The Pittsburgh Pirates celebrated their 7-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Monday with their usual line of high-fives.
There was no fanfare, no parade planned or champagne popping. It was just another win. Much like their 1-0 victory over the Texas Rangers on September 9, 2013 was just another win, as was their 3-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox on September 18, 2014.
All three of the aforementioned wins secured the Pirates a winning season. Did you know they did? Did you care?
If you answered no to either of these, then you silently acknowledged just how far the Pirates have come over the last three seasons.
From 1992-2012 the Pirates held a North American sports record for the most consecutive losing seasons with 20. Yes, the infamous losing streak. The streak that hovered above the North Shore like a dark cloud and gave little hope that PNC Park would ever host meaningful baseball games.
There was no such thing as Buctober. Johnny Cueto dropping the ball then giving up a home run after would not even have been deemed plausible for a movie. The thought of them being buyers at the trade deadline was laughable; instead it was “will this be your favorite player’s last season in a Pirate uniform before they are shipped off for prospects?”
A playoff berth was never a realistic goal. Instead, it was if this was going to be the year that this embarrassing streak ended by some dumb luck and a miracle.
The most optimistic season for the Pirates during that rut was perhaps the 2007 one. They had just come off a year in 2006 where they had a winning post-All-Star Break record. Freddy Sanchez just won the batting title, Jason Bay was the team’s superstar, they had a quartet of young, talented arms in the rotation. And of course the move that was going to put them over the edge: acquiring Adam LaRoche to be their long-sought left-handed power bat.
But even then the hope was that if all broke right they would break the streak, not qualify for the playoffs. Of course, that year was yet another flop and it cost general manager Dave Littlefield his job after bafflingly selecting Daniel Moskos with the fourth pick in the MLB Draft and then followed it with the horrific July trade for Matt Morris. Things had never been so low.
Enter Littlefield’s successor, Neal Huntington.
Prior to Huntington, there was no long-term plan to make the team a consistent contender, just one for them to luck their way to an 82-win season. The team would throw money at washed-up veterans like Jeromy Burnitz, Joe Randa and Raul Mondesi and ignore their farm system for no other reason than to hit that elusive win par.
But to make them a winner, it would need to take years to overhaul the organization from top to bottom. Fans were restless, and mostly unwilling after years or misery.
Huntington did it anyway.
By completely blowing up his major league rosters from 2008-2010, he ensured the streak would go on. The cries for his job were loud; Huntington wasn’t deterred by them.
One of the most beautiful ballparks ever built, with a pristine view of downtown and the Allegheny River glistening in the background running beneath the golden Roberto Clemente Bridge that shines like a star when sun sets, continued to sit nearly-empty during games. It was as depressing as a graveyard, as dormant as an expired volcano. The grey September skies that hung over PNC Park exemplified the club’s outlook. Ownership was seen as miserly, and bobbleheads and fireworks were the only draw for fans.
Year three of the Huntington era yielded a 105-loss season – the most in franchise’s 129-year history. The franchise made famous by baseball legends like Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell was past the point of a national laughing stock, and instead was just straight embarrassing.
But the dormant volcano did become active again, and with the focus of flooding the system with talented prospects, it finally erupted. Huntington finally produced a winner in his sixth year on the job.
And the Pirates did not just back into a winning season, they did it in a way so convincingly that fans almost forgot the streak was broken in 2013. Now, they are in the midst of a third straight playoff season; achieving a winning season is hardly even worthy of a footnote during a game recap anymore.
Fans flock to PNC Park in droves, and the blackouts during the 2013 and 2014 post-season show the type of atmosphere Pirate fans can produce. The Pirates finally have re-energized the fan base, especially the ones that had no semblance of what a Pirates’ post-season was like.
I was born 12 days after Sid Bream wheel chaired slid across home plate in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS to eliminate the Pirates from the playoffs; they weren’t back again until the night before I could legally buy alcohol.
If that does not put the losing streak into perspective, I don’t know what will.
The thought of the Pirates making the playoffs was always a nice what if, but one I could only see in video games. Now it is a yearly expectation.
A winning season is not enough. Neither is just simply clinching a playoff berth.
But remember Pirates’ fans just how far this organization has come if things seem bleak or you feel down on them; because it was not that long ago that fans would have killed to have been in this position.
Win No. 82 used to be the barometer for a successful season; now it is just another win in the Race to October.
Photo credit: @Pirates
