YinzPitt

I just can’t let this story be passed up.  Yes, it’s a story dealing with the joke of a baseball team in the MLB.  However, this story is traveling back in time to when the Pittsburgh Pirates were actually good.  The Pirates plan to build a statue of Bill Mazeroski, and reveal these plans to the public at PirateFest over the weekend.

It’s certainly about time.  I for one, am not surprised they finally decided to do this, what I’m more surprised about is the actual time it took them to finally show people their plans on “Maz.”  You literally can’t go to a Pirate game and not be slapped in the face by his Game 7 home run against the Yankees for the Series.  They play it usually before every game in the player introductions, they also usually play it again later in the game to when they go back and show the “Pirates” glorified past.

Which pretty much brings me to my biggest gripe of the Pirates whole advertising plan.  Without relevant wins, and stars on the team, the Pirates organization continually runs old footage from when they were a “real” baseball team.  The typical family person looks at the video during the game and reveals to their children how thrilling it was to be alive in a time like that.  My dad did that to me for years, and hasn’t had a positive thing to say about the team since 1992.  In fact, I’ve been to plenty of Pirates games in the past two years, and haven’t paid for one because people are willingly giving tickets away.  I’m currently 23 years old, and I barely even remember when Bonds played here.  You just can’t keep embarking on the past, because eventually all those people who were around to remember the history will be gone and or lose interest.

Anyways, back to re-living the past, with an excerpt from the Post-Gazette’s website:

The Pirates will unveil plans for a new PNC Park statue honoring Mazeroski as part of this weekend’s PirateFest at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, according to multiple sources. It likely will come during the Friday session, 5-9 p.m., for season-ticket holders. Mazeroski will be in attendance — and signing autographs — that night and Saturday.

The building of the statue has not yet begun, but it is expected to be complete by June 18-19, when the Pirates will celebrate the 50th anniversary of their 1960 World Series championship during a weekend series against the visiting Cleveland Indians. Mazeroski’s ninth-inning home run ended Game 7 at old Forbes Field, bringing a 10-9 victory against the heavily favored New York Yankees.

A design for the statue has been chosen, and it is believed to be based on the home run, though that could not be confirmed. A location also could not be confirmed, but the entrance at the turnaround end of Mazeroski Way — on the side of PNC Park that faces Heinz Field — is the likely choice.

Oh yes friends and fellow readers, you read that right. They will be celebrating their 50th anniversary of this home run and series win. I know they’ve won in the 70′s too, but wow that’s really a long time ago now as well.  I love my Pirates baseball like you wouldn’t believe.  I just wish sometime sooner rather than later a semblance of a winning team can be put on the field.

The Nuttings keep promising change, yet continue to revel in the fact that people still buy their tickets.  Someday the Bucs will be back.  I’ll be watching them win or lose, but let’s all hope they get at least lucky sometime soon.

Mazeroski's Homerun against the Yankees

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