BBBLEACHER BOUND

Why PNC Park Matters

The quick read

The Pirates have been a team since 1887, and PNC Park is the fifth place they have called home. The franchise won five World Series across the twentieth century, sent Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell and Honus Wagner to Cooperstown, then spent twenty straight seasons losing before a loud few years in the mid-2010s and the long rebuild that followed. The park itself was a deliberate correction: after three decades in a concrete multi-sport donut, the Pirates built a small two-deck ballpark on the river that put the city skyline in the outfield and Clemente’s bridge at the front door. The four statues outside the gates are the short version of all of it.

Five homes since 1887

The Pirates predate most of what people think of as baseball history. They were founded in 1887 and have played in five homes. Recreation Park came first, then Exposition Park on the North Side. Forbes Field in Oakland followed, from 1909 to 1970, an ivy-less classic where Wagner and Clemente played. Then Three Rivers Stadium from 1970 to 2000, the concrete donut the team shared with the Steelers. PNC Park opened in 2001.

Each move tells you something about the era that built it, and the current park was designed as a reaction to the one before it. More on that below.

Five World Series titles

The franchise has won it all five times. In 1909, Wagner’s Pirates beat Ty Cobb’s Tigers. They won again in 1925. In 1960, Bill Mazeroski ended it with one swing. In 1971, Clemente carried them past Baltimore. And in 1979, the “We Are Family” Pirates behind Willie Stargell took the last one.

Two of those five have their own sections here, because two of those five changed the franchise.

Mazeroski’s 1960 walk-off

Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, Forbes Field, Pirates and Yankees tied 9-9 in the bottom of the ninth. Bill Mazeroski led off and hit it over the left-field wall. It remains the only walk-off home run to end a Game 7 in World Series history.

The Yankees had outscored the Pirates 55-27 across the series and lost it on one pitch. That is the game Pittsburgh still talks about, and the spot where the Forbes Field wall stood is marked to this day.

Roberto Clemente

Clemente is the moral center of the franchise, and PNC treats him that way on purpose. He played eighteen seasons in Pittsburgh, won the 1971 World Series as its best player, and collected his 3,000th career hit here in the last regular-season at-bat of his life, on September 30, 1972.

He died on New Year’s Eve 1972, when a plane he had loaded with earthquake relief supplies for Nicaragua went down off Puerto Rico. He was 38. The Hall of Fame waived its waiting period and inducted him the next year.

His number was 21. The right-field wall at PNC stands 21 feet for it. The bridge over the Allegheny that fans walk across to reach the park is named for him. His statue stands at the center-field gate at the foot of that bridge. None of it is decoration. It is the franchise keeping its most important player in view.

We Are Family, 1979

The 1979 Pirates adopted Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” as a clubhouse anthem and rode it to a title, coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat Baltimore in the World Series. Willie Stargell, 39 years old, shared the NL MVP that year and won the World Series MVP. He is the second Pirate the park keeps a statue of, at the left-field gate.

The park that rejected the donut

Three Rivers Stadium was a concrete bowl built for two sports, symmetrical and enclosed, the kind of stadium that could have been in any city. When the Pirates replaced it, they went the other way entirely.

PNC Park opened in April 2001 with two decks instead of three, the first ballpark in the United States built that low since Milwaukee’s County Stadium in 1953. The design nods to Forbes Field, with masonry archways, terra cotta trim, and exposed steel trusswork, and it leaves the outfield open to the city. HOK Sport, now Populous, designed it, with L.D. Astorino as architect of record. It cost about $216 million, most of it public money, with the Pirates contributing $40 million.

The first regular-season game was April 9, 2001, against Cincinnati. The Pirates lost 8-2. The building has aged into a consensus favorite, and the reason is the same design call that started it: they built something small and pointed it at the river.

The twenty-year losing streak

The stretch that defines the modern franchise is not a title. From 1993 through 2012, the Pirates finished under .500 twenty seasons in a row, the longest streak of losing seasons in the history of major North American pro sports.

It is worth stating plainly rather than dancing around. For two decades a fan could buy a PNC ticket the day of almost any game, because the team gave people little reason to plan ahead. That history is part of why the park is still a value market today, covered in the seats and when-to-visit sections.

The 2013 blackout

The streak broke in 2013, and the night it broke is the loudest in the park’s history. On October 1, 2013, the Pirates hosted the Reds in the National League Wild Card game, their first home postseason baseball since 1992. The team asked fans to wear black. They did.

Cincinnati started Johnny Cueto. The crowd chanted his name, “Cue-to, Cue-to,” until Cueto dropped the ball on the mound mid-windup. Russell Martin homered twice, the Pirates won 6-2, and the blackout crowd became the image of the whole era.

Pittsburgh made the Wild Card game three years running, 2013 through 2015, and hosted all three at PNC. The 2014 and 2015 games both ended in shutouts: Madison Bumgarner and the Giants won 8-0 in 2014, and Jake Arrieta and the Cubs won 4-0 in 2015. The Pirates have not been back to the postseason since 2015.

The Skenes era

The current reason to circle a date is Paul Skenes. The Pirates drafted him first overall in 2023, called him up in 2024, and watched him become one of the best pitchers in baseball almost immediately. He was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2024 and has been named to three straight All-Star teams, 2024 through 2026.

The team around him is still rebuilding, and the postseason drought since 2015 is real. But Skenes start days are the exception to the value-market rule: on the nights he pitches, a soft-attendance park fills up. The when-to-visit section treats his starts as one of the few dates that actually move tickets.

The four statues

The history of this franchise is walkable. Four bronze statues stand outside the gates, and a lap of all four is the standard pre-game move for a first visit.

Honus Wagner stands at the Home Plate gate. His statue was first unveiled at Forbes Field in 1955, moved to Three Rivers, and moved again to PNC. Roberto Clemente stands at the center-field gate at the foot of his bridge, a statue dedicated in 1994 and brought over from Three Rivers. Willie Stargell stands at the left-field gate; his statue was unveiled on April 7, 2001, two days before the park’s first game, and Stargell died on April 9, 2001, the day PNC hosted that first game. Bill Mazeroski, whose 1960 swing is the franchise’s single most famous moment, stands at the right-field entrance, a statue added in 2010.

Walk the four and you have the whole story: the dead-ball star, the humanitarian, the anchor of the family, and the man who ended a Game 7. The first-timer section maps the lap.