May’s Loyalty to Pirates and Leyland Refreshing

If you think you have seen former Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Milt May out and about Manatee County, you probably have.

May is like many professional baseball players who began their careers either in Bradenton during spring training or resided in communities throughout Manatee County in the off-season. They enjoyed their surroundings so much that they never left.

May’s story is typical of several former Pirates. Originally from Indiana, May moved to Pinellas County, to St. Petersburg, where he played high school baseball. Drafted by the Pirates in 1968, May learned the positives about living in Bradenton during his rookie season in the minor leagues.

“In 1969 I moved to Bradenton, met my wife, and I’ve never left. What’s not to like about the area? Back then, this (Bradenton) was a much smaller town,” said May prior to a meet-and-greet appearance with Pirates’ fans this past March at LECOM Park. “The only time there were crowds in town was during spring training.”

Through his playing days, an MLB career that lasted 15 seasons with four other clubs along with the Pirates, May shared fields with many of the game’s greatest of all-times; hall of famers, all-stars, and World Series champions.

Not many 11th-round draft picks get to experience baseball on the MLB level. Not many have experienced clubhouse celebrations as part of a World Series celebration – twice.

When May made his debut as a Pirate in September 1970, a game against the Chicago Cubs in the Pirates’ new home - Three Rivers Stadium, his teammates were some of the organization’s biggest names. Their names on the backs of their jerseys were a virtual ‘who’s who’ in Pirates’ history.

Hebner, Oliver, Stargell, Mazeroski, Clemente, and Sanguillen, these are the people who May observed, and learned from. During his sophomore season of 1971, as a 21-year-old, May was part of the Pirates’ club that defeated the Baltimore Orioles to become MLB’s best club that October.

Among the people May encountered in his baseball career with whom he developed a lasting friendship is Jim Leyland.

Next month, in Cooperstown, New York, Leyland is part of the Class of 2024 that will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Half of Leyland’s 22 MLB seasons managing ball clubs, half were as the Pirates’ skipper.

So, when Leyland learned of his election last December in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Winter Meetings, May was proud of his friend’s accomplishment. May and Leyland have been associated for a long time.

“We had heard about each other during our careers,” May remembers. “I finished playing in 1984, and Jim got the Pirates’ job in 1986.”

After being out of the game for a year, May tells of approaching the Pirates about possibly rejoining the organization at a coaching level. The club that drafted him welcomed May back in 1986 as a roving minor league hitting instructor.

A friendship was formed somewhere between Leyland’s first season as the Pirates’ skipper during the spring of 1986 and May’s instructing the club’s future major leaguers. Come the 1997 Pirates’ season, and May was on Leyland’s staff for the next decade as the hitting coach.

“Jim is a unique guy,” says May of Leyland, who scored 93.8% of the Hall of Fame’s Contemporary Era Committee vote last December. “He had a knack for getting players to respect him.”

May, who also served on Leyland’s coaching staff for two years with the Florida Marlins (1997-1998), attributes his former boss’s competitiveness to his players, which separated him from the other managers.

“Jim would get in his player's face if he had to. He also made it a point to get to know each of his players.”

Next month, when Leyland becomes the 24th manager to enter the Hall of Fame ranks, joining other legends such as Connie Mack, Walter Alston, Dick Williams, and Earl Weaver, May will be among those cheering loudest.

“ When I gave him a call to congratulate him, Jim was almost apologetic,” May said. “He’s such a humble guy and a great ambassador for baseball.”

Winning a World Series ring as a player in Pittsburgh and one as a coach with the Marlins, spreading out his playing career in Houston, Detroit, San Francisco, and with the White Sox in Chicago, the bottom line for May is that he considers himself a Pirate.

A Pirate for life living in Manatee County, Milton Scott May knows how good life can be.