The six-foot-seven left-hander took the mound for the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium for the first game of a Sunday doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants on June 8, 1975. It was his major league debut, but he arrived with little fanfare. He was there only because veteran left-hander Ken Brett was placed on what was then called the disabled list. All we knew about him was what the papers told us, i.e., with the Pirates’ Triple-A club in Charleston, he was 7-1 with a 1.77 ERA. From a seat high behind home plate, I was glad I wasn’t a left-handed batter standing in there against that easy, three-quarters delivery. My friend, who was playing PONY League ball at the time, remarked, “He doesn’t bend his back enough.” No, the lefty never did bend his back “enough” due to back problems that plagued him throughout his career.
But the 21-year-old kid never had to pitch from a minor league mound again, and 51 years later, John Candelaria will be inducted into the Pirates Hall of Fame on September 4, along with early 20th Century pitcher Wilbur Cooper and early 21st Century shortstop Jack Wilson. The inductees were revealed on SportsNet Pittsburgh last Wednesday.
The next member of the 2026 @Pirates Hall of Fame class:
LHP, John “The Candy Man” Candelaria 🙌 pic.twitter.com/PwZb910nhl
— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) June 10, 2026
Clemente Intervenes
Candelaria was a basketball star at La Salle Academy in New York and had numerous athletic scholarship offers from colleges. His parents were Puerto Rican, and he was planning to represent Puerto Rico in basketball in the Summer Olympics when the Pirates drafted him in the second round of the 1972 Major League Baseball June Amateur Draft. Baseball Digest interviewed Candelaria for its “The Game I’ll Never Forget” feature in the May/June 2026 issue. As he related to writers Bruce Levine and Joel Bierig, the Pirates’ initial offer wasn’t enticing. They kept increasing it, and Candelaria kept rejecting it. The offer was $25,000 when Candelaria and his parents flew to Pittsburgh to meet with general manager Joe L. Brown. The pitcher turned that one down as well, telling Brown he’d go to the University of Utah instead. Then, who walks into the room but Roberto Clemente. Speaking in Spanish, Clemente told Mr. and Mrs. Candelaria that they could get $40,000 out of Brown. They did, and that sealed the deal.
Candelaria didn’t do too badly in that debut, pitching six innings and giving up three runs in a losing effort. The local press didn’t seek him out for any postgame reflections. The Pirates lost both games, scoring a total of three runs, and the bigger story was the offensive rut they found themselves in of late. Candelaria’s first major league win came at Shea Stadium on June 20. With family and friends in the stands, he threw a complete game four-hitter and defeated his boyhood hero, Tom Seaver, 5-1, thanks to a four-run rally by Pittsburgh in the ninth. Candelaria has called that his most memorable game.
The “Candy Man” continued to pitch well. On June 26, he was 2-1 in four starts and had given up just nine runs in 29 innings. Brett was coming off the DL, and rookie right-hander Kent Tekulve was coming up from Triple-A to add a badly needed right-hander to the relief corps. The staff was overbalanced toward the left side, and a left-hander had to be subtracted. Candelaria stayed. Veteran “Sudden Sam” McDowell, a former All-Star and Pittsburgh native who was signed to serve as a gate attraction, was released. McDowell admitted to David Fink of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The kid has pitched absolutely fabulous baseball, so it had to be me.” The “Candy Man” had a good rookie year, pitching better than his 8-6 record, posting a 2.76 ERA and 1.086 WHIP.
First Time in the Spotlight
The Pirates went on to repeat as National League East Division champions and met the Cincinnati Reds in the best-of-five League Championship Series. The Reds took the first two games in Cincinnati. The scene shifted to Three Rivers. Candelaria took the mound in Game 3 in the hope of extending the series. I lucked out that night and was invited to the game by a friend who had seats in the sixth row behind home plate. In Candelaria’s first big moment in the national spotlight, he accounted for himself well. Throwing his fastball at two speeds – hard and harder – he struck out 14 Reds in 7.2 innings. The 14 strikeouts broke Seaver’s NL playoff record of 13 (also in a losing effort to the Reds) and tied Joe Coleman’s major league playoff record. Alas, he also gave up a second-inning home run to Dave Concepcion, and with two outs in the eighth inning, he walked pinch-hitter Merv Rettenmund and surrendered a home run to Pete Rose that gave the Reds a 3-2 lead. The Pirates tied the game but lost, 5-3, in 10 innings.
“I just went wild,” Candelaria said to Bob Smizik of The Pittsburgh Press. “I can’t explain it. I tried to throw it easy on the 3-0 [to Rettenmund] and still couldn’t find the plate. Maybe my inexperience killed me. After I walked Rettenmund, I slowed up on my fastball and threw it down the middle.” Still, Candelaria’s courageous performance drew praise from the national TV audience. Several Cincinnati residents called the talk shows in Pittsburgh and said they couldn’t help rooting for the young rookie.
