Hi, my name is Mark Walker and I’ll be covering the Pittsburgh Pirates for the Baseball Historians network of sites. I’ve been a life long Pirates fan and I’m fortunate to remember when times were better for Pirates fans. I was eight years old when the Pirates last won a World Series (hard to believe it’s been almost 30 years) and while I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I remember cheering along with my dad as guys like Dave Parker, Willie Stargell and Bill Madlock led the Pirates to the promised land.
Things haven’t gone quite as well for Pirates fans lately. Since winning three straight division titles in the early 1990s, we’ve seen fourteen consecutive losing seasons. Even worse, Pirates fans don’t have anyone to root for. Anytime a player develops, he’s gone in a deadline deal to save money. We can only hope Jason Bay is still around when he’s eligible for free agency. Fortunately, we might be getting a little addition by subtraction because I’m hoping we see new owners here soon.
What is this website going to be about? First off, I’ll be following the present day Pirates. The secondary goal is to provide readers with a little history lesson on a truly great franchise. The Pirates have had one of the greatest players in all of baseball play for the team and they’ve had five World Series wins and nine pennants. So when things are light on news (the hotstove doesn’t usually provide hot news for the Pirates), I’ll be taking a year by year look at the greatest shortstop to ever step on a baseball field. Honus Wagner was picked by Bill James in his Historical Baseball Abstract as the second best player of all time next to only Babe Ruth. Barry Bonds may have slipped in there somewhere but there’s no shame in being third. Regardless, we’ll look at Wagner and maybe go back to the turn of the 20th century and take a look at some of the original Pirates teams.
So stop by from time to time and hopefully you’ll find something worth reading. As always, if you like what you see (or don’t like what you see), leave a comment. I don’t shy from constructive criticism.
