Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets

In 1900 Louisville Colonels owner Barney Dreyfuss merged his club with the Pittsburg Pirates. Though the Colonels had finished ninth in 1899, two places behind the Pirates, Dreyfuss brought a group of talented players Pittsburg, among them Fred Clarke, Tommie Leach, Deacon Phillippe, and Honus Wagner, who became the premier player of the Deadball Era. Combined with the holdovers, which included Ginger Beaumont, Sam Leever, Jesse Tannehill, and Jack Chesbro, Clarke's Bucs finished second in 1900, the beginning of the winningest decade in franchise history. The key to Pittsburgh's success was retaining all of its Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets and top stars during the first two years of American League raids, when every other NL team lost significant play¬ers. Starting in 1901, the Pirates brought home three consecutive pennants to Exposition Park. With Wagner, Beaumont, and Clarke ranking among the NL's top hit¬ters and Phillippe, Leever, Chesbro, and Tannehill composing one of history's greatest pitching staffs, the 1902 club finished 27½ games ahead of second-place Brooklyn, its .741 winning percentage exceeded during the 20th century by only the 1906 Chicago Cubs. The only disappointment of Pittsburgh's 1901-03 dynasty was losing the first World Series to the Boston Americans, due in large part to Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets purchases and lack of pitching depth after Chesbro and Tannehill jumped to the AL.

The Pirates fell to fourth in 1904, suffering a season-long epidemic of injuries and illnesses, but they bounced back to finish second or third behind the New York Giants and Chicago Cubs in the three-way pennant races of 1905-08. Pittsburgh's fourth and final pennant of the Deadball Era came in 1909, when Dreyfuss opened a concrete-and-steel ballpark in the Oakland section of the city. He named it Forbes Field, honoring a British general who camped his army in the area during the French and Indian War. The new park was base-ball's showplace, and its doublele-decked grandstand and 23,000 capacity paid off immediately when the Pirates won 110 games, the most in franchise Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets history. Clarke, Wagner, and Leach still led the offense, while Howie Camnitz, Vic Willis, and Lefty Leifield paced the pitchers. During the `09 World Series, however, it was rookie Babe Adams who led the Bucs to victory by capturing three games.  Despite winning 24 fewer games in 1910, the aging Pirates remained competitive for three more seasons. Time caught up with them in 1914, however, and they plummeted to seventh, Dreyfuss's first appearance in the second division since arriving in the Steel City 15 years earlier. The Pirates endured three more dismal seasons before outfielder Max Carey, pitcher Wilbur Cooper, and a new crop of players returned Pittsburgh (the "h" was officially reinstated in July 1911) back to the first division in 1918.

With piercing blue eyes and brown hair that was thinning even early in his career, Sam Leever became known as "The Goshen Schoolmaster" as much for his appearance and serious demeanor as for his off-season profession. Leever relied on the exceptional movement of his curveball to fool batters, compiling a lifetime record of 194-100 for a .660 winning percentage, the ninth highest in major league history among pitchers with more than 2,000 innings. Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets are for sale, so order your tickets. In an era when pitchers ire listed in the newspapers each week according to winning percentage, the oft-injured right hander was the National League's "leading pitcher" in 1901, 1903, and 1905. The fourth of Edward and Amerideth Leever's eight children, Samuel Leever was born on December 23, 1871, on a farm in Goshen, Ohio, about 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati. Like many families in that area, the Leevers were of Pennsylvania-German heritage. After graduating from Goshen High School, Sam worked there as a schoolteacher for seven years, pitch¬ing on Sundays for semipro teams in southwestern Ohio. (One of his teammates on the Norwood (Maroons was Kid Elberfeld.) Lacking an impressive fastball, Leever reached the advanced age of 25 before going his first professional contract. According to legend, the Pirates discovered him while he was playing "Anthony Over," a game that required Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets and tossing a ball over a barn to a friend on the other side; Sam suppos¬edly curved the ball around the barn instead.

In 1897 Leever pitched for Richmond of the Atlantic League, winning 20 games and leading the league in strikeouts. He started 1898 with Pittsburgh but was soon sent back to Richmond. He won another 14 games and helped the team to the championship, returning to Pittsburgh at the tail end of that season. In 1899 Leever became the workhorse of the Pittsburgh staff, leading the NL in games (51) and innings (379) while posting a 21-23 record and 3.18 ERA for the seventh-place Pirates. The extreme workload took its toll (a sore right arm nagged him throughout the rest of his career), but he never again had an ERA as high as 3.00 or a losing record after the arrival of Honus Wagner and the rest of the Louisville gang.
In 1900-02 Pittsburgh manager Fred Clarke used a five-man rotation, anchored by a quartet of standouts: Leever, Deacon Phillippe, Jack Chesbro, and Jesse Tannehill. Though a series of mishaps prevented him from accumulating huge win totals-a line drive broke his finger on Opening Day 1900, then he developed an illness, and he almost always had a sore arm-Leever won 44 games and lost only 25 over that three-season stretch. When Chesbro and Tannehill jumped to the New York Highlanders after the 1902 season, Clarke called on Leever and Phillippe to carry a larger burden. Sam came through with a career year in 1903. In June the Pirates ran off a record six consecutive shutouts, with Leever tossing the second and sixth games of the streak-two of his league-leading seven shutouts. He also led the NL with a 2.06 ERA and finished with a 25-7 record, prompting The Sporting Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets News to call him "one of the best pitchers in the world today."

Just before the 1903 World Series, however, Leeve injured his shoulder in a trapshooting contest in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. With the Pirates holding one-game advantage over the Boston Americans, Sal started Game Two in the best-of-nine series bi removed himself after giving up two runs in the fir inning. He took the mound again in Game Six, this tin pitching a complete game but losing 6-3. Pittsburgh lost the Series in eight Pittsburgh Pirates Tickets games largely because of Leever's ineffectiveness, and some writers accused him of cowardice or, even worse, giving less than his best effort. Several weeks after the Series, the Pittsburgh correspon¬dent for The Sporting News, Ralph Davis, wrote an article defending Leever, who reportedly was still in considerable pain. "The charge that Leever `laid' down is absurd in the extreme," wrote Davis. "There is not a more honest man in the game."