RIP GENE CLINES !!!

Certainly one of my favorite platoon players and pinch-hitter vs. lefties... Gene Clines passed away at 75 today...

September 1st 1971, playing CF for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he was part of the first daily lineup that included only black and latino players... He had a single and a double in a 10-7 win over the Phillies...

Less than a month later, the Pirates won the World Series in 7 games vs. the Baltimore Orioles.

RIP Mr. Clines

Certainly one of my favorite platoon players and pinch-hitter vs. lefties... Gene Clines passed away at 75 today...

September 1st 1971, playing CF for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he was part of the first daily lineup that included only black and latino players... He had a single and a double in a 10-7 win over the Phillies...

Less than a month later, the Pirates won the World Series in 7 games vs. the Baltimore Orioles.

RIP Mr. Clines

This hit me too for 365 reasons--one of those players of whom I'm not sure I would have paid as much attention to if not for those awesome platoon splits. RIP.

I met Gene Clines one time when he was a hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants around 2002 when I was filling in for the Sacramento Bee Giants beat writer. Great guy, very quiet, and I reminded him he was in my full sights as a Pirates player when I was a kid growing up in Pittsburgh during the 1970s. Gentleman all the way, RIP Gene Clines.

Clines was a pure hitter with a sweet line drive stroke. He was on one of my very first keeper teams in the early seventies. Used to come off the bench and single in a key run. RIP Gene Clines.

I watched him platoon with Greg Gross for Cubs in 77 and 78
RIP