Home runs and back problems would plague the Candy Man throughout his career. He gave up 10 round-trippers in his first nine games in 1976. Usually, they were solo shots, and his ERA was 3.19 at that point. “I throw a lot of strikes,” he told Smizik. “I guess if I keep putting the ball in there, I’ve got to expect some homers.” Later, he discussed his back injury, first diagnosed in 1974, with Smizik. “The doctor said it probably happened when I was a kid. He said I must have fallen out of a tree. I never fell out of a tree, but I was hit by a trolley. The only way it can be cured is by an operation, and if I get the operation, I can’t pitch anymore. I guess I’ll enjoy it while I can.” In a 1983 in-depth Q&A with Larry O’Reilly of The Press, Candelaria revealed that the issue was an opening in his spinal cord that needed to be fused.
“Candy Bars LA From Hit Column”
That was the headline in the August 10, 1976, Press the night after Candelaria tossed a no-hitter against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was Candy Bar Night at Three Rivers. The D.L. Clark Company donated candy bars – called “Clark Bars” in the vernacular of Pittsburgh – to be given away to the first 10,000 fans to enter the stadium. Candelaria allowed just three baserunners, all in the third inning, due to a walk and two errors. He got out of the jam by getting Bill Russell to ground into a force to end the inning. Three occasions threw a scare into the young lefty. Ted Sizemore smoked a line drive directly at shortstop Frank Taveras in the sixth. The next inning, Ron Cey’s drive to the center-field warning track was caught by Al Oliver. “If he pulls it, it’s a homer,” said Candelaria to Smizik. The game ended with a shallow fly ball off Russell’s bat. Oliver caught it, narrowly avoiding a collision with Taveras as Candelaria and a nation held their collective breath.
“My fastball wasn’t overpowering,” Candelaria told Smizik, “but it was moving. I was throwing the ball where I wanted it.” Dodgers third base coach Tommy Lasorda was effusive in his praise when discussing Candelaria with Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams. “He’s great, simply great,” gushed Lasorda. “He has a fine future ahead of him. He can be a superstar once he gets over mistakes all young pitchers do.”
The offices of the D.L. Clark Company were located within a short walking distance of Three Rivers. The brash Candelaria walked in the next day and suggested to the vice president that they could “do something” together, like name a candy bar after him. The executive asked him to leave. Candelaria finished the 1976 season with a 16-7 record and a 3.15 ERA. The Pirates won 92 games but finished in second place behind the upstart Philadelphia Phillies, ending their stranglehold on the East Division. The club probably should have been retooled in 1975, but Brown and manager Danny Murtaugh had been overly loyal to certain players from the 1971 World Series champion team who weren’t cutting it anymore. That would change.
A 20-Game Winner
Brown and Murtaugh retired after the 1976 season. The new GM was former Pirates catcher and farm director Harding Peterson. To replace Murtaugh, Peterson traded catcher Manny Sanguillen and $100,000 to the Oakland Athletics to get their manager, Chuck Tanner, a native of nearby New Castle. Tanner was more outgoing and enthusiastic than the staid Murtaugh. Charley Feeney of the Post-Gazette reported that when someone suggested to Tanner that he had a team full of flakes, he said, “I’ll take all the flakes I can get as long as they can play ball.”
Candelaria had his finest season in 1977, going 20-5 while leading the majors with a 2.34 ERA and a .800 winning percentage. The last Pirate to win 20 was Vern Law in 1960. Candelaria also led the NL by surrendering 29 homers, and although it’s not a measurable stat, he probably led the majors in back pain, too. After he notched win No. 20 by defeating the Chicago Cubs, 3-1, with a complete game effort on September 30, Candelaria discussed his chances of winning the NL Cy Young Award with Smizik. The favorite, and ultimate winner, was Steve Carlton of the Phillies, who was 23-10 with a 2.64 ERA. “I’ve done something nobody has done since Sandy Koufax,” said the Candy Man. “Carlton plays for a team that has great defense and scores a lot of runs. I’d vote for myself. Nobody had a better year.” When Koufax did it in 1965, he was the unanimous choice for the Cy Young. However, in 1977, in the ultimate absurdity, Candelaria finished fifth in the voting.
Candelaria’s back worsened during the season, but with the Pirates in a pennant race – they finished second – he didn’t take any time off. In August, his catchers, Duffy Dyer and Ed Ott, explained Candelaria’s success to Smizik. “His fastball looks so good [to batters] because he has such a good breaking ball,” said Dyer. “He’s got four good pitches,” said Ott. “That’s what makes him so good. I wouldn’t be afraid to call any of his pitches on a 3-2 count. He has excellent location on all of his pitches. His fastball moves so much. It really tails.”
Party Like It’s 1979
Candelaria was hurting in 1978 and had an off year by his standards, going 12-11 with a 3.24 ERA, although his 4.0 WAR indicates he pitched better than his record. By August 1979, he was throwing hard again. He finished 14-9 with a 3.22 ERA for the eventual World Series champions. Tanner tabbed him to start Game 1 of the NLCS in Cincinnati against the Reds. With his back troubling him again, Candelaria pitched 6.2 innings, yielding two runs. The Pirates won the game in the 11th inning, 5-2, on Willie Stargell’s three-run home run off Tom Hume. The Pirates swept the best-of-five series and prepared to face the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.
