PITTSBURGH PIRATES

Somewhere in the bowels of Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium, the Pittsburgh Pirates built an assembly line that created great hitters as efficiently as the nearby mills produced the sheets of steel that built the city. Since 1900, the Pirates have produced twenty-four batting champions and a parade of Hall of Famers — thirty-six in all that have worn the Pirate uniform at one time in their career.

The Pittsburgh Alleghenys joined the National League in 1887, playing and winning their first game 6-2 over the Chicago White Stockings. The nickname Pirates was hung on the club in 1891 after they were accused of hijacking a player under contract to the Philadelphia Athletics.

The Pirates stocked their roster with talent from surrounding Midwestern teams, most notably a somewhat bowl-legged shortstop named John Peter Wagner. Better known as Honus, he would spend the next seventeen years in Pittsburgh and would be called by both teammates and opponents the best shortstop, and perhaps the best player, in the history of the National League. He would win eight batting titles; retire with three-thousand four-hundred twenty hits and a .328 lifetime average. Wagner would be one of the original five inductees into Baseball's Hall of Fame.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the new American League liberally raided National League teams for talent, but somehow never got around to luring away the better Pirate players. By keeping their roster intact, the Pirates became a preeminent franchise in the National League.

They opened the century by winning three straight pennants (1901-03). The 1902 team won one-hundred three games and finished a mind-boggling twenty-seven games ahead of second place Brooklyn. Over these three seasons, Wagner hit .353, .330 and .355, while workhorse hurler Deacon Phillippe won sixty-four games and Hall of Famer Jack Chesbro won twenty-two and twenty-eight games before leaving for New York in 1903.

The Pirates represented the National League in the very first World Series (1903), a best of nine affair against Boston. Phillippe defeated Cy Young in the first ever Fall Classic game 7-3. Phillippe pitched five complete games in the Series and won three, but Boston won the Championship in eight games.

In 1909, the Pirates moved into Forbes Field and fielded their first World Championship team. The 1909 team won one-hundred ten games, with Wagner hitting .339 and the pitching staff recording a stellar team ERA of 2.07. They bested the Tigers four games to three in the World Series which was billed as a showdown between each league's best player - Pittsburgh's Wagner against Detroit's Ty Cobb. Wagner hit .333, Cobb only .231.

The Pirates began a slow decline in 1910, bottoming out in 1917 with a 51-103 record, a sad swan song to Wagner's career. The Pirates put their assembly line into overdrive in the early 1920's and produced an impressive litany of Hall of Fame hitters: Harold "Pie" Traynor (lifetime .320 over sixteen years and voted the National League's greatest third baseman in baseball's 1969 Centennial Poll); Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler (.321 over eighteen years); Paul Waner (three-thousand one-hundred fifty-two hits, .333 over twenty years and three batting titles), his brother Lloyd Waner (.316 over ninteen years); Arky Vaughn (.318 over sixteen years and one batting title) and Max Carey (two-thousand six-hundred sixty-five hits and .285 over seventeen years).

The Pirates played in two World Series in that decade - they won the 1925 pennant and their second Championship by defeating Washington in seven games. They pounded the great Walter Johnson for a 9-7 win in the decisive game. They finished on top two years later, but ran into the buzz saw that was the 1927 Yankees and lost four straight.

The Pirates were a middle-of-the-pack team from 1928-1945, and a lot worse from 1946-57 when they managed only one winning season (1948) despite Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner slugging home runs at an unmatched pace. He won seven consecutive home run titles (1946-52).

The assembly line geared up again in the mid-1950's, churning out the first Latin superstar, Roberto Clemente (.317 over eighteen years, three-thousand hits and four batting titles), shortstop Dick Groat (.286 over twelve years and one batting title) second baseman Bill Mazeroski (.260 over seventeen years) and, in 1962, Willie Stargell (.282 and four-hundred seventy-five homers, two home run titles, over twenty-two years).

The Pirates smashed their way to the 1960 pennant and exacted revenge against the Yankees in one of the strangest Fall Classics ever played. The Yanks won three games by a composite score of 38-3, but the Pirates won the other four close games, with Mazeroski's walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth of Game Seven giving the Pirates their third World Championship.

The Pirates abandoned Forbes Field for Three Rivers Stadium in 1970 and two years later the team was dealt a tragic blow when Clemente was killed in a New Year's Eve 1972 plane crash.

The assembly line was at it again in the early 1970's, surrounding Stargell with a great generation of hitters including Dave Parker (.290 over nineteen years and two batting titles), Al Oliver (.303 over eighteen years), Richie Zisk (.299 in his six years with the Pirates) and Richie Hebner (.277 and one-hundred twenty-one home runs in his seven years with Pittsburgh). The Pirates also traded for Bill Madlock, already a two time batting champion. He won two more titles while a Pirate and hit .297 during his seven year stint with them.

The Pirates dominated the newly formed National League Eastern Division, winning it five of six years (1970-71-72-74-75) and again in 1979. The 1971 and 1979 teams both won World Championships by beating the Baltimore Orioles in seven games.

After lean years in the 1980's, the Pirates' assembly line produced one of its most special talents in Barry Bonds, who at this writing stands within reach of Henry Aaron's career home run record. In seven seasons with the Pirates, Bonds hit .276 and whacked one-hundred seventy-six home runs. Also emerging was Bobby Bonilla (.284 over six years with Pittsburgh) and Andy Van Slyke (.284 and one-hundred seventeen home runs), via a trade with the Cardinals.

This edition of the Pirates won three straight division titles (1990-92) with Bonds hitting ninety-two home runs and driving in three-hundred thirty-three runs during that span. They failed to make it to the World Series in any of those three seasons and when Bonilla and Bonds left for more lucrative free agent contracts, the Pirates took a severe nosedive and have yet to recover. In fact, they have not had a winning record since 1992.

The Pirates moved into PNC Park in 2001, but somebody forgot to bring the assembly line. Maybe it was disassembled in the same cost-cutting maneuvers that drove away talent (Aramis Ramirez, Jason Kendall Brian Giles), populated the roster with young and inexperienced players, alienated fans, and turned the Pirates into one of the game's most forlorn franchises.

As ownership battles to restore the team's competitiveness and win back fans, it is left to the ghosts of Wagner, Traynor, Waner, Kiner, Clemente and Stargell to remind fans of the proud legacy that was the Pittsburgh Pirates.