’79 Champs Witness Bucs Rise to 5th Place

I was supposed to be in the audience tonight. But a business trip looms tomorrow. Thusly, I witnessed the game courtesy of Fox Sports Ohio. 22 members of the 1979 World Series champs were honored before the game and they got to watch Zach Duke, Ryan Doumit and Garrett Jones pitch and pound the Reds into submission. And into the cellar.

The Pirates took over 5th place with their fifth straight win. Duke allowed two runs on eight hits and no walks in seven innings. The Pirates got on Justin Lehr in the first inning with three runs. Doumit was in the middle of it. With the Pirates already up 1-0, one gone in the first and Jones on third, Doumit hit a high bouncer back to Lehr. The Reds hurler wanted to get two and end the inning, but Doumit hustled down the line and was credited with a fielder’s choice RBI. He then swiped second based and scored on a single from Lastings Milledge.

Doumit hit a two run homer high into the seats in right in the fifth to make it 6-1. Jones added a two run double in next frame and the route was on. The Pirates added four more in the 7th. Steve Pearce had a two run single. Had it not been for an acrobatic stop by Brandon Phillips off the bat of Delwyn Young that Phillips helped turn into a double play, it could’ve been worse.

Lehr allowed six runs on 8 hits in five innings.

The Good

Five straight wins.

Fifth place.

Doumit had three hits, scored three times and drove in three.

Jones also had three hits and three runs knocked home.

Duke picks up win #10.

The Bad

Nothing at all, other than me not being in the Steel City tonight.

The Rest

The 19 players from the 1979 team on hand were:

Matt Alexander, Dale Berra, Bert Blyleven, John Candelaria, Mike Easler, Phil Garner, Grant Jackson, Bruce Kison, Lee Lacy, Bill Madlock, Omar Moreno, Steve Nicosia, Ed Ott, Dave Parker, Don Robinson, Jim Rooker, Manny Sanguillen, Rennie Stennett and Kent Tekulve. Chuck Tanner and coach Al Monchak were there along with trainer Tony Bartirome. Willie Stargell’s wife was also there.

Among the deceased in addition to Stargell are Bill Robinson, John Milner, Dave Roberts and Dock Ellis (not on post-season roster). Living players who did not come back were Jim Bibby, Doe Boyland (not on post-season roster), Joe Coleman (not on post-season roster), Tim Foli, Gary Hargis (not on post-season roster), Alberto Lois (not on post-season roster), Rick Rhoden (disabled most of the season), Enrique Romo, Frank Taveras (traded early on for Foli), Ed Whitson (traded for Madlock in June)

This was Doumit’s fifth career game with three runs scored. It was the third time he reached three RBI and three runs scored in one contest.

Jones has six RBI in the last two games.

Duke reached double figures in wins for the second time in his career.

Each of the starting 8 had a hit and scored a run.

Last five game winning streak was May 15 to 20th against Colorado and Washington. Each of the starters were the winning pitcher during the current winning streak.The bullpen picked up three wins during the earlier winning streak.

Luis Cruz got his third start of the year in place of Ronny Cedeno who has a fractured finger.

Welcome back Phil Dumatrait who pitched a scoreless inning, his first game since July 7, 2008.

 

