Just two former Pittsburgh Pirates born on this date, plus there’s one transaction of note.
The Trade
On this date in 1895 the Pittsburgh Pirates traded pitcher Ad Gumbert to the Brooklyn Grooms for catcher Tom Kinslow. Gumbert was 26 years old at the time of the trade. He was a native of Pittsburgh, who already had a 106-79 career record. For the Pirates he had a 15-14, 6.08 record in 1894. That ERA seems very high, but 1894 was one of the biggest years for offense in baseball history. Kinslow had just turned 29 years old prior to the trade. He was a platoon catcher for Brooklyn during the previous four seasons, playing an average of 67 games a year, while hitting over .300 twice and batting below .250 twice. Most catchers during this era were platoon catchers because of the beating they took behind home plate with inferior equipment being the main factor. At the time of the trade, Pirates manager Connie Mack said that he considered Kinslow to be the best catcher in the league and he would be needed with the young pitching staff for the Pirates.
After the trade, Kinslow played just 19 games for the Pirates, platooning with Joe Sugden. He hit .226 with five RBIs and his catching skills seemed to get worse overnight, as he allowed 33 steals in 44 attempts. After the Pirates released him, he had just 25 Major League games left in his career, spread out over three different teams during the 1896 and 1898 seasons. Connie Mack started catching more after Kinslow was let go in early July. Gumbert stuck around a little longer with his new team, but he had an 11-16 record in 1895 for a Brooklyn team that went 71-60 overall, so he didn’t exactly make this trade a win for the Grooms. The somewhat amazing thing about his poor record was the fact he was a much better hitter than the average pitcher of the day. Gumbert hit .361 that year with 13 RBIs in 105 plate appearances. He went 0-4 with Brooklyn in 1896, before moving on to the Philadelphia Phillies to finish his career later that season.
The Players
Josh Sharpless, pitcher for the 2006-07 Pirates. He was a 24th round draft pick in 2003 out of Allegheny College. Sharpless is the last player from that college to be drafted and he’s the only one (out of 22 total picks) to make it to the majors. He had an incredible strikeout ratio in 2004 with Hickory (Low-A) posting 104 strikeouts in only 74.1 innings. He pitched fewer innings in 2005, but somehow improved on his 13.2 K/9 ratio by striking out 59 batters in 36.1 innings, while splitting the season between High-A and Double-A. In 24 total games that year, he had a 4-0, 0.74 record with five saves. Sharpless began the 2006 season in Double-A and dominated with 30 strikeouts and an 0.86 ERA in 21 innings. He moved up to Triple-A and pitched well over 33 innings and 23 appearances, earning his first Major League call-up on August 1st. He pitched four times before injuring his ankle, forcing him to miss nearly a month. He returned in September to finish the season with a 1.50 ERA in 14 big league games. Despite a decent walk rate in the minors that season, he issued 11 walks in 12 innings with the Pirates.
In 2007, Sharpless began the year back in Triple-A, but was called up to the Pirates by late May. He did not pitch well, allowing runs in four of his six relief outings before being sent back to the minors after his final appearance on June 10th. In Indianapolis that season, he had a 4.34 ERA in 64.1 innings over 43 appearances. He was an early cut from the Major League camp in Spring Training of 2008 due to off-season conditioning issues, then was released prior to the start of the season when the Pirates couldn’t find a trade partner to take him. He signed with the San Francisco Giants and spent a partial season in Double-A (debuted in mid-May), then spent the 2009 season pitching in independent ball for York of the Atlantic League, where he had a 7.85 ERA in 15 appearances. That would be the end of his pro career.
Kaiser Wilhelm, pitcher for the 1903 Pirates. He began his minor league career at 18 years old in 1895, debuting with a teams from Mansfield, OH that Honus Wagner played for during his first year in pro ball, but that was a brief stint for Wilhelm, years before his pro career really got started. He resumed his pro playing six years later in Birmingham, Alabama, going a combined 29-27 over the 1901-02 seasons. The Pirates acquired him from Birmingham on September 9, 1902 and he reported to the club on September 27th, though he didn’t get into any games until the following year. As a 26-year-old rookie for the Pirates in 1903, he became a starter for the team when the departures of Jack Chesbro and Jesse Tannehill left two rotation spots open. Wilhelm would make nine starts, completing seven of them, while throwing one shutout. He also pitched three times in relief and finished with a 5-3, 3.24 record in 84 innings for a Pirates team that not only won their third straight National League title, but they went on to play in the first modern World Series. On August 27th, the Pirates released Wilhelm and added pitcher Gus Thompson. Wilhelm last pitched for the Pirates 22 days earlier and he was left behind when the team went on two-week road trip to play the four eastern teams. He spent that time practicing daily at Exposition Park, but manager Fred Clarke handed him his release the day after the team arrived back in Pittsburgh.
Wilhelm signed with the Boston Beaneaters in 1904, where he went a combined 17-43 over the next two seasons. He spent the 1906-07 seasons back playing for Birmingham of the Southern Association, where he won 22 games in 1906 and 23 games the following season. Wilhelm made it back to the majors in 1908 with the Brooklyn Superbas (Dodgers), playing for a team that lost 90+ games during 154-game schedules in all three of his seasons with the club. He went 22-42 during that stretch, despite a 2.62 ERA in his 563.1 innings. He spent the next three seasons in the minors pitching for Rochester, then returned to the big leagues for two seasons with Baltimore of the Federal League, a league that existed on the Major League level for just two years. From there it was two more years in the minors, two seasons of semi-pro ball, then a return to the minors in 1920.
Wilhelm made his last big league appearance as age 44 as a player-manager of the 1921 Philadelphia Phillies. He managed two seasons in Philadelphia and another three seasons in the minors. He pitched in the minors until he was 46 years old. He finished his big league career with a 56-105 record, posting a 3.44 ERA in 1,432.1 innings. That ERA doesn’t match up well with the record until you realize that his entire career was played during the deadball era. His 1.87 ERA in Brooklyn during the 1908 season is a good example of how tough runs were to come by during that era. Wilhelm finished seventh in the league in ERA that year, with a mark that would take home an ERA title in a majority of seasons. He won at least 165 minor league games, though some statistical information is missing for his first and last seasons. His first name was Irvin and he wasn’t a fan of the Kaiser nickname, which came from the German Emperor at the time named Kaiser Wilhelm.
