It’s a quintessential Pittsburgh tale, involving a surging baseball team, one of its most beloved members, a proud community, enthusiastic sponsor, iconic, locally-based ad agency, revered Pittsburgh musicians, a 110-year tune penned by a Pittsburgh icon and… a bittersweet epilogue.
Return with me to the summer of 1960.
As the Pirates gained momentum, Pittsburgh Brewing, who sponsored their games on KDKA, enlisted Ketchum, MacLeod & Grove, the brewery’s local ad agency, to create a slogan and fight song. Ketchum’s creative team (remember “Mad Men?”) got to work and copywriter Roger McGovern” conceived the slogan. They knew who could write the song: Joe Negri.
At 98, the Pittsburgh jazz guitar master clearly recalls those days. Already an established local TV star in 1960, Negri’s trio was house band on KDKA’s live “Buzz ‘n Bill” variety show. On Iron City’s live commercials during Pirate games, he played solo guitar off-camera as an on-camera hand poured a bottle into a glass. “I was goin’ from A to B to C in those days,” he said.
Negri and “Buzz ‘n Bill” writer Si Bloom co-wrote lyrics to the melody of Pittsburgh native Stephen Foster’s 1850 “Camptown Races” (minus the “doo-dahs”). As a public domain song, no royalties had to be paid. For the recording, Negri suggested a Dixieland combo led by trumpeter Benny Benack, Sr., Clairton High School band director and assistant Pitt band director.
“Most (band members) were music teachers,” Negri said. The combo included clarinetist Ernie Matteo, trombonist Jimmy Tucci, drummer Ronnie Simon, pianist Tom Valerio and bassist Larry Slaugh. At the session, Negri sat in on tenor banjo as a mixed vocal chorus lustily sang the lyrics. “Beat ‘em, Bucs” soon blared from radios, TV sets and Forbes Field’s PA system.
“It became a little bit of an attraction,” Negri said. The Pirates engaged the band to perform inside Forbes Field and travel for select away games starting July 14.
Things changed by late July, after the Pirates racked up a 2-5 streak. Following a July 31 team meeting, management barred the band from playing inside.
“They had to take Benny out of the park, and he started playing outside the door.” Negri said. “Bucs Ban Benny’s Band” was front-page news in the Aug. 30 Post-Gazette.
“We weren’t winning when he was here and we were when he wasn’t,” PR director Jack Berger told reporter Vince Johnson.
Legendary outfielder Roberto Clemente, quoted in his Puerto Rican accent, complained about the song “ees jeenx!” (jinx). Johnson, however, noted as of Aug. 28, the team “had won only two of their last seven games — the same record they compiled with (Benack).” The bandleader was philosophical, telling Johnson “(Catcher) Hal Smith told me about the clubhouse meeting and said ball players were superstitious.”
While the team triumphed over the New York Yankees in the Series, a “Beat ‘em, Bucs” single was late to the party. Released by Robbee Records, owned by Pittsburgh jingle composer, vocalist and vocal coach Lennie Martin, it didn’t appear in stores until the series was underway. After the win, interest in the song quickly vanished. Years later, local newspapers reported as many as 45,000 unsold discs sat in a warehouse. Only Martin, who died in 1963, knew the location.
Pittsburgh Press music editor Carl Apone interviewed Negri, now WTAE’s musical director, and Bloom after the Pirates’ 1971 Series win. His Oct. 22 story “Song Writers (sic) Beaten to Bucks” reported the warehoused recordings and noted the co-writers received only $60 in royalties. Musical trends changed; Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” heralded the team’s 1979 Series triumph.
PG entertainment editor George Anderson spoke to Negri and Bloom for a 1990 story similar to Apone's, noting the miniscule royalty payments and warehoused discs. Negri reported a local record distributor acquired them and sold them to a collector, rumored to be selling them for $20 each.
In the end, it’s impossible to know exactly what happened. Sketchy dealings were a possibility, but the problem could have been bad business decisions by well-meaning people. Why so many discs were pressed is anyone’s guess, and given their late arrival in local stores, few copies may actually have been sold at the time.
The “Beat ‘em, Bucs” mystique, however, endures, symbolizing an older, quirkier, truly unique Pittsburgh era. From his perspective, Negri calls it “truly a complex story.”