Pittsburgh Pirates All-Time 25-Man Roster
We continue our off-season project with a look at the Pittsburgh Pirates All-Time 25-Man Roster.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are one of the oldest franchises in baseball. They have a connection with the Alleghenys in the American Association, a team that originally played in Allegheny City, which was a separate city until it was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. After five seasons in the AA, the team switched to the National League in 1887.
In 1890, the Alleghenys lost many of their star players to a rival club called the Pittsburgh Burghers of the Players League and had the worst season in franchise history, going 23-113. The owner of the Alleghenys, Dennis McKnight, was forced to return the franchise to the league. Soon after he did so, he joined the backers of the Burghers and re-purchased the National League franchise and re-chartered the team under a different corporate name.
While this was happening, the team signed second baseman Lou Bierbauer of the American Association’s Philadelphia Athletics, which enraged the owners of the Athletics. They had mistakenly failed to include Beirbauer on their reserve list. The Alleghenys refused to release Bierbauer. When the Athletics called them “piratical”, they adopted the nickname Pirates. Around this same time, the United States Board on Geographic Names forced the city of Pittsburgh to change their name to Pittsburg, by dropping the “h”. Because of this, the team was known as the Pittsburg Pirates until Pittsburgh got its “h” back in 1911. Even though they’d been known as the Pirates for many years, the first time the name appeared on the team’s uniforms was in 1912.
The Pirates were very good in the early part of the 20th century. They finished in first place three straight years from 1901 to 1903 and represented the National League in the first ever World Series, which they lost to the Boston Americans, five games to three. Deacon Phillippe started five of those games and won three.
The best team in franchise history was the 1909 team that went 110-42 and beat the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. In that series, shortstop Honus Wagner hit .333/.467/.500, while Detroit’s star, Ty Cobb, hit .231/.310/.346. You can imagine how Cobb felt about that.
The Pirates reached the World Series twice in the 1920s. They beat the Washington Senators in the 1925 series. This team had Pie Traynor at third base and Max Carey in center field. The 1927 Pirates still had Pie Traynor at third base, but young Paul Waner was the best player on the team. Unfortunately, they were blown out in a four-game sweep by the vaunted “Murderer’s Row” New York Yankees team that won 110 games and had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who combined to hit 107 home runs that year.
The stretch of seasons from 1946 to 1957 was an ugly period for the Pirates. They finished in last or second-to-last 10 times in 12 years. They bottomed out with a 42-112 season in 1952. One of the few bright spots during this time was outfielder Ralph Kiner, who led the league in home runs seven years in a row.
After a fourth place finish in 1959, the Pirates rode great seasons from Dick Groat, Don Hoak, and Roberto Clemente to the 1960 pennant and their third World Series title. They then had one of their best stretches of play during the 1970s when they won the NL East six times in 10 years and went to the World Series twice, winning both in seven games against the Baltimore Orioles. These were the teams of Willie “Pops” Stargell, and Dave Parker. The 1979 team was known as “The Fam-A-Lee” thanks to the Sister Sledge hit that became their theme song.
The 1980s were mostly bleak for the Pirates. They finished in last place three years in a row, including a record of 57-104 in 1985, which was the first time they lost 100 games in a season since 1954. The team found success again in 1990. They won the NL East three straight years, but lost in the NLCS each year, twice in seven games.
The 1992 NLCS loss was particularly painful for Pirates fans. The team won 96 games during the regular season, but lost three of the first four games in the NLCS. They came back to win Games 5 and 6 and had a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 with ace Doug Drabek on the mound. The Braves rallied and it came down to Pittsburgh reliever Stan Belinda against little-used pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera with the bases loaded and the Pirates up by one run. On a 2-1 pitch, Cabrera tore the heart out of Pirates fans.
Fittingly, Cabrera’s single to left was fielded by Barry Bonds, whose throw to the plate was just off the plate enough to allow former Pirate Sid Bream to slide in with the winning run for the Braves. Bonds was the best player on those Pirates teams of the early 1990s. After this series loss, he signed as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants and went on to become one of the best, and most controversial, players in history.
The Pirates, meanwhile, fell into a prolonged slump. They finished under .500 every year from 1993 until 2013. That 20-year stretch is the longest streak of losing seasons in professional sports history. It finally ended in 2013 when the Pirates made the playoffs as a wild card team. They beat the Reds in the wild card game, but lost to the Cardinals in the NLDS. In 2014 and 2015, they lost the wild card game, first against the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner and then against the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta.
The Pirates have had some bad stretches of play in their history, but have also won the World Series five times. Only three National League teams have more World Series titles.
The Pirates’ all-time 25-man roster is overloaded in the outfield but light in the infield and bullpen. It also has an interesting quirk in that the team’s four best position players were regulars at two positions. Shortstop features one of the all-time greats at the position in Honus Wagner, along with another shortstop who is among the top 10 in history, Arky Vaughan. Right field has two of the best in history—Roberto Clemente and Paul Waner.
With that, here is the Pittsburgh Pirates all-time 25-man roster.