Longtime Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Bob Veale, who helped lead the team to their win in the 1971 World Series, died this past weekend.
He was 89.
“Bob was an integral member of the Pirates who helped our team capture back-to-back division titles as well as the 1971 World Series,” Pirates owner Bob Nutting said in a statement. “He was one of the most dominant left-handed pitchers in all of Major League Baseball during his remarkable big league career that he proudly spent a majority of as a member of the Pirates. He was a great man who will be missed.”
Veale’s family confirmed that he died “in his beloved hometown with his family by his side” over the weekend, via AL.com. Further specifics are not known.
Veale spent 13 seasons in Major League Baseball, most of which were with the Pirates. The Alabama native got his start in the league in 1962. He spent the next 11 seasons with the Pirates, where he picked up a pair of All-Star nods and helped the team beat the Baltimore Orioles in seven games in the 1971 World Series.
Veale spent the first part of the 1972 campaign with the Pirates, and he made MLB history that year when he played in a game in which the Pirates started an all Black or Afro-Latino lineup, per AL.com. He relieved Dock Ellis in the third inning of that game.
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Veale then spent the last two seasons of his career with the Boston Red Sox, who made a deal for him during the 1972 season. In total, Veale finished his career with a 120-95 record with a 3.99 ERA and 1,703 strikeouts in 397 MLB games.
Veale later worked as a scout for the Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees. He was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2006, and he helped launch the Negro Southern League Museum in Birmingham in 2015.
“We want kids to come and learn, so the history of the Negro Leagues will not have been in vain … and the people who come behind us will learn about it as we go past,” Veale said in 2015, via AL.com.
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