Photo of the Day: A Prized Pirate’s Locker, PNC Park, Pittsburgh

With this past weekend’s Baseball Hall of Fame induction of Jeff Kent, Carlos Beltran, and Andruw Jones, it seemed like an appropriate point to reflect on a place with reminders of its own Cooperstown members: Legacy Hall in PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

As I mentioned in this post from the other day, a thunderstorm cut short my plans to watch the Bucs for the first time while I was on vacation earlier this month. 

But before finding my seat and waiting impatiently for the “Play Ball” call that never came, I spent a few minutes in Legacy Hall, a multi-use space filled with some great team memorabilia, with much of it not previously displayed at the ballpark.

Several Hall of Fame players are commemorated here, including Willie Stargell, Ralph Kiner, Honus Wagner, and Bill Mazerowski. But I’ll focus on one in this post: an original locker from the club’s prior home in Three Rivers Stadium, occupied by Roberto Clemente. Elsewhere in the city, a museum honors the life and legacy of this great ballplayer and humanitarian.

But fans will still want to look and linger at what is on display honoring him at Legacy Hall: his uniform, jacket, cap, cleats, photos, and a bat—emblematic of a consistent and superb hitter who won four batting titles and collected 3,000 hits.

These days, Latinos and Hispanics make up anywhere from a quarter to a third of players in major league baseball. But Clemente was the first superstar of the group. What this proud and sensitive man had to endure from the media then was shameful and would not be tolerated today.

It took a while for Clemente’s skills to be noticed in a bumper crop among a bumper crop of contemporary outfielders that included Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle, and Frank Robinson, but eventually his performance at the plate and on the field in the 1971 World Series exposed to a nationwide audience the greatness that so many in baseball had recognized since his debut in 1955.

His statistics and leadership had already made Clemente a basement legend. 

But his death on board a plane carrying supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua during the Christmas season of 1972 lifted him to the status of role model and icon, much like the New York Yankees’ Lou Gehrig—the only other player that Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame board explicitly waived its five-year rule for consideration to major league baseball’s Valhalla.

Photo of the Day: Fireworks Display, PNC Park, Pittsburgh PA

I took the image accompanying this post a little over two weeks ago, while visiting a close relative in Pittsburgh. Several times before, I had been impressed by the exterior of the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, PNC Park.

With its setting along the Allegheny River, statues paying tribute to several Hall of Famers with the club, and easy access to multiple points in the Smoky City, the ballpark, which opened in spring 2001, struck me as a picturesque throwback to old-time baseball venues, much like Baltimore’s Camden Yards.

Yet I had yet to see a game there, until a few days after the Fourth of July, when the Pirates were to square off against the Milwaukee Brewers, ahead of them by a dozen games in the National League Central Division. 

It promised to be a pivotal series, with any hope for the home team making the playoffs, even as a wild-card contender, starting here. To underscore the dramatics involved, there would even be a fireworks display at the ballpark.

So much for the best-laid plans of mice and men.

By mid-afternoon, the Pittsburgh area was drenched in a thunderstorm that didn’t dissipate until  6:30. Fans still poured into the stands, optimistic that at the end of the hour-long rain delay would  eventually lead to the cry, “Play ball!”

That hope lasted until the announcer’s voice came on the loudspeaker: “The good news is that the planned fireworks display will take place in 10 minutes….”

The fans who had patiently sat through the rain delay already sensed what the rest of the announcement would be—“But tonight’s game will be rescheduled”—and promptly began booing. They had waited long enough, and could see on the weather apps on their cell phones that it was unlikely more rain would follow. They were not happy.

That game was to be my first attending a Pirates game. Now, with me heading out of town the next morning, it would have to wait a while longer—perhaps next season.

Well, sometimes in life you have to endure disappointments—like rainouts—and sometimes there are compensations—like the gorgeous multi-color display seen here on a warm summer night over one of America’s great rivers.

This Day in Baseball History (Future Hall of Famer Pie Traynor Hits for Cycle)

July 7, 1923—Midway through his second full season in the major leagues, Pie Traynor gave his strongest indication yet that he would be one of the most consistent, productive hitters of the Roaring Twenties, as the 24-year-old third baseman hit a single, double, triple, and home run—“hitting for the cycle”—in leading the Pittsburgh Pirates to a blowout 18-5 victory in an away game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Over the years, I had heard in passing, in histories of baseball, about Baseball Hall of Famer Harold Joseph Traynor. But I had no idea, until I listened to “The Life of Pie” episode of the “This Week In Baseball History” podcast hosted by Mike Bates and Bill Parker, just how good Traynor was at his peak, and his surprising afterlife once his career as a premier player began to wound down.

Most of all, I hadn’t realized that many considered him baseball’s best third baseman until the arrival of Eddie Mathews in the 1950s.

