead.36

Moose had a blister on his right foot, but he continued to grind through Houston’s lineup.37 Staub, who finished fifth in the NL with a .333 batting average at age 23, singled to start the seventh. Two outs later, Astros first baseman Watson – 21 years old and in a big-league starting lineup for the first time in a 19-season career – singled for his first hit in the majors, giving Houston runners on first and second.38 But manager Grady Hatton let Blasingame bat, and the pitcher popped up to end the inning.

The Astros denied Moose a shutout when Ron Davis homered to left to lead off the eighth.

“It wasn’t the coldest weather a baseball game ever was played in,” the Houston Chronicle observed. “It just seemed like it. The bullpen pitchers built a fire to try to keep warm.”39

Moose had no need for a fireman, setting down Houston the rest of the way to wrap up his seven-hit complete game.

“It’s just great,” he told the Pittsburgh Press afterward. “No, the cold weather didn’t bother me and neither did the blister. I felt I could go all the way.”40

He had impressed some of the most influential members of the Pirates’ organization.

“That boy will have to be reckoned with for a spot on the roster next spring,” Murtaugh said. “Moose has been getting better every game.”41

“You’d have thought he had just won about 250 games,” said his Triple-A manager Peterson, who had been named the Pirates’ farm director earlier in the day.42 “He took it in stride … like a Jim Bunning or Whitey Ford.”43

Moose made Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster in 1968 and had a regular turn in the starting rotation by June.44 He spent his entire 10-season big-league career with the Pirates, pitching a no-hitter against the New York Mets in 1969 and contributing to Pittsburgh’s three NL East Division winners from 1970 through 1972, including the Pirates’ 1971 World Series championship. He died in an automobile accident on his 29th birthday, October 9, 1976, two weeks after his final major-league game.45

Author’s Note

The author was inspired to write about Bob Moose’s life and career because his son shares an October 9 birthday with Moose.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas Brown and copy-edited by Len Levin. The Columbus (Ohio) Metropolitan Library helpfully provided Columbus Dispatch newspaper coverage of Bob Moose’s 1967 season with the Columbus Jets. Gary Belleville and Kurt Blumenau offered insightful comments on an earlier version of the article.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. He also reviewed game coverage in the Houston Chronicle, Houston Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh Press newspapers and SABR Baseball Biography Project biographies of several players involved in this game, including David E. Skelton’s Wade Blasingame biography, Chris Holaday’s Hal King biography, and Floyd Johnson’s Bob Moose biography.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT196709290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B09290PIT1967.htm

Notes

1 Charley Feeney, “Roamin’ Around,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 28, 1967: 32; Bob Cupp, “Memories of Moose,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, May 3, 2012, https://archive.triblive.com/news/memories-of-moose/.

2 Moose received a reported $500 bonus to sign. Eddie Fisher, “Tiger Named Moose Among Top Rookies on ’67 Jet Roster,” Columbus Sunday Dispatch, April 30, 1967: 69.

3 Les Biederman, “Moose Climbs in a Hurry,” Pittsburgh Press, June 19, 1968: 64.

4 Jack Hernon, “Bucs Bump Indians in HYPO, 2-0,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 3, 1965: 18. All three Pirates pitchers in the exhibition game were minor leaguers; Woodie Fryman and Roger Hayward followed Moose to the mound.

5 Fisher, “Tiger Named Moose Among Top Rookies on ’67 Jet Roster.”

6 Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 18, 1967: 14. Murtaugh also listed infielders Pablo Cruz and Luther Quinn among the club’s top five prospects.

7 Fisher, “Tiger Named Moose Among Top Rookies on ’67 Jet Roster.”

8 Fisher, “Tiger Named Moose Among Top Rookies on ’67 Jet Roster.”

9 After the 19-year-old Moose, the next youngest member of the 1967 Jets’ pitching staff was Dock Ellis, who turned 22 in March. Eddie Fisher, “Jets’ New Arrival Coops Mud Hens, 5-1,” Columbus Evening Dispatch, August 8, 1967: 18.

10 The Peaches finished 1967 with a 55-85 record, fifth of sixth teams in the Southern League. Harley Bowers, “How’s This for a Problem?,” Macon Telegraph, July 5, 1967: 7.

11 Moose allowed only a seventh-inning leadoff single to Paul Pavelko of the Montgomery Rebels in the first game of a June 29 doubleheader. Jack Doane, “Macon Bombs Rebels, 8-0, on Moose’s ‘Near’ No-Hitter,” Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser, June 30, 1967: 17.

12 “Veale Seeks 10th Victory Tonight,” Pittsburgh Press, July 7, 1967: 20.

13 Fisher, “Jets’ New Arrival Coops Mud Hens, 5-1.”

14 “Export’s Bob Moose Blanks Toledo, 5-0,” Pittsburgh Press, September 12, 1967: 38.

15 Eddie Fisher, “Jet Baseball ‘30’ for ’67,” Columbus Evening Dispatch, September 16, 1967: 12. The winning pitcher in the Mud Hens’ clincher was Moose’s future Pittsburgh teammate Jim Rooker, who finished with a complete-game one-hitter.