Downfall of the Fam-A-Lee – Part 13

Let’s have a look at some post-1979 trades to see what those brought. I’ll go chronologically starting with the the 1979 post-season and in this post, I’ll cover all the trades leading into and through the 1980 season.
Larry Andersen
On December 21, 1979, the Pirates sent Larry Littleton and career minor leaguer John Burden to the Indians for pitcher Larry Andersen.
Littleton is best remembered as having the most at bats (23) by a position player who never got a hit in the bigs, tying Mike Potter. For those who want to know more about him, here’s a story at MLB.com about him from September 2006.
Andersen was injured or something because he didn’t pitch in the majors or minors in 1980. Not sure what is up with that. Anyway, in a trade I’ll cover in more depth in a few paragraphs, the Pirates re-acquired Odell Jones for Andersen in 1980.
Buddy Solomon
Solomon was acquired from the Braves straight up for career minor leaguer Greg Field on March 28, 1980. Solomon won 15 games combined between 1980 and 1981 for the Pirates in a swing man role. He made 48 appearances and 29 starts. He was off to a terrible start in 1982 when he was traded to the White Sox for Jim Morrison in June. 1982 was his last year in the majors and he was killed in a car accident in 1986.
Odell Jones
Acquired from Seattle on April 1, 1980 for a PTBNL. That trade wasn’t completed until after the season was over in October of 1980. That PTBNL? The aforementioned Larry Anderson.
I’ve never been able to understand the Pirates fascination with Jones. He was an undrafted free agent signee of the Pirates in 1971 and had some minor league success. In a long look with the Bucs in 1977, he was dreadful. In 34 games, including 15 starts, he was 3-7 with a 5.08 ERA. He was shipped to Seattle to get Enrique Romo and was terrible for the Mariners, also. In 1979 he was 3-11 with an ERA better than 6.00. So, the Pirates got him back for Andersen. Make sense? He spent all of 1980 at AAA and was mediocre. He was pitching well in AAA in 1981 and made 13 appearances in the Bigs in 1981. The Rangers plucked him in the Rule V draft following the 1982 season. He continued to bounce around, having some success here and there for Texas and then nearly throwing a no hitter in 1988 for Milwaukee.
Andersen was 27 when this trade was made. So, he wasn’t young. Yet he went on to some great success as reliever for the Mariners, Phillies, Astros and Padres. He pitched in the Majors until he was 41. He is remembered as a prankster and comedian, as well as being the guy the Red Sox got when they shipped Jeff Bagwell to Houston in 1990. Since retiring, Andersen has served as a coach and a color man.
Awful trade in hindsight. Andersen was a solid out of the pen. Jones was journeyman in every sense of the word.
Bob Beall
On July 16, 1980, the Pirates sent career minor leaguer Jerry McDonald to Atlanta for Beall. What did this trade amount to? Nothing much.
Beall was a first baseman with next to no power. In over 1,000 career minor league games to that point, Beall had never topped 10 homers in a single season. His limited looks with the Braves were promising only in the sense that he had walked more than he had struck out. After hitting just .217 with the Pirates AAA club in Portland, he made three late season appearances with the Pirates in 1980 and didn’t record a hit in three at bats. Those were his final appearances in the Majors.
Kurt Bevacqua and Mark Lee
Rick Lancellotti and Luis Salazar went to San Diego on 8/5/80 for Bevacqua and a PTBNL. A week later, that player was named and it was Lee.
Lancellotti, in addition to having a great last name, has a great story. He was a power prospect, having led the Eastern League in taters in 1979. He never panned out in the show, getting only 65 ABs in his career. He spent time playing in Japan and led the Japanes Central League in HRs while playing for the Hiroshima Carp in 1987. Apparently, he played for a manager that disliked American born players because the manager’s father had been killed in WWII. Lancellotti, I believe, is the only person to play in the Majors and in the short lived Senior League in the same season. He played for both the BoSox and the Sun City Rays in 1990. Here’s a link to an article in the International Herald Tribune about a season he spent playing ball in Italy. Note how badly he was treated by Dick Williams while Lancellotti was with San Diego. He retired as the all-time leader in minor league HRs, from what I’ve read. I can’t confirm whether or not he still is. He now runs a baseball school in Buffalo.
Salazar survived long enough as a 3B/OF/Utility player to amass over 1,000 career hits. He was one of the few Cubs to hit well in the 1989 NLCS. After his playing days, Salazar has served as a coach in several organizations.
I covered Bevacqua as thoroughly as I want to in Part 10. He was, by no definition of the word, successsful in his second tour with the Pirates. He was 14 for 70 with three XBH between 1980 and 1981 in Pittsburgh. He was released following 1981. The only thing I neglected to mention in my previous comments on him in Part 10 is that his Bermanism should have been “Kurt Bevacqua Velva”. Get it? Aqua Velva? I crack myself up.
Lee was winless in 16 appearances for the Pirates between 1980 and 1981. All of his stints were in relief. He was purchased by the Tigers in Spring Training 1982 but never again appeared in the Show. It seems like I read many years ago when I was a teenager that Lee was toiling in the minors and struck a batter out. He decided then and there to retire, figuring it can’t get any better than ending with a K. So, he left the mound and never played again. I’m unable to confirm whether that memory is accurate.
Summary
That’s all the trades that occurred before or during the 1980 season. None of them had much bearing on the future. Andersen would’ve been nice to have in the bullpen in the mid-80s. But, the Pirates bullpen was one of the few decent parts of the club in the dark years. Salazar would’ve been okay playing a Bill Almon-type role. But, I’m not sure that the difference between Almon and Salazar would’ve been much. I’ll have a look at trades from 1981 in Part 12.

