Pittsburgh Pirates
From BR Bullpen
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Franchise |
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Also known as Pittsburgh Alleghenys, Pittsburgh Innocents, Pittsburgh Corsairs, Pittsburgh Buccaneers, and Pittsburgh Bucs Franchise Record: 9489-9196 World Series Titles: 5 (1909, 1925, 1960, 1971, 1979) National League Pennants: 9 (1901, 1902, 1903, 1909, 1925, 1927, 1960, 1971, 1979) Playoffs: 14 (1903, 1909, 1925, 1927, 1960, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1979, 1990, 1991, 1992) Franchise Players: Honus Wagner, Pie Traynor, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Paul Waner, Arky Vaughan, Fred Clarke, Barry Bonds, Jake Beckley, Babe Adams, Wilbur Cooper, Max Carey, Ralph Kiner |  Pittsburgh Pirates Logo |
The first baseball team in Pittsburgh was formed in the 1882 American Association in the city of Allegheny (now Pittsburgh's North Side); in the fashion of the time the team was merely known as the Alleghenies. The team joined the National League in 1887 after arguments with the AA over the contracts of Sam Barkley and Jumbo McGinnis. The team would get a real nickname in 1891. After the collapse of the Players League, the Pirates again got into a contrast dispute. The owners of the Philadelphia Athletics had expected 2B Lou Bierbauer to return to his pre-PL team; instead he wound up with the Pittsburgh club. It was said that the Steel City squad had "pirated" away Bierbauer and they were thereafter known as the Pirates (and related unofficial nicknames)
The Pirates became an NL powerhouse in 1900 when owner Barney Dreyfuss merged the team with Louisville, sending Pittsburgh Wagner, Clarke, Deacon Phillippe, Tommy Leach, Claude Ritchey and Rube Waddell to join a team that already had Ginger Beaumont, Sam Leever and Jack Chesbro. From 1901 to 1903, the team won the NL pennant every season and posted the best record in club history in '02. In 1903, the team participated in the first World Series, falling to the Boston Pilgrims.
The team remained strong throughout the decade (winning the 1909 World Series in the year Forbes Field opened) but faded when Wagner and Clarke retired and Leach left town. They returned to prominence in the 20s and 30s behind players like the Waner brothers, Pie Traynor, Carey, Kiki Cuyler, Vaughan, George Grantham and Glenn Wright. Once this group left in the late 30s and 40s, things again turned sour. Ralph Kiner was the sole bright spot of many of the teams in the late 40s and early 50s. The team had not prepared well for the farm-system era. To fix this, they brought in Branch Rickey as General Manager.
The Rickey teams were known as the "Rickey Dinks" for the number of young kids who were playing. While Rickey would not remain to see the fruits of his projects, the increased attention to the minors led to the development of guys like Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, Vernon Law, Bob Friend, Bob Skinner, Dick Groat and ElRoy Face who would lead the team to a World Series title in 1960.
The Pirates, initially slow to integrate, were quickly becoming one of the most integrated teams and sent out the first all-minority lineup in baseball history. Players like Stargell, Clemente, Dave Parker, Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen and Dock Ellis played pivotal roles in establishing the team as one of the greatest in the National League in the 1970s.
Again the team declined as the older players left or faded away. The farm system continued to produce with Bonds and the deft hand of GM Syd Thrift brought the team lots of talent in trades - in the span of a few years, the team picked up young prospects Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke and Doug Drabek and turned them into stars. Three heart-break years in a row in the NLCS followed from 1990 to 1992.
The Pirates, pleading an inability to sign expensive players, let Bonds, Bonilla and Drabek go and began a series of 13 straight losing seasons. The plight was worsened under GM Cam Bonifay, who kept signing has-beens and never-weres like Pat Meares and Derek Bell to expensive, multi-year contracts. The team repeatedly let their young prospects go for little to nothing - Chris Shelton, Chris Young, Aramis Ramirez and more left town in poor administrative moves. During this period, the team foisted the financing of a new stadium on the citizens of Pittsburgh. While fans have been pleased with the wonderful design of PNC Park, they remain angry with the funding mechanisms employed and the team's claims of a new park helping attendance proved as silly and empty as such claims usually are. Replacing Bonifay with Dave Littlefield as GM did little good; Littlefield did not sign over-the-hill players but continued to ask for little in trades, requesting "major-league-ready" players instead of young prospects.
In 2008, the team tied the North American professional sports record for futility with 16 consecutive losing seasons; only the 1933-1948 Philadelphia Phillies had done as poorly.
