The Worst Moments in Pirates Baseball History

As most clubs that have been around for a hundred years or more, the Pirates have their share of historical glory and adventure. Interestingly (and unlike many other long-lived teams), the Pirates have usually been in contention or in the middle of the pack (just one more solid lefty away, we have said) for most seasons of their history. They have not had an extended run of futility, with the exception of the 1949-57 era, which was jam-packed with laughs, at least. When the Bucs were bad, they were horrid in legendary fashion.

The bad times for the Pirates seem to happen in terrible moments; both on and off the field. They let themselves down with dreadful mistakes; they were victimized by heroic efforts by opponents who ranged from Hall of Famers to absolute nobodies; a corporation removed one of their most beloved figures in a snit; one of their greatest stars was taken from them while on a mission of mercy.

Here then is a brief listing of those miserable moments in the history of the Pittsburgh major league baseball franchise. Let the pains begin.

The Big Serb and the 1927 World Series

The story is a pleasing incident in baseball mythology, apparently created by Ford Frick, later to become baseball commissioner, but at the time a sportswriter for one of the New York dailies. As the tale goes, the Pirates watched the Yankees take batting practice before the Series’ first game, and were “in awe” of the Yankee size and slugging capability. Properly abashed, the Bucs fell apart instantly under the crush of the Yank juggernaut and were swept in four games.

Well, it was a sweep, all right. But the other “facts” fall down under closer consideration. The Yanks may have been large, but the Pirates were no wimps. The Waners, Traynor, Glenn Wright and George Grantham were rugged dudes. No Pirate who was asked later remembered watching Yankee batting practice. Why should they? These were the same New Yorkers the Cards had taken out in the ’26 Series.

In Game 1, two Pirate misplays gave the Yanks the second-inning runs they needed for a 5-4 win. No one homered. Game 2 was much the same. If not for a Pirate wild pitch and hit batter in the eighth inning, the final score would have been 3-2. Again, no home runs. Where was this legendary Yankee power? Hadn’t this team just set the record for homers in a season?

It appeared only in Game 3. Ruth slugged a three-run shot in the last of the eighth to help the Yanks to an 8-1 win.

The final game was tight from the beginning. Both teams scored in the first. New York added a pair on a Ruth homer in the fifth, but the Buccos fought back. The Yanks, who had made just one error in the Series’ first three games, made consecutive bobbles to open the top of the seventh. The Pirates scored twice to tie things up at 3. John Miljus, known affectionately as “The Big Serb,” got Ruth to ground into a double play in the last of the seventh, and stranded two Yank runners in the last of the eighth.

In the ninth he lost it. After walking Combs and seeing Koenig beat out a bunt, The Big Serb uncorked a wild pitch with Babe Ruth at bat. Manager Donie Bush ordered Ruth passed to load the bases. Miljus then came close to becoming a World Series immortal. He struck out both Lou Gehrig and Bob Meusel (with the bases loaded and nobody out!) But the “sailor” he tossed to Tony Lazzeri went over catcher Gooch’s shoulder. Two wild pitches in the ninth inning of a close World Series game shut down the Pirates.

Things might have been different if the Pirates hadn’t benched Kiki Cuyier during the Series for… well, that’s another story.

Gabby Hartnett’s `Homer in the Gloaming’ (and the Hurricane)

By September 1, 1938, the Pirates (who had barely sniffed first place since the 1927 Series disaster) were out in front of the Chicago Cubs by seven games. But as a hurricane swatted the Atlantic Coast, the red-hot Bucs were cooled off by having several series washed out. The Cubs made their move.

On September 20, the Pirate lead was half what it had been 19 days before, but Commissioner Landis still felt justified in permitting the Pittsburgh club to sell World Series tickets. Owner Bill Benswanger (son-in-law of Barney Dreyfuss, given the job because Dreyfuss’s son Sammy had died in 1931) built a spectacular new press box atop Forbes Field for the upcoming event. But the rains kept coming, and the Buccos stumbled. By the time they reached Chicago on September 27 for a three-game series, the Cubs were just 1-1/2 games behind.

Dizzy Dean, whom the Cubs had acquired from the Cardinals for $185,000 and three players in April, started the first game. Dean’s arm was dead, but his savvy wasn’t. He stopped the Pirates on seven hits, winning 2-1. It was only his seventh win of the season, but he had also lost just once.

September 28 was a gloomy day in Chicago. Johnny Rizzo helped the Pirates to an early 3-1 lead, but with the score tied at 3 in the seventh and two men on, Johnny slapped into a double play (the Pirates claimed Vance Page had balked on the pitch.) The Bucs pushed over two more runs in the eighth. but the Cubs replied with a pair in their half. It could have been more, but pinch runner Joe Marty was thrown out at home, and Pirate relief ace Mace Brown (the first reliever to be called the “fireman”) got Frank Demaree to ground into a snappy twin killing.

