A major-league city?

Altoona is home to the Curve, the Class AA affiliate of the Pirates.

But the Blair County city once had a major-league team.

The year was 1884, and a new league, christened the Union Association, was ready to challenge the other two established major leagues, the National League and American Association.

The UA had seven members and wanted an even eighth, so league founder Henry Lucas allowed Altoona's team, known collectively as the Mountain City, to be admitted. Lucas promptly scheduled eight of Altoona's first 11 games against his own St. Louis Maroons.

According to David Nemec in his book "The Beer and Whisky League," Altoona lost all of those games to St. Louis on the way to opening the season 0-11. After 25 games, the Mountain City called it quits at 6-19.

The team's best player in its brief existence was George "Germany" Smith, who hit .315 and went on to play 15 seasons in the majors, albeit finishing with a lifetime .243 average. He was the starting shortstop on two pennant-winning teams, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms (later Dodgers) of 1889 in the American Association and 1890 in the National League.

By the way, baseball statistics-history guru Bill James heavily disputes the Union Association's standing as a major league, contending that no one considered it as such until decades after the fact.

For now, though, Altoona can call itself a major-league city ... old-school.

In the beginning: Allegheny

References to the Pittsburgh Pirates usually have the franchise dating back to 1887, and if you recall, the team officially marked its centennial in 1987.

Technically, the history starts in 1882, making Pittsburgh tied with Cincinnati and St. Louis for the third-oldest continuous franchise in Major League Baseball.

Those first five seasons generally aren't recognized because the team played in the American Association, which operated as an acknowledged major league from 1882 through 1891, in competition with the National League. When the Association went out of business, its memory was submerged in the depths of baseball history, to be unearthed by researchers generations later.

Pittsburgh's first major-league team actually played in the city of Allegheny, now the North Side; hence its nickname, the Alleghenys. In fact, the American Association was founded during a meeting held in Pittsburgh.

For a squad that came together for the first time, the Alleghenys did well in 1882, winning 39 and losing the same number, good for fourth place in the six-team league.

The star of the team was outfielder Ed Swartwood, who, at 23, was the youngest regular. He led the Alleghenys in most offensive categories, including a .329 batting average, 107 hits and four home runs.

Pitcher Denny Driscoll, one of baseball's first successful lefthanders, had a 13-9 record with a stellar 1.21 earned-run average, the lowest ever in the Association. But that figure is purely retroactive; the concept of the earned run didn't develop until the early 20th century. Research has shown that a whopping 46 out of the 73 runs Driscoll gave up that year were unearned! Even in an era where teams averaged three or four errors per game, that's an unusally high percentage of unearned runs.

Whatever the case, Driscoll wasn't nearly as effective in 1883, slipping to 18-21 on a team that finished 31-67. Swartwood again led the way at the plate, with his .357 average nearly a hundred points higher than the next-best batter on the team.

The Alleghenys did even worse in 1884, with a 30-78 record in a league that had doubled in the number of teams from its inaugural year. Swartwood slipped to .288, but the next best mark among Allegheny hitters was just .231; as a whole, the team batted only .211. The top pitcher was Florence – yes, he was a man – Sullivan at 16-35.

In 1885, the Alleghenys righted the ship to finish 56-55, primarily through the efforts of pitcher Ed Morris. The 22-year-old lefty won 39 times in 63 starts, all complete games. Back then, management considered pitchers a disposable commodity, good for only a couple of years.

But a late arrival to Pittsburgh that season broke the mold: James "Pud" Galvin's career lasted 15 season, and he was the first pitcher in history to win 300 games. He also was the first future Hall of Famer to play in Pittsburgh.

Galvin and Morris led the way to the Alleghenys' most successful season: an 80-57 record, good for second place behind the St. Louis Browns, today's Cardinals. The tandem combined for 70 victories, while the team batting average of .241 wasn't that far off the league mark of .243. (On the other end of the spectrum, the Baltimore AA batters combined to hit .204, the lowest team average in history.)

