10/5 Through the 1950s: '03 Off Day, League Jumpers, Pud's #300, Klinger Joins, Grays Win NLWS; RIP Oscar, HBD Onix, Sarge, Felix & Claude
- 1873 – Middle infielder Claude Ritchey was born in Emlenton along the Allegheny River in Venango County. He played for the Pirates for seven years (1900-06), batting .273 with 709 runs scored/675 RBI, and was the starting 2B for the 1901 pennant winners and 1903’s World Series team. The combo of his size (5’6”) and ability to drive in clutch runs gained him the nickname of “Little All Right.”
- 1887 – IF Felix Chouinard was born in Chicago. He played infield and outfield in 88 contests for four big league years. He was with the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League for nine of those games in 1914, hitting .300. It was one of three clubs (Brooklyn and Baltimore were the others) he played for that year; he got into four games next season with the Tip Tops before joining the Navy.
- 1888 – Pud Galvin won his 300th big league game against the Washington Nationals at Swampoodle Grounds, throwing a four-hitter in a 5-1 Allegheny win. He was the first player in MLB history to reach the 300 win total, finishing his career with 361 victories, with 138 of them earned with various Pittsburgh clubs. (Some credit the date of win 300 to September 4th against Indianapolis; the National Association, where Galvin won his first four victories as a member of his hometown St. Louis Brown Stockings, isn’t recognized as a true major league.)
- 1889 – RHP Jim Bagby Sr. was born in Marietta, Georgia. He joined the Pirates in 1923 at age 34 during his last MLB campaign, going 3-2/5.24 in 21 outings (six starts). He had a solid career at Cleveland (122-86/3.03 in seven seasons), was the first pitcher to hit a homer in a modern World Series, and was a 30-game winner (31-12) in 1920. Jim also left the Bucs with a legacy – his son, Jim Bagby Jr., who tossed for the Pirates during Big Jim’s final big league season in 1947. The pair were the first father – son tandem to pitch in the World Series as Sr. appeared for the Indians (1920) and Jr. for the Red Sox (1946). Jim Sr. was known as “Sarge,” inspired by “Sergeant Jimmy Bagby,” a character in the 1919 Broadway play “Boys Will Be Boys” that his teammates had seen.
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| Harry Smith – 1903 photo/Chicago History Museum |
- 1901 – UT Wid Conroy and C Harry Smith jumped from the American League to Pittsburgh (the date is approximate; this is when the unconfirmed signings were announced in the Pittsburgh Press). Wid, a utility player, played for a season and hit .244 before he hopped back to the junior circuit, joining the Yankees in 1903. Harry was part of the Pittsburgh catcher rotation for three years and hung around for three more seasons as a deep bench piece, hitting .202 as a Bucco.
- 1903 – Rain delayed the first Pirates home game of the World Series, with Pittsburgh holding a 2-1 lead after three contests at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds. So the teams took it easy after three straight games and headed to the Duquesne Theater, where the two clubs took in a vaudeville revue (“The Great Orpheum Show”) before rejoining combat at Exposition Park the next day. There was a SRO crowd in the house; we assume some of Beantown’s visiting “Royal Rooters” contingent of 200 fans took in the show, too.
- 1905 – The Pirates took their show on the road, playing an exhibition at Charleroi that drew 2,500 paying Mon Valley fans along with “…spectators in trees, houses and every available nook…” per the Pittsburgh Press. After a fairly sloppy first inning that saw each team score four runs, the Bucs took control and rolled to a 10-4 victory, helped by five errors and four walks by the hosts.
- 1912 – The Pirates arrived in Cincinnati, but their uniforms were lost somewhere on the rails between South Bend, where the Bucs had just played an exhibition game, and the Queen City. The railroad promised to pay for spikes and gloves, and the Reds were gracious enough to lend their Pennsylvania rivals their away unis, so the contest went on although to the fans at Redland Field, it looked more like an intrasquad game than a big league contest. The Pirates started out as if it were another exhibition, falling behind, 5-0, after three innings and coming up short after a furious finish, dropping a 6-5 decision. Pittsburgh won the season finale the next day for a 93-win season, but they finished second in the pennant race as the New York Giants rolled to a 103-win campaign.
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| Paul Waner – 1927 Exhibits |
- 1927 – Pittsburgh’s Ray Kremer and the Yankees’ Waite Hoyt, who would later join the Bucs in 1933, opened the World Series at Forbes Field. The Bucco wheels came off in the third when a pair of walks coupled with two errors and a muffed double play gave the Bronx Bombers three runs on one hit and a 4-1 lead. The Pirates kept the contest interesting – they collected nine hits, led by Big Poison Paul Waner’s 3-for-4 day – but fell short of overcoming the Yanks, 5-4.
- 1937 – The Pirates selected RHP Bob Klinger, 29, from the St Louis Cardinals in the Rule 5 draft after the nine-year minor league vet had won 19 games in the Pacific Coast League. He burst on the scene in ‘38 with a 12-5-1/2.99 line, and while never again quite matching that performance, he was a workmanlike 62-58-9/3.74 over six years and 209 outings (129 starts) with the Bucs. He missed the 1944-45 seasons while serving in the Navy, then spent his last two years with Boston before toiling through 1950 on the farm before retiring at age 42.
- 1948 – The Washington/Homestead Grays won their third Negro League World Series four games to one when they defeated the Birmingham Black Barons and their 17-year-old rookie outfielder Willie Mays, 10-6, in Birmingham by scoring four runs in the 10th inning. The Grays were led by player/manager Sammy Bankhead and had Luke Easter, Buck Leonard and Wilmer Fields as their stars. It was the last WS for the Negro Leagues as they moved into the integration era.
- 1954 – OF/manager Oscar Charleston died in Philadelphia (some sources cite the date as October 6th) after suffering a stroke. Oscar was one of the sport’s elite black ballplayers with a career that stretched from 1915-41. He spent seven years with the Pittsburgh Crawfords, his longest stint with one club, after owner Gus Greenlee lured him from the Homestead Grays. He played in three Negro league All-Star games and won a World Series during his time (1932-38) with the Crawfords. Called the “Black Ty Cobb,” Oscar entered the Hall of Fame in 1976.
- 1957 – IF Onix Concepcion was born in Dorado, Puerto Rico. After six years with KC, he closed out his career with one at bat, a pinch hit single, for the Bucs in 1987. He was Jose Lind’s cousin, and the Pirates signed him as a free agent in ‘87, but he spent most of his time either injured or at Class AA Harrisburg. He retired afterward and is now an instructor at JROD Sports Academy.
Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2025/10/105-through-1950s-03-off-day-league.html
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