Four former Pittsburgh Pirates players born on this date, plus one manager.
Freddy Garcia, corner Infielder/outfielder for the 1995, and 1997-99 Pirates. He was originally signed by the Toronto Blue Jays as an amateur free agent in 1991 at 18 years old out of the Dominican Republic, three years before the Pirates picked him up as a 1994 Rule 5 draft pick. He spent his first two seasons (1991-92) in the Dominican Summer League, then jumped to the U.S. in 1993, playing that season with Medicine Hat of the Pioneer League. Garcia batted .239 with 11 homers in 42 games. The next year he played for St Catharines of the New York-Penn League, where he led the league with 13 homers, while batting .285 in 73 games. The Pirates selected him in the Rule 5 draft that December and he skipped four levels to make their Major League squad on Opening Day. Garcia spent the entire season with the Pirates in 1995, seeing playing time at third base and left field. He hit .140 with one RBI in 42 games, batting a total of 66 times. The Pirates sent him to the minors in 1996, where he played the entire year in High-A ball at Lynchburg. Garcia hit .306 with 21 homers and 86 RBIs that season. He split the 1997 minor league season between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting .275 with 24 homers. He had two stints with the Pirates in 1997, one in late May until early June, then again in September. He hit .150 in 40 at-bats over 20 games, though he managed to hit his first three big league homers.
Garcia was back in Triple-A for most of 1998, where he hit 22 homers in 88 games. He began that year with the Pirates, but was sent down after hitting .167 through the end of April. He returned in August and hit well, finishing the year with a .256 average and nine homers in 55 games. He remained with the Pirates through September of 1999, when he was dealt to the Atlanta Braves for minor league pitcher Greg Dukeman. While with Pittsburgh that season, Garcia was playing both corner infield positions, and both corner outfield spots, hitting .231 with six homers in 55 games. He had just four walks and five doubles, which led to a .660 OPS during that time. He played just two games for Atlanta after the trade, homering in one of his three plate appearances. He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds during Spring Training of 2000, though he never played any games for them in the minors or majors. Garcia played minor league ball with the Boston Red Sox in 2000, before finishing his playing career in Japan in 2001. With the Pirates, he hit .221 with 18 homers, 55 RBIs and 52 runs scored in 173 games.
Milt May, catcher for the Pirates from 1970-73 and 1983-84. He was signed by the Pirates as an 11th round draft pick in 1968, selected out of high school in Florida two months before his 18th birthday. May worked his way quickly through the minors. He batted .241 with four doubles (no homers or triples) in 52 games with the Gulf Coast League Pirates in 1968, though that low offensive output came with a 30:13 BB/SO ratio. He moved up to A-Ball in 1969, playing for Gastonia of the Western Carolinas League, where he hit .289 with 17 doubles and 11 homers in 86 games. May made it to Triple-A by age 19, where he hit .280 with 21 homers and 86 RBIs in 111 games. He was a September call-up that year and never returned to the minors. He played just five games off of the bench, but it was enough to keep him in the majors. He hit .278 with six homers and 25 RBIs in 49 games during the 1971 season. He pinch-hit three times that postseason, including an RBI single in game four of the World Series. In 1972, he batted .281 with no homers in 57 games. He hit just one double that first year, but came back with ten the next season in his limited play. May was the backup catcher to Manny Sanguillen in 1971-72. Then with the tragic passing of Roberto Clemente after the 1972 season, Sanguillen moved to the outfield for most of the first half of the 1973 season, with May seeing full-time action behind the plate. That season, he hit .269 with eight doubles, seven homers and 31 RBIs in 101 games. May was traded to the Houston Astros on October 31, 1973 in exchange for pitcher Jerry Reuss. From 1974 until 1983, he played for the Astros, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and San Francisco Giants, six times playing over 100 games in a season.
May played a career high 127 games in his first year in Houston. He hit .289 with 17 doubles, seven homers and a career best of 54 RBIs. He also set a career high with 39 walks. He led all National League catchers that year with a .993 fielding percentage. In 1975, he hit .241 with 20 extra-base hits and 52 RBIs in 111 games. He led all NL catchers in assists and runners caught stealing. He was part of a seven-player trade with the Tigers that December, but an ankle injury in 1976 cost him nearly the entire season (played just six games). He was healthy in 1977 and set a career high with 12 homers. He batted .249 with 46 RBIs in 115 games that year. In 1978, May hit .250 with ten homers and 37 RBIs in 105 games. Lance Parrish took over the bulk of the catching in Detroit and after playing just six games in 1979, May was sold to the White Sox. He hit .254 with 15 doubles and seven homers in 71 games that year, then became a free agent. He signed with the Giants for 1980 and batted .260 with 16 doubles and six homers in 111 games. The next year he played 97 games during the strike-shortened season, hitting .310 with 17 doubles and 33 RBIs. Those results earned him mild MVP support for the only time in his career. In 1982, May hit .263 in 114 games, with a career best 19 doubles, to go along with nine homers and 39 RBIs. He played 66 games for the Giants in 1983, hitting .247 with six homers.