Candelaria wasn’t healthy enough to pitch again for another 11 days, when he started Game 3 of the Series at Three Rivers on a chilly Friday night. He was throwing hard and had the Baltimore batters pounding his sinker into the turf. Then in the third inning, rain started to fall, and Candelaria walked Kiko Garcia and gave up a home run to Benny Ayala. When the inning was over, the umpires called for a rain delay, which lasted 47 minutes. When Candelaria came back for the fourth, he wasn’t the same pitcher. He didn’t record an out during the inning. The next pitcher, Enrique Romo, wasn’t much better, and the Candy Man was charged with six runs, as the Orioles took Game 3, 8-4.
After five games, the Orioles had a 3-2 Series lead as it shifted back to Memorial Stadium. For Game 6, Tanner sent his money pitcher, Candelaria, to the mound against veteran Jim Palmer. Years later, interviewed by SNP, Tekulve said that Candelaria was in so much back pain that he couldn’t bend over to tie his shoes before the game. Candelaria held the Orioles scoreless through five innings on five hits, with Palmer matching him in putting zeroes on the scoreboard. In the Pirates’ dugout, Candelaria could be heard screaming on every pitch. When Candelaria came out to start the sixth, as Ott related to Dan Donovan of The Press, “He was warming up with [coach] Joe Lonnett and threw one pitch. He had this big old hurt on his face. He said he was all right, but I could tell he wasn’t. He’d say he was all right on his deathbed.” Tanner came out to check on him, but Candelaria said he was OK to pitch. “You’re not a very good liar,” Ott told his pitcher. After the Candy Man retired the side on one hit, Tanner sent Lee Lacy to bat for him in the seventh inning. The Pirates scored two runs in the seventh and two more in the eighth. Tekulve pitched the last three innings to preserve the victory.
The Pirates won Game 7, 4-1, the next night, thanks to Stargell’s big blast in the sixth inning. In the celebratory clubhouse, the Pirates were joined by President Jimmy Carter. “Great Series!” said Carter, who quickly added, “Both teams!” After all, he would need votes in Baltimore, too, next year.
Bozo
Although the Pirates finished in third place with an 83-79 record, the 1980 season was a mess. Stargell was limited to 67 games because of an injury. Tanner overworked the bullpen early, anticipating a work stoppage that wouldn’t come for another year. Starter Bert Blyleven left the team in April because he was frustrated about Tanner not letting him achieve his personal goals. He returned two weeks later, but something seemed off with the team when he pitched, as if they were trying too hard. The Pirates lost 17 of his final 29 starts. Blyleven had an uncharacteristic 3.94 ERA over that stretch. Candelaria had an off-year, too, going 11-14 with a 4.01 ERA.
In the strike-interrupted 1981 season, Candelaria pitched in only six games before a damaged nerve in the bicep of his throwing arm ended his season. After threatening to test free agency and requesting a trade due to dissatisfaction about his contract negotiations, Candelaria inked a new multi-year deal in August 1982. He declined to reveal the terms, telling Donovan only that he would be in Pittsburgh for “a long time” and wouldn’t have to “worry about paying my electric bill.”
The Pirates won 84 games in each of 1982 and 1983, staying in contention but finishing out of first place. Candelaria was 27-15 with a 3.09 ERA across those two seasons. But by 1984, he was unhappy. The Pirates offense was punchless, and they finished in last place with a 75-87 record. Candelaria, who was used to playing for winners, publicly criticized Peterson for failing to add power hitters to the team, calling him a “bozo.” He posted a 12-11 record and 2.72 ERA in 1984. Late in the season, Tanner announced plans to convert Candelaria into a reliever. When he managed the Chicago White Sox, Tanner had successfully converted Rich Gossage and Terry Forster into relievers. Candelaria told Jerry Bonkowski of The Press, “I just want to pitch. I don’t know at this stage of my career if [going to the bullpen] is what I want to do. But we talked about it, and it’s fine with me. Pitching is pitching – it doesn’t matter if you start or relieve.”
The 1985 Pirates were even worse than in 1984. They were last again, this time with a 57-104 record. Peterson was fired during the season, and Brown was brought out of retirement to finish the season as GM before the team would be sold. In June, Candelaria wanted out, and he waived his right to veto a trade. On a nationally televised game, cameras caught him wearing an Orioles cap in the Pirates dugout. Pitching strictly in relief, he had a 3.64 ERA and nine saves in 37 games for the Pirates. Finally, on August 2, Brown shipped him off, not to Baltimore, but to the California Angels in a six-player deal.
Return
Candelaria would pitch for the Angels (1985-87), Mets (1987), New York Yankees (1989), Montreal Expos (1989), Minnesota Twins (1990), Toronto Blue Jays (1990), and Dodgers (1991-92), before returning to the Pirates as a free agent for the 1993 season. Now 39 years old, his best days were behind him. He posted an 8.24 ERA in 24 relief appearances. The Pirates released him in July. He retired rather than seeking another opportunity.
Today he’s older and mellower, and says he understands now that Peterson couldn’t just snap his fingers and acquire power hitters. In 2024, he summarized his career for SNP thusly: “I haven’t had to work a day in my life because I can throw a ball.”
