GREETINGS FROM FORBES FIELD
BARNEY DREYFUSS
Born in 1865 in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Barney Dreyfuss was the son of an Americanized father who made a fortune selling liquor to Native Americans before returning to Europe at the outbreak of the Civil War. Reversing the steps of the father, the younger Dreyfuss emigrated to the United States at the age of 16 to evade the Imperial German Army draft.
Working his way through the ranks of the family bourbon business, Dreyfuss found a talent in his spare hours to first organize baseball clubs of distillery workers and then to operate semi-pro baseball teams. In 1889, Dreyfuss bought a share of the Louisville Cardinals of the American Association, absorbed later by the National League when the Association collapsed. At the end of the century, Dreyfuss parlayed a Louisville line-up that included Honus Wagner, Rube Waddell, and Fred Clarke into the ownership of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Bible of Baseball credits Dreyfuss with ending the war between the National League and the insurgent American League with the creation of the World Series in 1903.
Dreyfuss remained president of the Pirates throughout his life.
FORBES FIELD
Postcard, Forbes Field, 1910
Dreyfuss opened the first concrete and steel National League stadium on June 30, 1909. Resisting the temptation of the time to name the stadium after himself, Dreyfuss instead chose Forbes Field, naming the grounds after an adjacent avenue honoring the British general who founded Fort Pitt during the French and Indian War. A second bordering street was named after a Swiss mercenary who served under Forbes, Henry Boquet, who later gained permanent infamy with his role in deliberately exposing Native Americans to smallpox during the Pontiac War.
The city certainly needed a new stadium. Exposition Park, built in 1882 and the original home of the Pirates, had the benefit of a downtown location on the banks of the Allegheny, but the low-lying outfield often resembled a marsh and flooded knee-deep in water when the river overflowed its banks.
Early observers questioned Dreyfuss’ judgment in choosing the outskirts of the city to place his new stadium. Critics labelled it Dreyfuss’ Folly and warned the owner that fans would turn their backs on the place as being too big, too fancy, and too long a trolley ride from downtown.
Talk of folly disappeared when the park opened. Writers lauded the “subtle elegance” of the stadium when it opened. “For architectural beauty, imposing size, solid construction and for public comfort and convenience, it has not its superior in the world,” the 1910 edition of the Reach Guide said. Baseball Magazine agreed. “The new park is the greatest achievement in civil engineering—and as beautiful as well as secure a construction as has been undertaken in this country since baseball first began to be the national pastime.”
The Pirates celebrated their new home by winning the World Series in 1909, defeating Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in seven games behind the bats of Wagner and Clarke and the pitching of Charles Benjamin "Babe" Adams. Allowing six hits in each of his three outings, the rookie right-hander won the opener, Game 5 next, and then the finale with a complete game shut-out.
Forbes Field, Game Time 1912
THE CATHEDRAL OF LEARNING
Postcard, Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, circa 1940
Construction began 1926; officially dedicated 1937.
Paul Goldberg, in his book, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, gives special mention to the unique placement of Forbes Field next to the woods and trails of Schenley Park in Pittsburgh’s upscale Oakland neighborhood.
The area, Goldberg writes, “already had a Carnegie library [and] would in time become the city’s main cultural center, with several museums, the University of Pittsburgh, and what would become the Carnegie Mellon University . . . No other city could claim a major league baseball park as part of its cultural mix, either in 1909 or anytime afterward. The geographical intersection of the ballpark with other cultural institutions would have no other examples other than Forbes Field at Schenley Park."
Less than a mile from home plate, the Cathedral of Learning towers above Forbes Field.
HOMESTEAD GRAYS
Cum Posey, Negro Leagues Legends No. 65 (2020)
The Pirates weren't the only home team playing at Forbes Field in the 1920s and 1930s. The Homestead Grays also regularly played at the park.
A white black double header was played at Forbes in May of 1932. The Pirates played the Philadelphia Phillies in the opener. The Grays played the Philadelphia Hilldales in the nightcap.
One of the longest-lived black teams, the Grays were organized by Cum Posey in 1912. The team mostly played as an independent club until joining a rebuilt Negro National League in 1935. The Grays were declared league champions in 1937 and 1938. During the years of World War II, the Grays increasingly shifted operations to Washington, DC, pulling in larger crowds at Griffith Stadium. Under the leadership of team captain Buck Leonard, the Grays won six more pennants before the league disbanded at the end of the 1948 season. Leonard's 15 years with the Grays was the longest stint of any player with any team in the history of the Negro Leagues.