Downfall of the Fam-A-Lee – Part 12

In the previous posts I’ve made the case that the Pirates collapse in the mid-80s was not the result of trades made to acquire the players that appeared on the 1979 post-season roster. Here’s a brief rundown of some other trades in the 1970s in which the Bucs didn’t acquire a member of the 1979 post-season roster. I’m examining trades that resulted in the Pirates losing a player who was active during the 1984 to 1986 time frame. Other trades are inconsequential to this discussion. Players are listed in alphabetical order:
Kurt Bevacqua
Bevacqua was never much more than a bit player, yet he had a long career. In 15 seasons he had more than 250 plate appearances just four times. He never reached double digits in homers and never scored or drove in 50 runs in a single season. It wouldn’t be unfair to call him a journeyman. He played everywhere except pitcher and catcher in his career. I remember him for two reasons. First, he won the bubble blowing contest in 1975 when MLB held the event every year and was immortalized on a 1976 Topps baseball card. Second he got into a verbal spat with Tom Lasorda, causing Lasorda to describe Bevacqua’s lack of ability by saying he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.
The Pirates acquired him in 1973 in a trade that saw Nellie Briles go to KC. In the middle of 1974, KC reacquired Bevacqua for a minor leaguer and cash. He had less than 40 ABs for the Bucs at the time of the trade. After much travel, the Bucs traded Luis Salazar and Rick Lancellotti to San Diego for Kurt and Mark Lee down the stretch in 1980. Between 1980 and 1981, Bevacqua was just 14 for 70 for the Pirates. He was released following the 1981 season and picked up by the Padres.
Bevacqua had his moment in the sun in the 1984 World Series. He had seven hits, including two homers and two doubles in a losing effort for the Friars. He served as DH for San Diego as this was when the use of the DH in the World Series was alternated every year – one year on and one year off. He was free agent following 1985 but never appeared in another ML game.
Quite obviously, the presence of Kurt Bevacqua on the Pirates in the mid-80s would not have prevented the ship from sinking.

Downfall of the Fam-A-Lee – Part 9

Did bad trades in building the 1979 team wreck the Pirates in the mid-80s?
Carrying on with the mysterious Enrique Romo.
The Trade
On December 5, 1978 the Pirates acquire Romo, Rick Jones and Tom McMillan from Seattle for Odell Jones, Mario Mendoza and Rafael Vasquez.
The Background
The Pirates bullpen, already a strength in 1978 (sub 3.00 ERA in almost 500 innings pitched), was about to get stronger. Vicente Romo, Enrique’s little brother, had bounced around the Majors for a couple of years. Soon enough, Enrique would be on the scene. The Mariners purchased his contract from the Mexico City entry in the Mexican League on 4/1/77. He had played in that league since he was 19 and went 20-4 with a 1.89 ERA in 1976. His totals included better than one whiff per inning pitched.
For Seattle he was almost exclusively working out of the bullpen. In the Mariners first year of existence (Romo’s “rookie year”), Romo saved 16 games. He saved another 10 the following year.
Then the trade to Pittsburgh, where he fit nicely with Kent Tekulve and Grant Jackson to give the Bucs three talented and rubber armed relievers. Each of the trio appeared in more than 70 games in 1979 and each checked in with an ERA on the good side of 3.00.
Romo pitched so-so in the playoffs and World Series. He got into four games and pitched 5 innings, allowing two earned runs.
Romo pitched fairly well in 1980 (he did hit a grand slam that year), but tailed off in 1981 and 1982. What happened after that remains something of a mystery. Romo failed to report to Spring Training in 1983 and hasn’t been heard from since. He doesn’t come back for reunions or autograph signing appearances. Nobody knows for certain why that is. I read somewhere (maybe the Pirates Encyclopedia?) that one story had it that Romo ran afoul of some connected men in the Pittsburgh area and was told to leave the country or else. At the end of this article is another take on why Romo left.