Before the ninth inning began, the umpires met at home plate to decide whether there was enough light to continue playing. “One more inning,” was their decision. The Pirates didn’t score in their half, and Brown easily retired the First two batters in the Cubs ninth.

Then Hartnett came to the plate. He swung and missed Brown’s first curveball. Brown remembered thinking Hartnett “looked like a schoolboy,” and decided to stick with his breaking pitch. Hartnett fouled the next one off. Oh-and-two. Then Brown threw another curve, but right where Hartnett wanted it and he poked it into the leftfield bleachers. It was so dark by that time that most observers never saw where it went.

The demoralized Pirates were crushed the next day 10-1 and won just one more game of the season’s final four. The Pirates finished two games back, but ended the year with four unplayed games: two each with cellar-dwellers Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

1972: Bob Moose does a Serbian impression

Events in baseball history echo off each other like balls rattling around the corners in Ebbets or Forbes. Bob Moose and John Miljus were both Pittsburghers pitching for their home town team. Both would die in 1976. And in the ninth inning of the final National League Championship Series of 1972, Moose would echo Miljus by throwing a wild pitch that kept the Pirates from playing for the World Championship.

The 1972 Pirates might have been a better team than the 1971 World Champion edition. Several members of both teams thought so. While the 1971 Pirates had more power, the 1972 pitching staff was vastly superior. The team’s ERA was half a run better; all four starters flirted with the 3.00 mark. Reliever Dave Giusti, aided by the addition of Ramon Hernandez, slashed his own ERA by a full run.

But the Bucs were going up against a young new challenger to the NL throne, a team that would earn a place as one of the greatest of all time, and become known as “The Big Red Machine.”

Each team won two of the first four games. Steve Blass was strong in Game 1 Bob Moose pitched to five batters in Game 2 and didn’t get anyone out as the Reds scored four times. The Pirates came back from a 2-0 Red lead in Game 3 to win. but were stopped cold by Don Gullett on two hits (both by Roberto Clemente) in Game 4.

October 11, 1972 marked the first time that the 1969-instituted League Championship Series had gone to a full five games. (Detroit and Oakland would do the same the next day.) The Pirates took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth, and Manager Bill Virdon brought in top reliever Dave Giusti to shut down the Red righthanded power. In Pittsburgh we were busy discussing who we would rather face in the Series, Oakland or Detroit. But Giusti threw a slider too high to Johnny Bench, and the Red catcher hit it over the right field fence to tie the game. Giusti was touched for consecutive singles and Virdon turned to Moose.

A long fly to right moved pinch runner George Foster to third. Darrel Chaney popped up. Moose’s first pitch to Hal McRae was a strike. Then he threw a ball. The third pitch skipped away from Manny Sanguillen and the Reds had won.

The death of Roberto

Less than three months after the Moose wild pitch, Pittsburgh baseball fans had to endure another horrifying moment when our noble superstar, Roberto Clemente, died in a plane crash while trying to deliver supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims. Clemente was on the plane because he suspected some of the supplies he had raised money for were being commandeered by less-than-honorable men. The plane was probably overloaded and in poor flying condition, the pilots were not known for their airworthiness.

The shock struck the city like a meteor. Clemente had turned 38 years old in August, but he had nearly led the Pirates to another World Series. He looked much more like a brash 30-year-old than a tiring oldster. The disbelief turned into a wash of grief; hundreds of people, desperate to express their feelings for the proud and regal Clemence, wrote letters, poems and songs about him and sent them to the Pirate offices. The team flew to Puerto Rico but one player didn’t join them for the funeral service. Manny Sanguillen, Clemente’s best friend on the team, was in the ocean near where the plane went down, scuba diving in a futile attempt to locate his amigo

Clemente had come to racially backward Pittsburgh in 1955, a black man barely able to speak English, and with sheer determination and pride became one of the world’s best ballplayers. At the same time his devotion to serving others with hands-on charitable work and dedication made him truly beloved here. The remarkable statue of him now proudly posed at Gate A at Three Rivers Stadium is a small memento to the place he held in the hearts of Pittsburgh.

They fired the Gunner!

For mote than 25 years. Bob Prince was the voice of the Pirates. His brash style, unabashed rooting and lovable catch phrases (Call a doc-tor!”) were not only Pittsburgh staples of summer, but known across the country because of radio station KDKA’s 50,000-watt clear channel signal. Prince was able to stir up Pittsburgh fandom to attend games even when the team wasn’t of championship caliber. He was as much a Pittsburgh institution as anyone had ever been.