Posey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. The national pastime wasn't Posey's first sport--basketball was. A Pittsburgh-area high school and college standout, Posey later organized, played for, and ran the Loendi Big Five. A dominant team during the Black Fives era of hardwood segregation, Posey's team won four consecutive Colored Basketball World Championship titles in the early 1920s. Posey was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, the only person in both the baseball and the basketball halls of fame.
Postcard, Negro League Legends, 1991, No. 82
PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS
Gus Greenlee, Negro Leagues Legends No. 44 (2020)
Some diamond historians consider the 1935 version of the team the best ever in the history of the Negro Leagues. Others give the nod to the 1931 Grays.
Pittsburgh Crawfords, 1936
Postcard, Negro League Legends, 1991, No. 84
OVER THE ROOF
Cast loose by the New York Yankees in the dead of winter, an overweight and fading Babe Ruth signed with the Boston Braves in the spring of 1935. On May 25, Ruth hit the last three home runs of his career at Forbes Field. The third of the blasts was the first to clear the recently-constructed 86-foot-tall roof in right field. Ruth retired a few days later after going hitless the rest of the month. Over the next 35 years, only 17 more homers cleared the roof. Willie Stargell hit seven of them.
While the dimensions of the park changed over the years, the field was always big, and it was still spacious enough in 1956 to allow Roberto Clemente to become the only major league player to belt a walk-off inside the park grand slam, speeding around the bases in a 9 to 8 Pirate win over the Cubs on July 25.
Topps, Circle K Boxed Set, All Time Home Run Kings No. 16 (1985)
FORBES FIELD AT NIGHT
The Pirates played their first night game at Forbes Field on June 4, 1940. But if wasn’t the first night game ever played at the park. Under the portable lights of the pioneering night-ball playing Kansas City Monarchs, the Homestead Grays defeated the visitors in 12 innings, 5 to 4, on July 18, 1930.
Topps saw the Pirates as a club on the rise in 1959. Three out of the 17 cards in that year's subset of team stars featured Pirate combinations. The chewing gum company was a year early. The Pirates took home a World Series championship in 1960.
One story says Adams earned his nickname during his 1908 Louisville season when female fans greeted the handsome pitcher with cries of “Oh, you babe!” whenever he took the mound.
Adams lost an epic duel at Forbes against Rube Marquard and the New York Giants on July 17, 1914, falling 3 to 1 when Larry Doyle homered in the top of the 21st inning. Adams walked no one during the marathon, setting the record for the most innings pitched in a game without giving up a base on balls. Adams pitched into his 40s, and logged a scoreless inning in relief during the 1925 World Series, won by the Pirates four games to three over the Washington Senators.
Forbes Field at night, circa 1949.
1960 WORLD SERIES
Topps saw the Pirates as a club on the rise in 1959. Three out of the 17 cards in that year's subset of team stars featured Pirate combinations. The chewing gum company was a year early. The Pirates took home a World Series championship in 1960.
Topps No.312 (1961)
Postcard, Forbes Field, 1961
FORBES FIELD MAINSTAYS
One story says Adams earned his nickname during his 1908 Louisville season when female fans greeted the handsome pitcher with cries of “Oh, you babe!” whenever he took the mound.
Adams lost an epic duel at Forbes against Rube Marquard and the New York Giants on July 17, 1914, falling 3 to 1 when Larry Doyle homered in the top of the 21st inning. Adams walked no one during the marathon, setting the record for the most innings pitched in a game without giving up a base on balls. Adams pitched into his 40s, and logged a scoreless inning in relief during the 1925 World Series, won by the Pirates four games to three over the Washington Senators.
Babe Adams, Fleer Baseball Greats No.90 (1961)
Said to be always a threat to break up a no-hitter but never a party, the hard-drinking Waner credited his batting success to the whiskey he drank before batting. “When I walked up there (to the batter’s box) with a half-pint of whiskey fresh in my gut, that ball came in looking like a basketball,” he would say. “But if I hadn’t downed my half-pint of 100 proof, that ball came in like an aspirin tablet.” Waner may have been better off with a trip to the eye doctor. He played half-blind from nearsightedness.