Since then, with Brooks Robinson, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, and Chipper Jones now also in the mix, Traynor’s preeminence at “the hot corner” has fallen several notches further. Baseball historian and stat maven Bill James dropped him down to #15. The blog “The Hall of Miller and Eric” even gave an entire post over to Traynor in a post provocatively titled, “How the Hall Failed – Pie Traynor.”

I’m having none of the new revisionism. I could remind you that Traynor was the first third baseman elected to Cooperstown by writers rather than the Veterans Committee when he was inducted in 1946.

I could tell you that after being tried at shortstop and second base, he had adjusted so well to third that he was considered perhaps the best defensively at the position for the rest of the 1920s. (One quote I love, from longtime Yankees GM Ed Barrow: “He looked like a real ballplayer, even though he seemed to be all arms and legs and [had] feet like violin cases.  He also had big hands and scooped up every ball hit at him.”)

But I would also tell you that Traynor (who, for the curious, got his nickname as a boy, when he consistently requested a slice of pie after a game) was a money player, one of the essential cogs on a Pirate team that won the World Series in 1925 and the National League pennant in 1927.

Even after back, shoulder, and eye problems eroded his defensive skills in the 1930s, Traynor retained his offensive consistency, finishing his career with a .320 batting average. Remarkably, he only struck out 278 times in his entire career—an average of only 23 strikeouts for a 162-game average.

His offensive production bought Traynor time as the Pirates pondered where to put him in the infield. The year 1923 was when he erupted as a force at the plate.

A tip from righthanded batting wizard Rogers Hornsby—use a heavier bat—led Traynor away from being a strict pull hitter into one who could send line drives into right field and right center, too. That year, he cracked 208 hits, leading the league with 19 triples, with a career-high 12 HRs, 101 RBIs and a .338 batting average.

In hitting for the cycle against the Phillies (the only time that comparatively rare offensive feat was recorded in the majors in 1923), Traynor had 6 RBIs—the most for a game that golden season. It was one of five 4-hit games he’d have that year, and came amid a blistering 24-game hitting streak.

As great a player as he was, Traynor was unsuccessful when he took over as the Pirates’ manager in 1934. Just as his wife predicted, his tendency to worry as a player was magnified when he had to mind an entire squad, and he was simply too nice a guy to discipline players when they needed it.

For several years in the late Thirties and early Forties, Traynor stayed within the Pirate organization as a scout. Then, for two decades, he served as a radio sportscaster with his own show. Most surprising, after that gig ended in 1966, he served several years as the voice of Studio Wrestling.

As a co-owner for two years of a sporting-goods store with Honus Wagner and a friend to younger stars Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Richie Hebner, Traynor served as living link across the generations for the Pirates. The sadness at his passing in 1972 was massive and genuine. A couple of weeks later, at their home opener, the club he had served so faithfully posthumously retired his uniform number 20.

Quote of the Day (George F. Will, on a Ballpark’s ‘Loudest Noise’)

“At a baseball park, the loudest noise should be supplied by the spectators.” ―George F. Will, A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred (2014)

Will’s starting point for this remark, as indicated by his subtitle, is his beloved, venerable Wrigley Park. Mine in this photo is the far newer PNC Park, home of baseball’s Pirates, which I saw one morning, several hours before gametime, on a visit to Pittsburgh last year. (For another angle on this latter park, see this other image I took and posted last year.)

Photo of the Day: Summer Game Park, Shadowed by Fall Loss

And then there were four....

In a select few cities in this broad land—Detroit, Boston, St. Louis, Los Angeles—a not-so-wild dream continues to burn brightly for a World Series appearance at minimum, and maybe victory itself. But for many other cities, the discussion has moved on to football.

Nowhere does the pain feel so acute, I suspect, than in Pittsburgh, where crestfallen Pittsburgh Pirate fans are mourning the closure of PNC Park until the spring, following the team's’ loss to St. Louis last week in the deciding Game 5 of the National League Divisional series.

I took the accompanying shot of this beautiful stadium last July, when the team’s fortunes were at their zenith. In retrospect, you can see the shadows already beginning to creep in. The sense of anticlimax might be stronger this year there than ever before, because the once-mighty football Steelers as of this writing offer not the slightest bit of consolation. They don’t even have a win yet—and, very likely, will finish the season with a losing record.

With such a young team, the Pirates can always take comfort in the cry, “Wait till next year.” It might not be so simple, though, in the brave new world of free agency, and especially playoff schedules. More teams can slip into the playoffs more easily than ever—but more teams can also fall by the wayside early in the going.

Photo of the Day: Mazmatazz!

