Origin of the Pittsburgh Pirates Name

My favorite team in baseball is the Pittsburgh Pirates. As a kid in the 1970s there was plenty to cheer about with players like Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Dave Parker and sidewinding pitcher Kent Tekulve. I guess I just took it for granted that the team I loved has a pretty cool swashbuckling name of the Pirates. Well as I git older one of the questions that arises is what is the affiliation with a buccaneer in a town that has no coastline, but only rivers? I dove into the research on it and what I found is an interesting story that even includes my home town of Erie, PA.

Immediately I came to the realization that the Pirates did not start off as the Pirates, and technically did not even play in the City of Pittsburgh at their onset. Well I guess by today's standards they did play in Steeltown but the area of the Burgh where their homegames were was called something different. April 15, 1876 according to the MLB's official website was the start of the ball club, only they were known as the Pittsburgh Alleghenys. The Burgh back then was actually two different municipalities Pittsburgh south of the Rivers and on what is now the North Side the town of Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. The North Side is where Three Rivers Stadium was and now PNC Park and Heinz Field stand today. It is also where pro football was first played when Pudge Heffelfinger was paid to play on the gridiron. Anyway the Alleghenys also played ball on the northern side of the rivers at a venue named Union Park. Being that their home field was in the "metropolis" of Allegheny City it was an easy naming choice for the team. playing at first as an independent they eventually joined a minor league for a year in 1877 called the International Association. It must not have worked so well because they disbanded after that season. Afew years passed and in 1882 the club reformed as the Alleghenys once again and joined the American Association of baseball. They soon changed home venues to Recreation Park, yeah where Pudge played, and jumped to a rival conference of teams know as the National League in 1887. Now that assoociation sounds familiar doesn't it? Pittsburgh of the National League! In fact the club's first game in the NL was on April 30, 1887, when they defeated the Chicago White Stockings, 6-2.

The 1882 Pittsburgh Alleghenys baseball club courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

That may have been the highlight game for the first few year in the NL. The Allelghenys were a dreadful product, never finishing higher than fifth place in the 8-team league. Now that sound familiar to us modern day Pittsburgh baseball fans. It got so bad that in 1890 even the good players the club had decided to bail and go to other more competitive squads. Many in fact jumped to a new team the Pittsburgh Burghers Club who played in a start up Player's League. The 1890 record of the Alleghenys was a dreadful 23-113, uhg! It didn't seem like it at the time but things were about to change with the fortunes of the team though and who would've thunk that it would get better, much better. First the Players League folded aftre just one season, and the players who had left other leagues to join those clubs were expected to return to their previous teams in 1891.

The Alleghenys did see some returning players but they also watched for other opportunities as well to improve. They had their eye keenly on second baseman Lou Bierbauer, who in 1889 played for the Philadelphia Athletics in the American Association before spending a year with the Brooklyn Ward’s Wonders in the Players League in 1890. Bierbauer was in essence a free agent, and being a stud athlete almost everybody and their brother wanted his services on their team. One thing the Alleghenys had on their side was the big bonus realtors always claim, "Location, location, location!" Bierbauer lived in the offseason lived 100 miles due North in Erie, Pennsylvania, yes also the locale of your Sports Jersey and Pigskin Dispatch websites and podcasts.

So Alleghenys manager Ned Hanlon makes a beeline to Erie to start talking to Lou B. According to Sporting News founder Alfred Spink, in his 1910 book The National Game, Hanlon traveled to the Nortwest corner of PA in the dead of winter. Take it from me, that is not a trip for the weary hearted! In fact Spinks says Hanlon had to cross a frozen harbor, in which I am going to assume is Presque Isle Bay and that Bierbauer may have lived on what is now Presque Isle State Park, an sland at the time but has since been connected by a land bridge. The story says that Hanlon traveled to Bierbauer shack during a bitter storm, the sought after second baseman probably fely obliged to let the now freezing NL manager into his how to warm by the fire. Hanlon was persistent withe the oppotunity that arose and he inked Bierbauer to his club before leaving.

The Philadelphia Athletics and the other members of the American Assosiation were livid when they found out that they could not resign the star and accused Hanlon and the Alleghenys of utter "piracy" of thier player. Probably just to stick it to the A's a little bit more the Pittsburgh club adopted the moniker of the Pirates for the 1891 season and beyond. Quite a story indeed to get a nickname, and it had a lot to do with something I am quite familiar with, a winter storm in Erie, PA.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1882 Pittsburgh Alleghenys baseball team taken by an unknown photographer. The teams consists of:

Back row, left to right: George Strief, John Peters, Joe Battin, Chappy Lane, Charlie Morton
Middle row, left to right: Ed Swartwood, Denny Driscoll, Rudy Kemmler, Al Pratt, Harry Salisbury, Mike Mansell, Harry Arundel
Front row, left to right: Billy Taylor, Jim Keenan