Recalling Pittsburgh Pirates History

This is the first week with no football. The anticipation (cue Carly Simon) is now for NBA, NHL and NCAA basketball to move into post season. That is at least a six week wait.

Baseball is also highly anticipated but two months away. I tried to get into a baseball mood this first week without football by listening to a tape of Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS from radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh and heard little through the static. So often I would be hearing static and not the game as I tried to tune in such stations back then.

The Atlanta Braves rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to win (3-2) in game 7. The Pirates lost that decisive LCS game just like they had lost twenty years earlier vs the Cincinnati Reds. In 1972, the Reds scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to win a decisive 5th game from Pittsburgh.

The 1972 Pirates had won the World Series the year before and would win another seven years later. Additionally, the Pirates won two divisional titles and seriously contended two other times from (1973-1978.)

However, after the horrible loss to Atlanta, the Pirates have finished under the .500 mark in all twenty seasons (one ended by a baseball strike), played since the ’92 NLCS.