Where have you gone, Curtis Wilkerson

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much.

Oh, that's right. Curtis Wilkerson, or as my head fondly remembers him, "Lloyd McClendon without the talent." That's a faulty recollection though. I remember Wilkerson as a fifth outfielder, BRef tells me he was a utility infielder. Oh, well, time glosses over all things in our heads, I suppose.

Anyways, Wilkerson is a special player. Not because he was good, but because of how much he sucked. His career batting line was .245/.286/.305. His career OPS+ was 63. Despite that, he played parts of 11 seasons in the big leagues. His hitting line is eerily similar to one John Wehner's. His career highlight was probably in 1988 when the Rangers traded him, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams and a bunch of other crappy players to the Cubs for Jamie Moyer and Rafael Palmiero. Wilkerson only played one season with the Pirates, 1991. As per his career stats, he sucked in 1991 going .188/.243/.277 with a career high 2 homers in 210 PAs for the Pirates.

So why is Wilkerson featured here? Because as bad as he was, he will forever feature prominently in one of my all-time favorite Pittsburgh Pirate memories. It was September 19, 1991. My family and I were driving into Chicago to visit my aunt that lived in the city. Chicago is a long hike from home and we were just getting into the city as the Pirate game ended. Since we managed to have them on the radio in Chicago and they were playing the Cardinals, I can only assume we had the game on KMOX. I remember the Pirates entering the ninth down 1-0. Looking at the boxscore, I can see that was because Omar Olivares dominated us that night through eight. Little did I know that in less than 10 years, Olivares would be a Pirate disaster. Regardless of that little tidbit, the Pirates tied the game up and the Cards brought Lee Smith. "We own Lee Smith," my dad said as he was driving. We loaded the bases up against Smith and Leyland brought Wilkerson on to pinch hit for Stan Belinda. We could hear the call over the radio, "Wilkerson hits a high fly ball to right field..." then we drove under a bridge and the already thin reception crackled out. As we came through the other side of the bridge we heard, "And Wilkerson has hit a grand slam to bring the Pirates all the way back to win this one 5-1!" We went nuts in the car, my dad incredulous that Wilkerson of all people hit the grand slam. Wilkerson hit two home runs as a Pirate, and I remember one of them like it happened yesterday. It doesn't matter how ugly the guy's career stat line was. I can never hear his name again without smiling.