Free Republic

MILWAUKEE -- A bus driver was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence while transporting the Pittsburgh Pirates from Chicago to Milwaukee for their weekend series with the Brewers. Illinois State Police said the driver was traveling away from officers seeking to escort the bus on its trip to Milwaukee late Thursday night. Troopers said they observed more erratic driving and eventually stopped the bus on the right shoulder of Interstate 94 in Chicago. Police said the driver was arrested after they observed “multiple signs of impairment.” The driver isn’t a Pirates employee but was contracted to drive...

One of the only things that can ruin hitting a home run is watching your ball fly over the fence and hit a car, but that made things even better for Milwaukee Brewer Mike Moustakas on Sunday. Moustakas slammed one into center field in the eighth inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates that broke a 2-2 tie and landed on the roof of a Toyota Rav4. It wasn’t parked there by a clueless owner but was part of a promotion to give it away if a Brewer hit it with a ball, which Moustakas learned after the fact."I didn't know that I actually...

Bob Friend, an ironman right-handed pitcher who never spent a day on the disabled list during his 16-year Major League Baseball career, died Sunday from a cardiac event in his sleep. He was 88. “It was sudden and there were no warning signs,” his son, also Bob Friend, a longtime pro golfer,said. “He wasn’t suffering and went out quickly and was discovered by my mother [Pat Friend] this morning.” The elder Mr. Friend, who lived in O’Hara, was a poster boy for the Pirates in the 1950s and 1960s. The 20-year-old was thrust into the starting rotation in 1951 and...

I’ve known Rick Santorum for 22 years, having first met him in 1990 before he’d won his first campaign for Congress. I interviewed him on WORD-FM, an evangelical Christian radio station where I was a frequent guest host (and eventually a full-time host) early in his campaign. If I was not the first media personality to interview Rick, I was one of the first. I had Rick as a guest at the request of my friend, Mark Rogers, who was running Rick’s campaign. Over the years I interviewed Rick at least a dozen times and debated him several times as...

This is exactly what the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose surprising graduation from the National League’s near-two-decade doormats to legitimate National League Central contenders has been one of the season’s sweet surprises, don’t need. Never mind pitching coach Ray Searage tweeting an outraged Tweeter, “Deal with it.” If the Pirates hold to that attitude and push it to one side, it will say plenty about the makeup of this year’s edition. But first the Pirates are going to let their feelings be known about home plate umpire Jerry Meals absolutely blowing the call on the run that won a game for the...

Jose Antonio Pagan, one of the first Puerto Ricans in Major League Baseball and a hero of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 1971 World Series win, died Tuesday in Florida. He was 76.

How a near pristine black-and-white reel of the entire television broadcast of the deciding game of the 1960 World Series — long believed to be lost forever — came to rest in the dry and cool wine cellar of Bing Crosby’s home near San Francisco is not a mystery to those who knew him. Crosby loved baseball, but as a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates he was too nervous to watch the Series against the Yankees, so he and his wife went to Paris, where they listened by radio. “He said, ‘I can’t stay in the country,’ ” his...

Prompt punishment for Pittsburgh pierogi who piled on Pirates By 'Duk So a team struggles through an epic losing streak and its manager and general manager are somehow rewarded with contract extensions in the middle of it. Meanwhile, a low-level team employee who makes about $100 a month racing around in a pierogi costume says what we're all thinking on his Facebook page — and promptly loses his job. Welcome to the world of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that appears more concerned with curbing criticism of its club than demanding more from the men — John Russell and Neal...

PITTSBURGH -- The Chicago Cubs assured the Pittsburgh Pirates of a record-breaking 17th consecutive losing season, getting two homers from Derrek Lee and an effective start from Ted Lilly while winning 4-2 on Monday. By losing their 10th in 11 games, the Pirates will finish below .500, just as they have every season since 1993. The string of losing seasons is a major league record and the longest for any team in the four major North American pro team sports. Only the Phillies (1933-48) have had as many as 16 losing seasons in a row.

Baseball with cigars and martinis Monday, April 10, 2006 By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Now there's a new way to enjoy Pirates baseball, albeit one that may annoy non-smoking advocates and other advocates of healthy living, not to mention political correctness: The Montecristo Club, which opens this week at PNC Park complete with a cigar bar and a martini bar. And while women are certainly welcome, this new upscale venue seems to be all about exclusivity and manliness, in an impress-your-girlfriend kind of way -- if she's into cigar smoke -- or, alternatively, in an-escape-your-wife kind of way, given its...