Sewell joined the Pirates as a reliever in 1938. Late that year, Sewell was shot with two loads of buckshot to his lower legs during a deer hunting accident in the Ocala Forest. With the big toe on his pitching foot permanently mangled, Sewell was forced to revamp his delivery and was credited with inventing the eephus pitch, a slow and high-arcing blooper throw that baffled batters. The pitch revived his career, bringing him 17 wins in 1942, 21 wins in each of the next two seasons, and four NL All Star selections.
Not everyone was a fan of the pitch. National League President Ford Frick turned thumbs down on Sewell’s artistry after attending the All-Star Game in 1946. “I can take it if we lose, but I strongly object to our league making a burlesque out of the All-Star Game,” Frick declared. “I never want to see such an exhibition again.”
Paul Waner, Conlon Collection No. 5 (1991)
Sewell joined the Pirates as a reliever in 1938. Late that year, Sewell was shot with two loads of buckshot to his lower legs during a deer hunting accident in the Ocala Forest. With the big toe on his pitching foot permanently mangled, Sewell was forced to revamp his delivery and was credited with inventing the eephus pitch, a slow and high-arcing blooper throw that baffled batters. The pitch revived his career, bringing him 17 wins in 1942, 21 wins in each of the next two seasons, and four NL All Star selections.
Not everyone was a fan of the pitch. National League President Ford Frick turned thumbs down on Sewell’s artistry after attending the All-Star Game in 1946. “I can take it if we lose, but I strongly object to our league making a burlesque out of the All-Star Game,” Frick declared. “I never want to see such an exhibition again.”
Rip Sewell, Reprint, Bowman No. 234 (1949)
Kiner led the NL in home runs seven straight seasons with the Pirates, from 1946 to 1952. His bat earned him the highest salary in the National League but couldn’t lift the Pirates into contention. The Pirates hit bottom in 1952, finishing the season with 42 wins against 112 losses, 54 ½ games out of first. When Kiner reported to the club in 1953, Branch Rickey offered the slugger a pay cut. Kiner didn’t take kindly to the suggestion. “We finished last with you,” Rickey told Kiner. “We can finish last without you.” Rickey sent Kiner to the almost equally hapless Cubs in June. Pirate fans hanged Rickey in effigy. The Cubs finished in seventh. True to Rickey’s prediction, the Pirates finished last.
Ralph Kiner, Topps Archives No. 191 (2001)
In the fourth of consecutive last-place Pirate finishes in 1955, Friend became the first pitcher to lead the league in ERA while pitching for a cellar team. A workhorse, Friend led the league in starts three times and never spent a day on the disabled list during a 16-year career. Friend holds the Pittsburgh franchise record for games started, innings pitched, strikeouts and batters faced.
Roberto Clemente was interviewed for the pregame show before the finale at Forbes. A transcript survives. “This is a big emotion for me,” said the Pirates star. “I’ve been here 16 years, almost half my life. I’ve been here 16 years in this ballpark,” Clemente emphasized, “and this ballpark been great for me right here, and the fans have been great for me here, too. So it’s like I was telling some of the fellows today: You’ve been married to your wife for 16 years and so all of a sudden something happen, and you gonna be hurt about it.”
Out in left field, above the scoreboard, the minutes on the Longines clock swept by in mechanical progression, passing from one hour to the next.
Bob Friend, Pacific Trading Cards, No. 78 (1988)
Roberto Clemente was interviewed for the pregame show before the finale at Forbes. A transcript survives. “This is a big emotion for me,” said the Pirates star. “I’ve been here 16 years, almost half my life. I’ve been here 16 years in this ballpark,” Clemente emphasized, “and this ballpark been great for me right here, and the fans have been great for me here, too. So it’s like I was telling some of the fellows today: You’ve been married to your wife for 16 years and so all of a sudden something happen, and you gonna be hurt about it.”
Out in left field, above the scoreboard, the minutes on the Longines clock swept by in mechanical progression, passing from one hour to the next.
Roberto Clemente , Baseball Immortals No. 135 (1980)
Last Out, 1970
Memories of Forbes Field No. 19 (2000)
--Russell Streur
Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!
Next Friday: I’m bringing back The
Quitter…and we’re gonna talk 1986 Topps Football cards.
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