But by the middle l970s, things were changing in baseball. The fan most desired by management wasn’t the typical beer-drinking, belly-scratching laborer who could afford a dozen games a year. Corporate America was sliding its tentacles around baseball. And not surprisingly, Bob Prince and corporate America were oil and water.

The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, owner of KDKA and a division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, enjoyed treating customers to games at Three Rivers, and inviting them into the broadcast booth to see Prince work. The corporate bigwigs were often out for a good time more than they were out to see a ballgame, and Prince wasn’t afraid to scold them. Westinghouse didn’t feel that Prince was behaving like a good corporate citizen, and dropped him from the broadcasts shortly alter in the Pirate LCs loss to Cincy in 1975.

In some ways Pittsburgh baseball never recovered. With the Prince boosterish qualities gone, replaced by the barely-awake drone of Milo Hamilton, the team’s attendance plummeted, even during championship seasons. The Pittsburgh corporation had managed to move baseball away from the forefront of the city’s consciousness. (Ironically it would be a group of local corporations, among them Westinghouse, that would rescue the team and keep it in town ten years later.)

They brought Bob Prince back in the middle of the ineffably miserable 1985 season. They had already tried to boost sagging interest by rehiring legend Willie Stargell as first-base coach. Prince was hired from a sickbed to return to the broadcast booth. Despite a ravaged voice and frail constitution, what a comeback “the Gunner” made: the first inning he broadcast was in a game against the Dodgers. The usually surehanded men from Los Angeles went haywire and handed the Bucs nine runs.

In the next inning, Jason Thompson headed to the plate. and “The Gunner” said, “Jason, old boy, put one out of here now and we’ll have a little of everything.” Thompson promptly skied a homer into the right field seats, which prompted Prince to say to his booth partner: “If this keeps up, you can carry me out of here on my shield.” But that would be the last inning Prince ever broadcast for the Pirates. Five weeks later he was dead.

Francisco Cabrera

The name simultaneously evokes a carbine, the line drive shot through the left side of the Pirate infield, and a sombrero, the hat Barry Bonds’ bat must have worn during its postseason siestas. The Pirates had been toppled during the league championship series of 1990 because their pitching was worn so thin that ancient reliever Ted Power had to start the final game, and thumped in the 1991 LCS by hot Brave starters who threw shutouts.

The 1992 Series was much more evenly matched, as the Pirates called on the Magic of Sir Wakefield of Knuckledom, and he responded nobly, with two shutouts. Game 7 saw the Bucs take a 2-0 lead into the last of the ninth, only to have, in order: (and I’m not making this up) 1) Their best starter, Drabek, fall victim to a bad play by their best infielder, Lind; 2) their best reliever, Belinda, stymied by a bad call by the home plate ump: and 3) their best player, Bonds, unable to make a decent throw home to nail the gimpy-legged former Pirate Sid Bream (never in the Coleman class to begin with.)

And to play what-if for just another second, had the usually strong-armed Bonds cut down Beam, the Bucs were sitting in the Pittsburgh equivalent of the catbird seat. Jim Leyland had outmanaged Bobby Cox so completely that the Brave skipper would have been forced to start the tenth inning with a pitcher in the outfield. With that unlikely combination of Pirate maledicta all taking place in the space of minutes, the Braves went to the World Series, as you recall.

God, it hurt.

It has become fashionable to deconstruct the events of that evening as concrete expression of the eternal myth of how money or the lack of it ruins ball clubs. Bream, despite being a longtime Pittsburgh fan favorite, had left (even though he said he wouldn’t) for bigger dollars. Bobby Bonilla, paragon of tact and ambassador of love, had jumped, too. Bonds and Drabek were on their way out. Bonds even spent an Atlanta afternoon during the LCS shopping for real estate in case the Braves made him an offer worthy of his talents. (Was he fantasizing about a particularly lovely chalet in Marietta when Cabrera hit the ball to him?) And some have berated Leyland for not calling to the heavens for one more dose of Wakefield.

The facts are soggier. But the truth is, the Braves did it when the Pirates didn’t. That’s okay. Baseball is a delightful haven of what-iffery, but it is also delightful in its crystal clarity. Lavalliere reaches for the throw up the first-base line, hoping his arms could suddenly become six inches longer. Bream slides under the tag, Braves win, Pirates lose. Atlanta goes to the World Series and the Pirate mini-dynasty of the 1990s disappears in a puff of perhaps.

Epilogue

Off the field, at least, the tradition of horrible Pirate moments may have changed its spots. There was the abysmal 1985 season, during which the team was for sale but no one who wanted to keep it in town could afford it, and many members of the team spent their spare time testifying in a Pittsburgh drug trial. With the team up for sale again nine years later, Pittsburgh fans have had to continue another extended ordeal of agony as corporate ego and baseball’s precarious financial structure (not to mention the evil strike) dragged out interminably.