A few quick random thoughts and notes for this Sunday morning:
**I’ll be continuing my Pirates positional recaps this week. John Dreker will be wrapping up the minor league recaps with a look at this year’s DSL players.
**Who are you rooting for in the MLB playoffs? I’m a fan of small market teams, and all four remaining teams are in the top ten in payroll. So I’d have to go with the Astros, since they were a pretty fun team to watch while beating the Rays.
**I was at a beer festival yesterday in Durham at Barrel Culture. One of the breweries that was at the festival was Dancing Gnome from Pittsburgh. I’ve heard about their IPAs, and was glad I got a chance to try them. I had “Nobody’s Robot”, a double IPA. The beer was very green, aka, it was very hoppy, which hid some of the fruit flavors. The hops in a New England IPA fall off fast, opening up the more sweeter aspect of those flavors. I’d like to try their stuff after a few weeks to get a taste comparison after the hops have died down. But the first impression from Dancing Gnome was a good one.
**Speaking of PA breweries, Voodoo out of Meadville, PA had one of my favorite beers of the night: Black Magick aged in Double Oaked bourbon barrels. The description: “aged 18+ months in virgin deeply toasted lightly charred American oak barrels that finished fully mature Woodford Reserve Distiller’s Select for about a year.” That’s my type of beer — just a good barrel aged stout with flavors that come from the barrel. This one almost had a bit of a barleywine quality, with notes of raisins and plums at the start. The oak flavor was strong, and got better and smoother as the beer got closer to room temperature. I’ve loved the stuff I’ve had from Voodoo so far, and this was another good addition.
**I’ll be doing the Pirates top 30 for Baseball America this year. I’ve been working on my writeups lately for the top 10 and finalizing the top 30 list. I’m looking forward to that coming out toward the end of the year. We will also have our end of the season rankings coming out in the next few weeks.
SONG OF THE DAY
DAILY QUIZ
THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY
By John Dreker
On this date in 1960, the Pirates won game seven of the World Series at Forbes Field by a 10-9 score over the New York Yankees on a walk-off home run from Bill Mazeroski leading off the bottom of the ninth inning. The win gave the Pirates their third World Series title overall and their first one in 35 years.
Among the former Pirates born on this date, Hall of Famer Rube Waddell, who won 193 games over 13 seasons in the majors. He played for the 1900-01 Pirates and had an 8-15 record, with the final two losses coming in early 1901 before he was sold to the Chicago Cubs. In 1900, he went 8-13, while leading the league with a 2.37 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP.
Bob Bailey, third baseman for the 1962-66 Pirates. He played 17 years in the majors, starting at age 19 with the Pirates. He was a .257 hitter with 169 homers in 1,931 games. Bailey hit .257 with the Pirates, four times collecting double digit homers. He was traded for Maury Wills prior to the 1967 season.
Frank Smykal, shortstop for the 1916 Pirates. His big league career consisted of six late season games with the Pirates. He hit .300, walked three times and was hit by a pitch, giving him a .500 OBP. Smykal played a total of seven seasons in the minors.
Xavier Rescigno, pitcher for the 1943-45 Pirates. He played his entire big league career with the Pirates, debuting after his 30th birthday, and going 19-22, 4.13 in 21 starts and 108 relief appearances. Rescigno played eight years in the minors before his debut and he won 23 games in 1942.
Dick Barone, shortstop for the 1960 Pirates. As a late season call-up, he went 0-for-6 in three games. That turned out to be his only big league time. He spent ten seasons in the minors.
Hayden Penn, pitcher for the 2010 Pirates. In his fourth season in the majors in 2010, he lasted just three early season games, giving up eight runs in 2.1 innings.
