Due to the enforcement of a curfew, the Sunday contest between the Dodgers and Pirates is postponed with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, sending the 44,932 fans, the largest crowd in Forbes Field’s history, home. The game will be completed tomorrow with Brooklyn maintaining their 8-3 advantage over Pittsburgh.

Due to the enforcement of a curfew, the Sunday contest between the Dodgers and Pirates is postponed with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, sending the 44,932 fans, the largest crowd in Forbes Field’s history, home. The game will be completed tomorrow with Brooklyn maintaining their 8-3 advantage over Pittsburgh.

Roberto Clemente hits a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam
|

Roberto Clemente hits a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam

Pittsburgh’s right fielder Roberto Clemente hits Cubs reliever Jim Brosnan’s first pitch off the cage surrounding the base of Forbes Field’s left field light tower, just to the right of the scoreboard, then circles the bases just in time to become the first big league player in the post-Deadball Era to hit a walk-off, inside-the-park grand slam, turning a three-run 9th-inning deficit into a dramatic win. It is Clemente’s first career grand slam. Jack Hernon of the Post Gazette writes: “Brosnan made one pitch, high and inside. Clemente drove it against the light standard in left field. Jim King had backed up to make the catch but it was over his head. The ball bounced off the slanted side of the fencing and rolled along the cinder path to center field. Here came Hank Foiles, Bill Virdon and then Dick Cole, heading home and making it easily. Then came Clemente into third. Bobby Bragan had his hands upstretched to hold up his outfielder. The relay was coming in from Solly Drake. But around third came Clemente and down the home path. He made it just in front of the relay from Ernie Banks. He slid, missed the plate, then reached back to rest his hand on the rubber with the ninth run in a 9 – 8 victory as the crowd of 12,431 went goofy with excitement.”

Dale Long sets the homerun record by connecting in his 8th straight game
|

Dale Long sets the homerun record by connecting in his 8th straight game

On May 28, 1956, at Forbes Field Dale Long of the Pittsburgh Pirates hits a home run in his eighth consecutive game, setting a major league record. Long connects against Carl Erskine of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Long started the streak on May 19, when he homered against Chicago’s Jim Davis. During the 8 game streak,…

Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Dale Long starts his historic homerun streak with a 8th inning blast

Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Dale Long starts his historic homerun streak with a 8th inning blast

On May 19, 1956, Pittsburgh Pirates slugger  Dale Long’s eighth-inning Forbes Field’s two-run homerun against Chicago cubs reliver Jim Davis is the first in a string of eight consecutive games in which the Pirates’ first baseman will homer. The Adam, MA native’s major league mark will also be accomplished by Don Mattingly (Yankees, 1987) and Ken…

Rookie Danny Kravitz hits his first career homerun – a walk-off grand slam
| |

Rookie Danny Kravitz hits his first career homerun – a walk-off grand slam

Rookie Danny Kravitz will accumulate 10 home runs during his five-year major league career, but he’ll never top this, his first – a walk-off grand slam. It transforms a 3-run deficit into a 6 – 5 victory over Philly for Pittsburgh. It also launches the perennial cellar dwellers on a 16 and 6 tear that will land them, briefly, in first place before the bubble bursts and they revert to type, gradually wending their way back down to the cellar by season’s end.

Roberto Clemente Debut

Roberto Clemente makes his major league debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates

On April 17, 1955, At Forbes Field, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 20-year-old rookie Roberto Clemente makes his major league debut, playing both ends of a doubleheader, ironically but perhaps fittingly, against the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team that first signed him but left him unprotected in the 1954 Rule V draft. In his first at-bat, the future Hall of Famer rifles one back through the originator, Johnny Podres, and…

Curt Roberts, the Pirates’ first black player, hits a triple against Robin Roberts in the 1st inning
| |

Curt Roberts, the Pirates’ first black player, hits a triple against Robin Roberts in the 1st inning

The Pittsburgh Pirates open at home for the first time in 61 years and defeat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4 – 2, before 32,294 spectators. Curt Roberts, the Pirates’ first black player, hits a triple against Robin Roberts in the 1st inning.

Jim Pendleton
| |

Led by OF Jim Pendleton’s three home runs, the Braves tie the Yankees’ 1939 major-league record for the most homers in a game with eight

Led by OF Jim Pendleton’s three home runs, the Braves tie the Yankees’ 1939 major-league record for the most homers in a game with eight in their 19 – 4 win over Pittsburgh in the first game of a doubleheader. Pendleton is only the second rookie in history to hit three home runs in one game. In game two of the doubleheader, the Braves hit four more long balls to win 11 – 5. The 12 homers in a doubleheader shatter the previous mark of 9. Eddie Mathews’s four dingers for the day give him a National League-leading 43; he will end the season with 47 home runs, 30 of them on the road to set a major-league record.

Blanking the Pirates at Forbes Field, 2 – 0, Robin Roberts hurls his 28th consecutive complete game

Blanking the Pirates at Forbes Field, 2 – 0, Robin Roberts hurls his 28th consecutive complete game

Blanking the Pirates at Forbes Field, 2 – 0, Robin Roberts hurls his 28th consecutive complete game. The Phillies right-hander has finished every game he started since beating the Cardinals on August 28, 1952.