16 Lester J. Biederman, “Fryman Strikes Out 15 Phillies, Avenges Last Sunday’s Defeat,” Pittsburgh Press, September 2, 1967: 8.

17 For example, an Associated Press preseason poll of sportswriters and broadcasters picked the Pirates to win the NL pennant, and Las Vegas oddsmakers favored Pittsburgh when the season began in April. Associated Press, “Pirates, Orioles Pennant Picks,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 8, 1967: 7; Lester J. Biederman, “‘Men Who Know’ Pick Pirates for Pennant,” Pittsburgh Press, April 14, 1967: 37.

18 Charley Feeney, “Danny Murtaugh Replaces Walker as Buc Manager: Brown Says Ex-Pilot’s Term to End at Close of ’67 Season With New Field Boss for ’68; No Coaching Changes Are Planned,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 19, 1967: 1.

19 “Right now the Pirates are playing like losers,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Charley Feeney wrote on August 15. “They take the field thinking the worst will happen. And it generally does.” Charley Feeney, “Roamin’ Around,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 15, 1967: 29.

20 Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 6, 1967: 22.

21 Fisher, “Jet Baseball ‘30’ for ’67.”

22 Charley Feeney, “Bucs Use Rookie Hurlers on Road,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 19, 1967: 20.

23 “I did not expect to pitch [as a starter for Pittsburgh] this season,” Moose told the Houston Chronicle. “I was told Monday night I’d pitch. I really had expected to be used in relief.” John Wilson, “Buc Eruption Buries Astros in 9th, 11-7,” Houston Chronicle, September 20, 1967: 4, 1.

24 Dennis Ribant followed Moose by allowing an RBI single to Aaron Pointer, giving Moose five runs allowed in 5⅔ innings. Pointer’s two-run double against Elroy Face in the eighth inning put Houston up, 7-5, but the Pirates rallied for six runs in the ninth for an 11-7 win. “Big Ninth Lifts Pirates Over Astros: 6-Run Inning Saves Face, 11-7; Robertson Homers,” Pittsburgh Press, September 20, 1967: 81.

25 Charley Feeney, “Bucs’ Wills Has ‘Feeling’ He’s Trade Bait: Vet Would Like to Stay in NL,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 29, 1967: 30.

26 Joe Curcio, “Moose Hurls 1st Win: Export Pitcher Scatters 7 Hits Going 9 Innings,” Pittsburgh Press, September 30, 1967: 8.

27 Joe Heiling, “Pirates Sink Astros, 4-1,” Houston Post, September 30, 1967: 4, 2.

28 Curcio, “Moose Hurls 1st Win”; Feeney, “Roamin’ Around,” September 28, 1967.

29 The Astros’ road record of 23-58 in 1967 was their worst while they played in the Astrodome from 1965 through 1999. Houston was 20-61 on the road in 2012, when they had moved to Minute Maid Park.

30 Blasingame began 1967 with the Atlanta Braves but was traded to Houston in a four-player deal in June. Wilt Browning, “Braves Get Raymond,” Atlanta Journal, June 16, 1967: 1-C.

31 John Wilson, “Giants’ Perry Collars Astros, 2-0,” Houston Chronicle, September 7, 1967: 3, 1.

32 In the season finale on October 1, Clemente served as Pirates’ manager and hit a triple and home run, leading Pittsburgh to a 10-3 win over Houston. He finished 1967 with a .357 batting average, the highest of his career.

33 Wynn was hit in the forearm and left the game. Ron Davis moved from left to center and Pointer entered in left. X-rays of Wynn’s arm were negative for broken bones and he returned to the lineup for the season finale on Sunday, October 1. “Astrolog,” Houston Post, October 1, 1967: 2, 6.

34 Charley Feeney, “Young Buc Has Spark for Future: Bob Robertson Hits Ball a Mile; Fans Frequently,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 23, 1967: 10.

35 Robertson’s first career homer, a two-run shot against Houston’s Bruce Von Hoff, was estimated at 440 feet. Charley Feeney, “6-Run Ninth Puts Pirates Past Astros: Moose, Robertson Impressive in 11-7 Victory,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 20, 1967: 37.

36 Heiling, “Pirates Sink Astros, 4-1.”

37 Curcio, “Moose Hurls 1st Win.”

38 A day later, Watson hit his first major-league home run, against Pittsburgh rookie Jim Shellenback in a 4-3 Astros’ win. Watson batted .295 in 1,832 games for the Astros, Braves, Boston Red Sox, and New York Yankees from 1966 through 1984.

39 John Wilson, “Astros Drop 57th on the Road,” Houston Chronicle, September 30, 1967: 1, 10.

40 Curcio, “Moose Hurls 1st Win.”

41 Curcio, “Moose Hurls 1st Win.”

42 “Murtaugh Moves to Front Office: Peterson, Whalen Named by Pirates,” Pittsburgh Press, September 30, 1967: 8.

43 Charley Feeney, “Moose Gets Tired of Buses, Wants Jets,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 24, 1968: 7.

44 Biederman, “Moose Climbs in a Hurry.”

45 Vince Gagetta, “Bucs’ Bob Moose Killed in Crash,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 11, 1976: 1.