The
Pittsburgh Pirates are one of the oldest teams in Major
League Baseball, starting play as the Alleghenys in 1882.
In 1891, the team became the Pirates and has kept the
name since. The team has the distinction of playing in
only one city for its entire existence, a rare thing in
the world of professional sports.
The
Pirates have a history rich with championships and riddled
with huge slumps. The team contended from the beginning,
and under the management of the great Fred Clarke, the
team took the pennant and went to the World Series three
years straight, from 1901-1903, though they failed to
win the championship. In 1909, the Pirates beat the Tigers
for their first World Series title. After a few years
of less-than-stellar seasons, the team took another championship
over the Senators (later known as the Twins) in 1925,
followed by a World Series loss to the Yankees in 1927.
Unfortunately,
the Pirates slumped terribly after that visit to the Series.
The team was rarely a contender again until 1960. That
year, the team turned around and went all the way to the
World Series. After struggling through to game 7, the
Pirates beat the Yankees, and became the first team to
win the World Series championship on a home run, hit by
Bill Mazeroski.
But
the 1960 season was a fluke. The Pirates slumped for the
rest of the decade. Fans did enjoy the presence of one
of the greatest baseball players ever to wear a Pirate
uniform, though. Roberto Clemente was the first star baseball
player from Puerto Rico. He played in Pittsburgh for 18
years, racked up four batting titles, a dozen Gold Gloves,
an MVP award and 12 trips to the All-Star game. He is
often called the best right fielder to ever play the game.
In
1970, a management change took the team to the playoffs,
and all the way to the Series the next year, when the
Pirates beat the Orioles. The Pirates made the playoffs
again in 1972, 1974 and 1975, returning to the World Series
in 1979, again beating the Orioles for the title.
Another
slump hit, and the Pirates didn’t go to the playoffs
again until the 1990s, when they went three years in a
row, from 1990-1992. That was the last of the Pirates’
success stories. The team hasn’t posted a season
average over .500 since.
Pirates
fans have proven fickle over the years. Even the year
of the 1979 World Series, attendance was low, with just
over 17,000 Pirates tickets selling per game. As recently
as the 2005 season, the team ranked dead last in baseball
tickets sold. However, fans may want to return to PNC
Park over the next few years. At the end of the 2005 season,
the Pirates called up more than a dozen players from their
Minor League farm team. As these new players work together,
they may be able to revitalize this beleaguered franchise.
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