Last Word on Baseball is running a tournament<\/a> pitting all 30 all-time rosters against each other. Here is the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> All-Time Team. The Pirates have one of the longest and richest histories in baseball, beginning play with the American Association in 1882 as the Pittsburgh Alleghenys. They joined the National League in 1887 and adopted the \u201cPirates\u201d moniker in 1891.<\/p>\n The Pirates have won seven pennants in the World Series era: 1903, 1909, 1925, 1927, 1960, 1971, and 1979. In addition, they won the NL pennants in 1901 and 1902, giving them nine total. Of teams that have been in the World Series more than twice, they have the best winning percentage (.714), only losing in 1903 to the Boston Americans (now Red Sox<\/a>) and 1927 to the New York Yankees<\/a>. A fun piece of trivia: the 1927 loss was the last time any Big Four team from Pittsburgh lost a title game or title series until the Steelers<\/a> lost Super Bowl XXX<\/a> in 1996.<\/p>\n Despite all this success, they have not even won a pennant, let alone a World Series, since the \u201cWe Are Family\u201d 1979 squad. (Author\u2019s Note: The Pirates are one of two teams to never win a pennant in my lifetime \u2014 and the other one, the Seattle Mariners<\/a>, hasn\u2019t won <\/em>any pennants.)<\/em> They have only made the playoffs six times since then: three straight NL East championships from 1990\u201392 and three straight Wild Card berths from 2013\u201315.<\/p>\n Each all-time team roster has the eight position players, a designated hitter (even the NL teams, for consistency), a starting pitcher, three relievers, and four honorable mentions. For the relievers, starters can be used if a) there aren\u2019t enough elite relievers to fill out the roster or b) if the starters are simply too good to be excluded. Statistics used to determine the spots on the Pirates All-Time roster are only<\/em> from each player\u2019s time with the Pirates. WAR was used as a baseline but not as the be-all, end-all statistic. Due to being overloaded with talent at some positions, we had to leave off some incredibly great players. Two Hall of Famers are in the Honorable Mentions, for crying out loud. Without further ado, here is the Pittsburgh Pirates All-Time Team.<\/p>\n Hall of Famer Fred Clarke will man the helm. He spent 16 seasons as the manager of the Pirates, 15 as a player-manager. Clarke tallied a record of 1422\u2013969, winning the 1909 World Series. His .595 winning percentage is highest in franchise history for anyone who managed more than five games.<\/p>\nFormat<\/h4>\n
Pittsburgh Pirates All-Time Tournament Team<\/h3>\n
Manager<\/h4>\n
Catcher<\/h4>\n