I think I can identify with that sinking feeling that many Pittsburgh Pirate fans possess right now. It’s similar to what I felt in October 2004 during the American League Championship Series, when the New York Yankees, with a chance to take the series at home with a decent starter, lost Game 6 and were faced with a difficult pitching choice. For the ’04 Yankees, it was Kevin Brown. For this year’s Pirates, it was—almost--A.J. Burnett—who, come to think of it, the Bronx Bombers allowed to depart at the end of his contract two years ago, because he didn’t come up big enough often enough.

This year, though, Pirate fans might be thinking of another name associated with the Yankees: Bill Mazeroski.  No, obviously, he did not play for the Bronx team, but he broke their hearts in the most dramatic way possible: with the only walkoff home run in Game 7 of a World Series.

“Maz” was a peerless second baseman—some say the best defensive one of all time, with eight Gold Gloves to his credit. But more often than not, it takes a bat—even a bat wielded under the most dramatic circumstances—to make the case for greatness to Hall of Fame voters, and that may well have been the case here.

I have written before about photos I took this past July of three other statues of Pirate Hall of Famers at PNC Park: Honus Wagner, Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente. But the Mazeroski statue stands out among this quartet. While the other images capture their heroes in moments that could have occurred at any time in their careers, local sculptor Susan Wagner’s bronze likeness of the second baseman captures Maz in the great moment of his life, when his ninth-inning swing off reliever Ralph Terry beat the greatest dynasty in professional sports, an overwhelming favorite in the series.

At 5 ft. 11 inches, Mazeroski was of average height, But an indelible moment, captured with a camera, can make you appear larger than life, and so the great Pirate is here: 14 feet, 2,000 pounds, arms fully extended in triumph, waiting to jump into the ecstatic arms of his champion teammates.

It must have been tough, but I’m glad that Pirate manager Clint Hurdle dispensed with the services of Burnett in this do-or-die game. The assumption on the part of many seemed to be that, at age 36, with eight postseason appearances in six different series, Burnett would be a seasoned vet. But his earned run average in those starts was a whopping 6.37, and the big right-hander admitted that, on the field of the St. Louis Cardinals in the opening game of this series, he had been too emotional before he finally unraveled.

Gerrit Cole might be a rookie, all of 23, but that shouldn’t be a handicap: He did perfectly well against the Cardinals in Game 2. Besides, Mazeroski was only a year older when he unleashed his mighty swing.

Photo of the Day: Pirates’ Shrine

Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates are experiencing emotions they haven’t felt at least in a generation, maybe ever. Oh, they’ve felt revulsion over post-All Star Game slides these last few years. Older fans are even old enough to recall when Barry Bonds, pre-PED, helped keep them competitive into October.

Before this season, fans would have celebrated the team’s first winning record and playoff appearance since 1992. But at this point, why be excited about a wild-card berth when so much more was potentially within their grasp—first place in the Central Division?

As the Pirate faithful look to the playoffs, many have undoubtedly taken to imploring otherworldly powers. And who better for this than their homegrown version of a saint?

I have already written about the Pirates’ statues of Honus Wagner and Willie Stargell. But as superb as their diamond accomplishments were, and as substantial as their clubhouse contributions, they pale next to Roberto Clemente.

The Hall of Fame right fielder did more than just get many timely home runs and throw runners out with his howitzer arm. As the major leagues’ first Latino superstar, he set an example of fierce pride and intensity that subsequent generations would follow. And he transcended the game when he died on a humanitarian plane flight to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua in 1972.

Clemente has come to resonate as something like a saint for so many people because he embodied the values of loyalty and self-sacrifice. The contrast with contemporary athletes is marked, starting with Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod, as much as any contemporary player, is a brand—a fact that reaches its nadir in the recent New York Times story that notes that the team of ambulance chasers, flacks and shameless shamuses trying to overturn his unprecedentedly long suspension is named ARod Corp.

In one sense, even though I’m a Yankee fan, I’m fine with the thought that they didn’t make the playoffs (even with two wild cards) this year. That appearance would have been tainted by the idea that the Bombers benefited from, as John Sterling poetically puts it, “an A-bomb from A-Rod.”

At this point, the idea of a plaque to A-Rod (or to Roger Clemens, who notched his 300^th victory with the Yankees) is obscene. (If it ever came to pass, a syringe sticking out of their hides would be appropriate.)

Such is not the case with Clemente. In an era when idols are torn down, his name not only remains unsullied, but has grown in stature, as more and more people realize the toll on his body by nagging injuries and the toll on his spirit by an uncomprehending, at times prejudiced, press corps. The Pirates’ statue in his honor was transported from Three Rivers Stadium to its new home, outside PNC Park, like a holy relic.

The bronze sculpture, by local artist Susan Wagner, now stands behind center field in the Pirates’ latest home. Fans will see this piece of art as they drive to the stadium over a bridge named after the great hitter.