Downfall of the Fam-A-Lee – Part 1

In 2006 I read the book When the Bucs Won it All by Bill Ranier and David Finoli. The authors suggest that the Pirates failings in the mid-80s were mainly due to the trades that took place putting the 1979 team in place. The authors stated:

Because he (GM Pete Peterson) no longer had the personnel to trade like he did when he first took over, Pittsburgh slid from the top of the rung all the way down to the bottom in the second half of 1981 and during the abysmal 1984 and 1985 seasons.

I disagree. Very much so. Peterson made a couple of bad trades, but the ones that hurt the most happened after the team won the World Series in 1979. In a series of posts I will look at why the author’s statement is untrue (think of it as a blog version of the FoxSports show “Top 5 Reasons Why You Can’t Blame Bad Trades on the Pirates Being Terrible in the mid-80s”)
First, let’s look at the players that were on the World Series roster and how they were acquired, in alphabetical order:
Matt Alexander – signed as a FA (free agent) on 9/1/78
Jim Bibby – signed as a FA on 3/15/78
Bert Blyleven – acquired via a four team trade on 12/8/77. The Pirates gave up Al Oliver and Nelson Norman. They got Bert and John Milner
John Candelaria – 2nd round DP (draft pick) in 1972
Mike Easler – acquired via trade from the Red Sox on 3/15/79 for two career minor leaguers (George Hill and Martin Rivas) and cash
Tim Foli – acquired via trade from the Mets on 4/19/79 for Frank Taveras. The Bucs also got career minor leaguer Greg Field
Phil Garner – acquired via trade from the A’s on 3/15/76 along with Chris Batton, who never played in the Show for the Pirates, and Tommy Helms, who was at the end of the line. The Pirates gave up several players in return. Dave Giusti, Doc Medich, Doug Bair, Mitchell Page, Rick Langford and Tony Armas all went to the A’s. Strangely enough, the A’s had acquired Helms from the Pirates for cash earlier in the same off season and then traded him back. The Bucs released him in June of 1977 and he was picked up by Boston, who released him the following Spring. And he was done.
Grant Jackson – acquired via trade from Seattle on 12/7/76 for Jimmy Sexton and Craig Reynolds
Bruce Kison – 14th round DP in 1968
Lee Lacy – signed as a FA on 1/19/79
Bill Madlock – acquired via trade from Frisco on 6/28/79. The Bucs got Madlock, Dave Roberts and Lenny Randle, who never appeared in a Pirate uni. They gave up Ed Whitson, Fred Breining and Al Holland.
John Milner – acquired in the same trade as Blyleven
Omar Moreno – signed as an undrafted FA in 1969. Omar is from Panama and wasn’t eligible for the draft
Steve Nicosia – 1st round DP in 1973
Ed Ott – 23rd round DP in 1970
Dave Parker – 14th round DP in 1970
Bill Robinson – acquired via trade from Philly on 4/5/75 for former All-Star pitcher Wayne Simpson. Simpson won 14 games and made the All-Star team as a 21 year old rookie for the Reds in 1970. He would win just 18 more games in his career
Don Robinson – 3rd round DP in 1975
Enrique Romo – acquired via trade from Seattle on 12/5/78. The Pirates gave up Odell Jones, Rafael Vazquez and Mario Mendoza. The Pirates also got Rick Jones and Tom McMillan, neither of whom ever appeared in the Bigs with the Pirates. Jones was called up late in 1979, but didn’t appear in a game
Jim Rooker – acquired via trade from KC on 10/25/72 even up for Gene Garber
Manny Sanguillen – acquired via trade from Oakland on 4/4/78. The Pirates sent Miguel Dilone, Elias Sosa and Mike Edwards to the A’s to get Sangy back. He had been traded, along with $100,000, before the 1977 season to the A’s for manager Chuck Tanner. No that isn’t a typo. My Dilone story. I was 14. It was 1985. Dilone was in his last season, hanging on with Montreal. They were in Cincy and I was at the ball yard with baseball cards trying to get autographs. When I asked Dilone in my typical polite way, he yelled back at me in anger the following (at least I think this is what he said): No tengo escribir mi nombre. Translated that means “I don’t have to write my name”. I didn’t argue with him.
Willie Stargell – signed as an amateur FA, before the draft was established in 1958
Rennie Stennett – exact same as Moreno. He was from Panama and was inked in 1969
Kent Tekulve – signed as an undrafted FA in 1969
Next time I’ll examine the trades the various trades that brought some of those players to the club.