Pittsburgh Pirates Quizzes

The Pittsburgh Pirates began in 1882 as the Alleghenys of the American Association, joined the National League in 1887, and acquired the Pirates nickname after allegedly “pirating” a player from another club in the early 1890s. Honus Wagner, the greatest shortstop of the dead-ball era, led Pittsburgh to the 1909 World Series title in the first season of Forbes Field. The 1925 club won another championship, and the 1927 team ran into Murderers’ Row. For half a century Pittsburgh baseball was Wagner, Pie Traynor, Paul Waner, and a smoky-city following that filled a jewel of a ballpark in Oakland.

The 1960 World Series remains the franchise’s most replayed treasure: Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 walk-off homer against the Yankees, the first to end a Series, after a seesaw game that also featured Hal Smith’s earlier homer. Roberto Clemente then became the club’s moral and athletic center — a right fielder of unmatched arm and pride who collected his 3,000th hit in 1972 and died that New Year’s Eve on a relief flight to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua. The 1971 champions, with Clemente as World Series MVP, and the 1979 “We Are Family” club of Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, and a raucous clubhouse, won Pittsburgh’s fourth and fifth titles.

Three straight NLCS losses in 1990–92, the last on Francisco Cabrera’s single for Atlanta, preceded a 20-year stretch of losing seasons, the longest in the sport’s modern history. PNC Park opened in 2001 to rave architectural reviews and empty October calendars. Andrew McCutchen’s MVP, the 2013 wild-card win over Cincinnati, and back-to-back playoff trips in 2014–15 finally broke the drought. Later rebuilds returned the Pirates to development mode, with a small-market payroll and a ballpark that remains among the most beautiful in baseball.

Five World Series championships, Wagner and Clemente, Mazeroski’s homer, and a two-decade losing streak that tested a steel-city fan base define the Pirates. They are an original National League survivor whose greatest seasons are stitched to civic memory — 1960, 1971, 1979 — and whose recent history is about waiting for the next McCutchen while the Allegheny still frames the best view in the majors.