"In today’s climate it’s pretty cool that they would honor someone who often dishonored them."
Jim Campanis, a backup catcher and pinch hitter who’d had cups of coffee with the Dodgers and the Royals of the mid-20th century, was enjoying his last big league latte with the Pirates in 1973, a call-up that would last all of six games, or just long enough to save Bob Smizik’s life.
Smizik, in the Three Rivers Stadium clubhouse doing the first serious beat work of the seriously accomplished career that would make him a Pittsburgh sportswriting legend, was about to be dismembered by Pirates pitcher Bob Johnson, when, well, I’ll let him tell it.