1966 Pittsburgh Pirates - Mgr: Marc Weiss - 9 Cards

The third place Bucs finished with a 92-70 record, which put them 3 games behind the pennant winning Dodgers.  As late as September 10th they held a slim 1/2 game lead, but couldn't hold off the Dodgers, who were being carried by that Koufax guy in his final season.  Heading into the final weekend they were a game and half out of first, but got swept at home by the Giants, who would leapfrog them and finish in 2nd.  Hands down the Bucs had the best offense in the league.  Posting a .279 team batting average in an era when most teams were barely hitting .245 is pretty impressive.  Matty Alou led the league in hitting with a .342 average, while playing a fine centerfield.  Willie Stargell, in left, had a break out year offensively hitting .315 with 33 homers and 102 RBI's.  Rounding out the outfield was the NL MVP Roberto Clemente who hit .317 with 29 homers and 119 RBI's while playing a gold glove right field.  The infield could not only pick it, but they also took part in the offense.  Bill Mazeroski, arguably the finest pivot man at turning a DP, hit .262.  Gene Alley, who was never much of a hitter, hit .299.  Donn Clendenon played a fine 1st base and also hit .299 to go along with his 28 homers.  The bench was strong too being led by Manny Mota's .332.

So a team with all that offense had to have some Achilles heel which held them back from winning the pennant.  Their rotation, was solid, but it didn't have a #1 guy.  In today's lexicon we would say it was loaded with a bunch of #3's.  Bo Veale (16-12, 3.02) was as close to an ace as this staff got.  An aging Vern Law managed a respectable 12-8 (4.05).  In an era where it was uncommon to have a 5 man rotation the Pirates did just that.  They were close to the bottom in complete games thanks to the solid relief pitching of Roy Face (18 Saves) and Pete Mikkelsen (14 Saves).  Al McBean and Billy O'Dell could each be counted on out of the pen.  My goal as manager of this team is to manage them just like a 2000 era team.  Get 6-7 innings from my starters and rely on the pen to carry me home.  Finally getting a chance to manage the great Clemente has me pumped for this season.

Only 8 cards needed to be added to the set.  Jeff once again did a splendid job on the '66 set add on's, so the only card I had to create myself was Don Bosch, who appeared in all of 2 games that season.  Since I couldn't find a shot of Bosch as a Pirate I had to mirror Topps and go with the BHNH (Big Head, No Hat) look.