About Pittsburgh Pirates
The franchise was founded in 1887 in National League, they were known as Pittsburgh Allegheny’s until 1890 when they were named Pittsburg Pirates until 1911 where the team added the missing “h” to the city name creating what we know now, Pittsburgh Pirates.
The franchise has won 9 NL Pennants since its inception. The first World Series appearance occurred in 1903 where they lost to Boston Americans.
The Pirates had won their first World Series title in 1909 winning against the Detroit.
Since then the franchise went onto winning five NL Pennants that resulted in four more World Series titles with their last one being in 1979 which was against the Baltimore.
The Pirates can add 9 divisional titles but their last one happened all the way down in 1992, more recently the team has been gaining entry to playoffs via wild card berths, every year since 2013, making it just over a 20 years period of no playoff games in Pittsburgh.
The Pirates are members of Central Division and are the only team to win the title (as all their titles come from East Division 1969-93). The team’s colours are black, gold and white and their mascot is Pirate Parrot which was introduced in 1979 as a response to the Phillie Phanatic, since the two teams are known to have fierce rivalry at the time.
Where the Pittsburgh Pirates are really standing out is in having so many players claiming Batting Champion title through the years. 25 times a player from Pittsburgh was declared the batting champion with Bonus Wagner winning 8 titles between 1900-1911.
The luck was not definitely on the side of the franchise when drafting new talent as the team’s first and only Rookie of the Year was Jason Bay who won that award in 2004. Pitching hasn’t been the franchise strong area too as there has been only two CY Young award winners and none since 1990 when Doug Drabek got that award.
Home runs are something of a matter for the franchise as most famously in 1960 World Series the Pirates won the series on a game winning home run the only time that game 7 of the World Series has ever finished with a home run to date. Oh, and there were 11 Home Run champions won by players from Pittsburgh, with Ralph Skinner grabbing it seven times. It is time to invest in some pitchers Pirates!
There have been eight 100 loss seasons in the history of the franchise with the most recent one in 2010 and the Pirates had two 100 win seasons the last one all the way back in 1909.
With the three consecutive wild card berths, the fans and the players must feel uplifted and hoping to improve their last season’s record of 98-64.
