THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES

I remember the Pittsburgh Pirates before Mazeroski and Clemente. I remember the Pittsburgh Pirates when Ralph Kiner was the Home Run King. We lived about seventy miles from Pittsburgh so I didn't get to many games. In fact, the only game I got to attend when I was young was when the Johnstown Tribune Democrat newspaper rewarded its delivery boys for obtaining new subscribers to the paper. (The paper cost seven cents a day, and the delivery boy got two cents for each paper delivered.) I don't remember who the Pirates played, and I don't remember whether they won or lost. But, I do remember the great green field, the manicured infield, and the players. These were the guys I listened to on the radio! These were the guys who actually got paid to play baseball!

Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Pirates were not very good in the early 1950s. The common joke was "What has eighteen legs and lives in the cellar?" The answer, of course, was "The Pittsburgh Pirates." Those were the days of eight teams in the National League and eight teams in the American League. When we looked in the newspaper at the standings, we didn't have to look very far from the bottom to find the Pirates. They were always lower than the Cubs, and the Reds, and the Phillies, and the Giants, and the Dodgers, and the Cardinals, and the Braves.

Each spring hope sprung eternal in the baseball heart of at least one Pirate fan. The team seemed to do quite well in spring training, and I would get excited thinking, "This is the year!" No, not the year to win the World Series or the year to win the National League Pennant, or even the year to finish the season above .500 -- just the year NOT to end the season in the cellar. As the games started to count in the standings, the Pirates would start to lose. But it was so exciting when they won. I maintained hope during April, (It's just a bad beginning.) May, (They'll soon get out of their slumps.) June, (Now that it's warm, they'll get better.) By the Fourth of July, I was beginning to think that maybe this wasn't going to be the year. It's bad when you start saying "Wait until next year" in early August.

Danny Murtaugh was one of the players from that era. So were Gene Freese, Dick Cole, Dick Hall, Hank Foiles, Tony Bartirome, Felipe Montemayor, Eddie and Johnnie O'Brien, Wally Westlake, Gus Bell, Danny Kravitz, Sid Gordon, George Strickland, Roman Mejias, Preston Ward, Matt Surkont, and Curt Roberts. You may remember some of the names, but most of them did not make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I remember them because they were major league baseball players, they played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and sometimes they won.

Mostly I heard the games on the radio, and always I read an account of each day's game in the next day's newspaper. (Yes, all the games were in the newspaper because the "western swing" the teams took was to Chicago and St. Louis. Once in a while, the Pirates would be on television. Then my mom would watch while I went outside and turned the antenna until the reception was the best we could get. We often watched the game together.

I had thousands of the late 1940s and 1950s baseball bubble gum cards. Sometimes I actually chewed the gum, always a chancy endeavor. One day while I was listening, the Pirates had a rally going in the bottom of the ninth and had a chance to win. There were two outs, men on base, and the Pirates down by just one run. I don't remember who was batting for the Pirates, but I do remember that Johhny Klipstein was pitching for the Cubs. When he struck out the Pirate batter, I took his baseball card out, tore it up, and threw it away.

I also remember Rosey Rowswell, my all-time favorite Pirate announcer. I like to think that he taught Bob Prince everything he knew about broadcasting. He had great sayings and sound effects. "Open the window, Aunt Minnie, here she comes!" Then he would drop a tray of bolts. A Pirate had just hit a home run. A "doozy-maroony" was a Pittsburgh extra base hit. The "old dispsy-doodle" signaled a called third strike on an opposing hitter. My favorite was F.O.B. (Full Of Bucs) That meant that the Pirates had the bases loaded. "Put 'em on and take 'em off" was the description of a Pirate double play.

I remain a Pittsburgh Pirate fan to this day, and yes, hope still springs eternal. I still sing "The Bucs are going all the way, all the way, all the way, the Bucs are going all the way, all the way this year." No, I don't really believe it, but I can hope can't I? BECAUSE on the 1955 roster of the Pittsburgh Pirates were such names as Elroy Face, Vernon Law, Bob Friend, Dick Groat, and Roberto Clemente.)