Meanwhile, Allegheny management had developed a contentious relationship with the American Association hierarchy, and Pittsburgh jumped ship to the National League for the 1887 season. And that's where team history starts.

But there was a prehistoric version of what became the Pirates, even if the team didn't have all that much success in the American Association.


Trivia #13: Who was the second future Hall of Famer to play in Pittsburgh? For the answer, scroll down and look to the right.

Return of the complete game?

Longtime broadcaster and former catcher Tim McCarver was talking on EPSN's "Mike & Mike in the Morning" about yesterday's opening game at the new Yankee Stadium.

To the delight of Yankee haters everywhere, Cleveland smacked the Bronx Bombers around, 10-2. McCarver blamed middle-relief meltdown for New York's loss, then said it's about time to return to the days when starting pitchers lasted more than five or six innings per game.

The problem, he said, is that pitchers are brought along too gingerly in the minor leagues, and by the time they reach the majors, their arms can't hold up too, say, 200 innings in a season.

He did admit that he'd probably be long gone when (if?) baseball returns to the tradition of pitchers going the distance being the norm again.

McCarver cited Toronto's Roy Halladay as the prime example of the type of pitcher who throws nine innings. Indeed, Halladay led the American League in complete games last year, with nine, a huge total for these days.

During McCarver's playing career (1959-80), the story was much different.

For example, McCarver caught Bob Gibson for several years during the Hall of Famer's heyday. Between 1965 and 1972, Gibson logged 20 or more complete games seven out of eight seasons, including two years with 28 CGs in each. And the only year he missed the 20 mark, he missed a a month and a half after Roberto Clemente lined a ball off Gibson's leg and broke it (July 15, 1967).

For the record, here are the last pitchers to reach the following complete-game milestones:

• 10 – Randy Johnson, Diamondbacks, 1999 (12)


• 15 – Curt Schilling, Phillies, 1998


• 20 – Fernando Valenzuela, Dodgers, 1986


• 25 – Rick Langford, A's, 1980 (28)


• 30 – Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Yankees, 1975

By the way, Zach Duke already has pitched a complete game for the Pirates this season. The team as a whole logged a total of three in 2008.

Tragedy nothing new to baseball

The baseball world will be reeling for quite a while following the death of Angels rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart, who was one of three people killed after their vehicle was struck by a van Thursday.

Adenhart's death, unfortunately, is the latest in a long line of tragedies that have claimed the lives of active major-leaguers. Here as some that I remember occurring over the past few decades:

Josh Hancock, P, Cardinals, April 29, 2007. Hancock was 29 when he died in an auto accident in St. Louis. He compiled a 9-7 record in 102 games, most of them in relief, over six seasons.

Cory Lidle, P, Yankees, Oct. 11, 2006. The plane Lidle was flying crashed into a building in Manhattan during the League Championship Series, after his team had been eliminated from the playoffs. Lidle, 34, posted an 82-72 record in nine major-league seasons.

Lidle's father learned of his son's death on television.

Darryl Kile, P, Cardinals, June 22, 2002. Kile, 33, was found dead of a heart attack in his hotel room prior to a scheduled game in Chicago. He had won 36 games for the Cardinals during the previous two seasons. He won 133 games, including 19 in 1997 and 20 in 2000. In both those seasons, he finished fifth in Cy Young Award balloting.

Steve Olin and Tim Crews, P, Indians, March 22, 1993. Olin and Crews were joined by teammate Bob Ojeda on a Florida spring-training speedboat outing just before opening day. Their boat struck a pier in Little Lake Nellie. Olin died at the site, and Crews died at a hospital in Orlando.

Olin, 27, a submarine-style pitcher, saved 17 games after the 1991 All-Star break for a bad team, and followed that up by saving 29 games for a team that wasn't much better.

Crews had signed with the Indians in January 1992 after spending six seasons with the Dodgers. He was 11 days shy of his 32nd birthday at the time of his death.

