12/22 Through the 1950s: Friend Signs, Arky Title, Rebs/Feds Fold; HBD Glenn, Skates, Tommy, Matty, Bob & Connie
- 1862 – Cornelius “Connie” Mack was born in East Brookfield, Massachusetts. Mack was a reserve catcher for the Pirates from 1891-96, hitting a modest .242. Mack’s last three seasons in the NL were as a player-manager with Pittsburgh from 1894 to 1896, where he got his feet wet as a skipper and eventually leading to a 50-year gig as the field general of the Philadelphia Athletics (1901–1950), where he won five World Series and became a Hall-of-Fame skipper.
- 1915 – The Federal League and the Pittsburgh Rebels came to an end. The FL agreed to drop its antitrust suit and disband after the NL and AL made the following concessions: the reinstatement of all players who had been blacklisted during the bidding wars, the sale of Fed players to the highest bidder rather than a forced return to their old club, $600K to be distributed among the Federal League owners, and the Fed clubs in Chicago and St Louis combining with the existing Cub and Brown teams after being sold to Federal League owners.
- 1923 – RHP Bob Hall was born in Swissvale. The local kid only had a three-year career, spending his early 20’s with the Coast Guard during the Second World War instead of honing his game in the minors. After two years with the Braves and two more seasons on the farm, he was part of Pittsburgh’s 1953 staff, going 3-12-1/5.39 in what would be his final MLB campaign though he worked through 1956 in the Pacific Coast League. Hall went by two monikers: “The Blade,” because of his slender build, and “Tarzan.” We speculate that it may have been a bit of reverse mimicry, but more likely because the comic book Lord of the Jungle was sometimes drawn by a Marvel artist named Bob Hall.
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| Bob Hall – 1955 Bowman |
- 1935 – The Pittsburgh Pirates claimed their fourth batting titleist when Arky Vaughan was officially crowned by the league, joining Hans Wagner, Ginger Beaumont and Paul “Big Poison” Waner. It wasn’t much of a race; Vaughan left runner-up Ducky Medwick (.353) in the dust with his .385 BA. Along with posting the best average in baseball, Arky also led the major leagues in OBP at .491, slugging % at .607 and WAR at 9.2 for position players.
- 1938 – CF Matty Alou was born in Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic. Obtained from the Giants for Joe Gibbon and Ozzie Virgil during the 1965 off season, he became a slap-hitting machine under Harry “The Hat” Walker’s tutelage. While in Pittsburgh, he won a batting title, hit .300+ for four straight years and was twice an All-Star. Mateo was traded to the Cards in 1971 after hitting .327 as a Pirate. Alou is part of the Dominican Republic’s first family of baseball, along with his MLB brothers Felipe (who is Moises dad) and Jesus. In 2007, the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame inducted him, and in 2015 a Manhattan streetway was named after him. Matty passed away in 2011 at age 72 in Santo Domingo from complications due to diabetes.
- 1949 – The Pirates signed 17-year-old pitcher Bob Friend, reeling in the righty with a bonus of $12,500 after he had committed to Purdue. GM Roy Hamey said “…he looks like he’s worth taking a chance on.” Hamey was right – Friend pitched 15 years for the Bucs, winning 191 games and fanning 1,682 foes, still the franchise record, while being selected to play in four All-Star games. He went on to enter Indiana’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 and Pirates HoF in 2023.
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| Tommy Sandt – 2002 Pirates promo |
- 1950 – Coach Tommy Sandt was born in Brooklyn. Sandt played only 42 games in the majors, but had a 15-year pro career. After he put down the bat, Tommy was a minor league coach, manager, and major league coach. He worked under skipper Jim Leyland with the Pirates from 1987-96 and stayed with Leyland for stints with the Florida Marlins in 1997-98 and the Colorado Rockies in 1999. Sandt returned as a Pirates coach from 2000-02 with Gene Lamont and Lloyd McClendon. Tommy passed away in Oregon in late 2020 at the age of 69.
- 1955 – OF Lonnie “Skates” Smith was born in Chicago. Lonnie spent 15 years in the majors, making a 1993 stop in Pittsburgh, an awkward destination considering he was one of the players granted immunity in the infamous 1986 coke trials. The 37-year-old was signed to a $1M FA deal by the Bucs, hit .286 and then was sent to Baltimore in September for a pair of minor leaguers. He closed out his career there after the 1994 season. Skates played in five World Series, winning three, and hit .278 in 63 post-season games over his lifetime. His nickname – which he despised – came about because he sometimes ran his routes a little circuitously in the outfield and took an occasional tumble while on the basepaths, looking more like he was wearing hockey skates rather than baseball spikes.
- 1958 – OF Glenn Wilson was born in Baytown, Texas. He came to the Pirates in 1988 from the Seattle Mariners for Darnell Coles and a year later was flipped to the Houston Astros for Billy Hatcher, returning to the Pirates as a free agent in 1993, his last season. He played 147 games over those three Pittsburgh campaigns, posting a .274 BA as part of a 10-year MLB tour of duty. Wilson’s Bucco claim to fame: he banged two homers off Randy Johnson in a September, 1988, game. They were the first two long balls ever surrendered by the Big Unit.
Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2025/12/1222-through-1950s-friend-signs-arky.html
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