1/16 Through the 1970s: Lamb Shuffle, Cali Camp, Hoop Rivals, FDR OK's Season; HBD Alfredo, Ron, Dave, Erskine & Art
- 1858 – IF Art Whitney was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. Known for his glovework, he played for the Alleghenys from 1884-87, hitting .248 while in Pittsburgh. His lifetime BA was a paltry .223, but the slick gloveman led the league four times in fielding percentage, three times as a third baseman (1886, 1887, and 1891) and once as a shortstop (1885).
- 1890 – RHP Erskine Mayer was born in Atlanta. He worked two seasons for Pittsburgh from 1918-19, going 14-6 with a 3.19 ERA. In 1919, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox, becoming part of the infamous “Black Sox” team. His only appearance in the scandal-tainted 1919 World Series was a one-inning relief stint, and it was his last outing in an MLB uniform, ending his eight-year career with an overall slash of 91-70-6/2.96. His moment in the sun as a Bucco came in 1918 when Mayer worked 15-1/3 shutout innings as the starter of the longest scoreless game in Pirate history, eventually won over the Boston Braves, 2-0, in 21 innings.
- 1930 – Before the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, teams traveled all over the country for camp. The Pirates took 30 players to the 1930 spring training site, California’s Paso Robles, halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The club announced nine late-March tune-up games after breaking camp, playing at nearby LA, SF and Oakland, traveling on to Fort Worth, Dallas, Tucson, Mobile, New Orleans and Cincinnati, then returning to Pittsburgh and Forbes Field. The pre-season warm-up trip rumbled over 6,500 miles of railroad track accompanied by the dealing of countless hands of gin rummy.
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| 1930 Pirates – The Sporting News |
- 1945 – FDR gave baseball the OK to go ahead with the season as long as the league didn’t hinder the services or manpower needed for the war effort, with the president making it clear that draft-eligible/war industry players would heed the call of their country first and baseball second. Roosevelt was a friend of sports during the war years, encouraging the leagues to play on within the manpower and other limits imposed by WW2 as a morale booster for the nation. He had written a similar 1942 note in support of continuing baseball despite the war.
- 1957 – Coach Dave Jauss was born in Chicago. Dave was named to the Pirates scouting staff in 2011 and became a coach for Clint Hurdle next season. He’s been managing, coaching and scouting since 1982, managing college, Dominican & minor league nines while coaching and scouting for Montreal, Baltimore, Boston, the Dodgers and Mets prior to landing in Pittsburgh, where he’s a coach without portfolio. He was let go when the new regime took over in 2019 and went to the Mets as bench coach, where he was replaced by another ex-Buc coach, Glenn Sherlock, when Buck Showalter took the reins. He’s now an advisor with the Nats.
- 1960 – The Pirates and Steelers picked a neutral sport – basketball – to go mano-a-mano for charity, with the gridders taking a 22-20 sudden-death overtime win at Fitzgerald Field House despite 14 points from Dick Groat. The 15-minute match, set up by The Gunner, was part of a tripleheader played for the benefit of Children’s Hospital with Pitt whipping Westminster and Carnegie Tech upsetting Duquesne in front of 5,308 fans. Prince got into the action – he and the “Voice of the Steelers” Joe Tucker were the refs for the Bucco/Black & Gold game.
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| Pirates-Steelers hardwood clash – 1/17/1960 Pgh. Press |
- 1970 – LHP Ron Villone was born in Englewood, New Jersey. Villone played for 12 teams in his 15-year career, tied for third all-time. Villone tossed for the Pirates in 2002, going 4–6/5.81 in 45 games with seven starts after signing a one-year/$900K deal in February.
- 1974 – In a bit of a shell game, the Pirates sold RHP John Lamb to the White Sox, only to buy him back two months later. Lamb had three years with Pittsburgh (1970-71, 1973), going 0-2-5/4.07 in 47 appearances. They would be his last in MLB; the Bucs stashed him away at AAA Charleston as insurance and 1974 ended up his last pro season. The Buccos kept a couple of other guys around in a more traditional manner, signing LHP Jerry Reuss and prospect Ed Ott to contracts.
- 1978 – IF Alfredo Amezaga was born in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. He was claimed off waivers in April ‘05 (Chris Duffy was sent down to clear a space for Alfredo), and then was released two weeks later with just four PA’s and four innings in the field after Jose Castillo came off the DL. Amegaza went on to play fairly regularly for Florida from 2006-08 and lasted nine MLB seasons in all, retiring after the 2011 campaign and closing out his playing days in Mexico in 2018 at age 39.
Source: https://oldbucs.blogspot.com/2026/01/116-through-1970s-lamb-shuffle-cali.html
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