Thurman Munson, C, Yankees, Aug. 2, 1979. The team captain was piloting an airplane that went down in Canton, Ohio. He was 32. Munson was the first catcher in American League history to win the Cy Young Award (1970) and followed that up with the Most Valuable Player award in 1976. At the time of his death, he probably had been best known besides his success on diamond for his running feud with teammate Reggie Jackson.

Despite a stellar career for a high-profile team, Munson has not received serious consideration for the Hall of Fame.

Lyman Bostock, OF, Angels, Sept. 23, 1978. Bostock was in the wrong place at the wrong time: He was visiting his uncle, Thomas Turner, in Gary, Ind., and they went to visit Joan Hawkins, a woman whom Bostock had tutored as a teenager, but had not seen for several years. After the visit, Turner agreed to give Hawkins and her sister, Barbara Smith, a ride to their cousin's house. Smith had been living with Hawkins while estranged from her husband, Leonard Smith.

As Turner's vehicle was stopped at a traffic signal, Smith's car pulled up alongside. Smith leaned out of his vehicle and fired a shotgun into the back seat of Turner's car. The blast struck Bostock in the right temple. He died two hours later at a Gary hospital, at age 27.

Four decades?

Toward the close of each decade, baseball historians start keeping an eye out for veterans whose careers could extend long enough that they play in the majors in four different decades. Some past players of note who have achieved the distinction include Hall of Famers Eddie Collins (1906-30), Ted Williams (1939-60), Early Wynn (1939-63), Willie McCovey (1959-80), Nolan Ryan (1966-93), Carlton Fisk (1969-93) and new inductee Rickey Henderson (1979-2003). There's a possibility that 2010 could see up to half a dozen four-decade major-leaguers, which would be a record. They are:

Tom Glavine. The Atlanta Braves of the late 1980s were baseball's laughingstocks, known primarily for being visible to most of the nation for most of the season on TBS. With the development of players like Glavine, the Braves turned into the juggernaut that appeared in the playoffs every year for a decade and a half. Glavine debuted on Aug. 17, 1987, and since has racked up 305 wins. He opened 2009 on the disabled list for the Braves but is penciled in as part of the starting rotation.

Ken Griffey Jr. Griffey has returned to the Seattle Mariners, where he started his career as a 19-year-old, batting .264 with 16 home runs, 61 RBI and 16 stolen bases in 1989. This year, he homered off the Twins' Francisco Liriano on Opening Day, career blast No. 612.

Randy Johnson. The Big Unit was already was pushing age 25 when he debuted in 1988, but he's just five victories shy of 300 as a member of the San Francisco Giants' rotation this year. He lost his first start of the year Wednesday to Milwaukee.

Jamie Moyer. He's the last major-leaguer who's older than I am (46), but his contract with the Phillies runs through 2010. The lefty, who debuted with the Cubs in 1986, had 246 wins entering this season, including 82 after he turned 40!

Gary Sheffield. The Mets signed the guy who once used to make bad throws so the Brewers would trade him. Many fans hope his stay in New York will be a short one.

John Smoltz. A trivia favorite of mine involves Smoltz: The Tigers traded him (as a minor-leaguer) to the Braves for Doyle Alexander, who once was involved in a trade for Frank Robinson. That's more than half a century of baseball, right there! Smoltz opened the season on Boston's disabled list, but he's shown the tenacity to battle back from injury and wants to improve on his 210 wins thus far.

Two other players who were active in the '80s also might end up pitching in the majors in four decades: journeyman relievers Kent Mercker and Rudy Seanez. Both pitched in 2008, Seanez for the World Champion Phillis, but neither is on a big-league roster at the moment. You never know if they'll pop up somewhere this season and/or next.

And I wouldn't bet against some team giving Julio Franco a shot sometime in 2010. He played until he was 49, a record for a position player. And with his track record of physical fitness, he probably could get a hit or two at age 52. Hey, Minnie Minoso got a hit at age 53 when the White Sox made him a four-decader. (He didn't do the same at 57 when they made him one of two five-deacers in major-league history. But that's another story.)