May was reacquired by the Pirates on August 19, 1983 from the Giants in exchange for catcher Steve Nicosia. May was the backup to Tony Pena until the end of the 1984 season, when he called it quits. He batted .250 in seven games for the 1983 Pirates, then hit .177 with one homer in 50 games (22 starts) for the 1984 Pirates. He played in a total of 1,192 Major League games, hitting .263 with 77 homers and 443 RBIs. He caught 1,034 games in his career, and never played a single inning at another position during that time. Milt’s father Pinky May was an All-Star third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Pep Rambert, pitcher for the 1939-40 Pirates. He had a long career in the minors, seeing action with numerous teams, but his Major League career consisted of just a handful of games over two seasons with the Pirates. Rambert was an outfielder for most of his career, though he did pitch 260 games in the minors and made it to the majors as a pitcher. He debuted in pro ball in 1937 at 20 years old and played for three different teams during the season, splitting his time between outfield and pitching (91.2 innings). He settled in with Savannah of the Class-B South Atlantic League in 1938, where he went 10-9, 4.37 in 173 innings. He played for Knoxville of the Class-A Southern Association in 1939, where he went 11-8 ,4.82 in 153 innings. The Pirates purchased his contract on August 31st under the privileges of the working agreement with Knoxville. At the time the talk was about his .347 batting average, which led the league, but once he joined the Pirates it was noted that he would be a pitcher. He was allowed to finish the season in the minors before joining the Pirates on September 11th. He got into two relief outings over the final three weeks of the season. He had his troubles in those games, allowing two runs in each, giving up seven hits and a walk in 3.2 innings total. Pep (first name was Elmer) returned to the minors in 1940, moving up to play for Syracuse of the International League, where he had a 3.77 ERA in 160 innings. He returned to Pittsburgh again in September, this time pitching twice in relief without allowing a run. On September 29th, the Pirates let Rambert start the last game of the season again the Cincinnati Reds. He allowed three runs through the first four innings, then ran into a wall, giving up five runs without recording an out in the fifth inning. For Rambert, that game would mark the end of his Major League career. He was sold to the Brooklyn Dodgers the following January. From 1941 until his retirement in 1952, Rambert bounced around the minors, missing two years (1944-45) during the war. For five of those seasons, he served as a player/manager. His last season was spent in Class-D ball, where the average age of players in the league was 13 years younger than he was at the time (35 years old).
Roy Sanders, pitcher for the 1918 Pirates. He was one of two Major League pitchers in 1918 named Roy Sanders. The other was pitching for the New York Yankees at the time. The Roy Sanders who played for the Pirates, spent the first three years (1915-17) of his pro career pitching for the Kansas City Blues of the American Association. He went 47-44 in 137 games, winning twenty games during the 1916 season and 18 games in 1917. During those final two seasons with Kansas City, he combined to throw 579 innings. Sanders began the 1917 season with the Cincinnati Reds, but didn’t last long, making just two starts. Control problems did him in, as he issued ten walks during his debut and another six over eight innings in his second game, a 2-0 loss. Both of his pitching performances that year were against the Pirates, who must’ve been impressed with him despite the lack of control. In August of that season, he was acquired from Kansas City by the Pirates for a player to be named later. Sanders never pitched for the Pirates over the last month of the 1917 season. In 1918, he was used often, pitching 14 times in relief and 14 times as a starter during a season that was shortened due to the ongoing war. Sanders went 7-9, 2.60 in 156 innings that year. While his ERA was good, it ranked him fourth on the team, as they finished with the second best pitching in the National League. Sanders never returned to the Pirates (he was a holdout in 1919) or pro baseball, choosing instead to play semi-pro ball back home in Kansas City. Casey Stengel was also a holdout during that 1919 season, though he chose to sign eventually. Stengel and Sanders were working out together in Kansas City through the early part of the year (spring/April) and both were said to be in good shape. He got a job selling railroad tickets shortly after the season started, but by August he was playing semi-pro ball in Kansas City with Stengel, who refused to report to the Philadelphia Phillies after a mid-season trade. On January 5, 1920, the Phillies claimed Sanders from the Pirates via waivers, but he refused to report there as well.
The Manager
Pete Mackanin, manager of the 2005 Pirates. After playing nine seasons in the majors, Mackanin became a minor league manager and coach. He managed two seasons in the minors for the Pirates, helping Lynchburg to the 2002 Carolina League title. He became the bench coach for the Pirates in 2003 and took over the managerial position from Lloyd McClendon in September of 2005. Mackanin went 12-14 to finish the season, then was replaced by Jim Tracy for the 2006 season. He managed the GCL Pirates in 2006, before moving on to big league managerial jobs with the 2007 Cincinnati Reds and 2015-17 Philadelphia Phillies.
