The Good
Part one in a three-part series.
Last week’s post on my favorite baseball movies gave me an idea. No, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is not a baseball movie (if it was, my money would be on Tuco), but maybe I can adapt the title for my own purposes. I thought it might be interesting to pick three random teams from between 1985-94— one good, one average, and one terrible— and take a closer look at each of them in a three-part series. The fact that all three of them are from the 1991 season is just a happy coincidence, but I think it worked out well. This week, we start with the good.
The Good: 1991 Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates of the early 90’s might have had some of the worst timing in baseball history. From 1990-92, they were as good as anyone in baseball. Compare their roster with any of the World Series champions of that period and they match up very favorably.
Jim Leyland has a case for being one of the best managers ever, and not just because he looked old school cool smoking in the dugout. Their pitching staff, led by Doug Drabek, was not filled with all-time greats, but they were deceptively staunch during this period. Zane Smith was money in the postseason (at least in 1991, maybe not 1990), and John Smiley put up a statline of 20-8, 3.08 ERA, 129 K, and a 1.146 WHIP on his way to an All-Star appearance in 1991. And Stan Belinda was one of the best middle relievers of the day.
Their middle infield defense, composed of 2B Chico Lind and SS Jay Bell, was elite, and even if Jeff King probably hated the game of baseball more than big leaguer in history (a fact I recently learned and was completely unaware of at the time), he provided a big bat at 3B. Mike LaValliere was an underrated, Gold Glove catcher, and 1B Orlando Merced finished second in the NL Rookie of the Year vote in 1991, behind Jeff Bagwell.
Oh, and they also had arguably the greatest player in baseball when he was at his all around best, before he transformed into a steroid enhanced slugging phenomenon. Barry Bonds held down LF for Pittsburgh, and the other outfielders weren’t slouches either. Andy Van Slyke patrolled CF with his Gold Gloves, and Bobby Bonilla was in RF. This was before he became a punchline for the extended buyout he received from the Mets. In Pittsburgh, Bonilla was absolutely the real deal.
But without a doubt, the biggest star was Bonds. He won an unprecedented 7 MVPs during his exceptional, complicated career, but he should have won eight. Check out his stats in 1991.
Bonds (1991): .291/.410/.514, 25 HR, 116 RBI, 28 Doubles, 5 Triples, 43 SB, .924 OPS, 160 OPS+
I’m a sucker for players who are not just good at one aspect of the game, but do lots of things well, and this was Bonds at his peak, though I should point out that he was even better in 1990, 1992, and 1993, all MVP seasons. That said, compare his 1991 to the NL MVP, Terry Pendleton.
Pendleton (1991): .319/.363/.517, 22 HR, 86 RBI, 34 Doubles, 8 Triples, 10 SB, .880 OPS, 139 OPS+
I won’t go so far as to say Pendleton was underserving. His stats were very good, and actually top Bonds’ numbers in several categories. But there’s no debate that Bonds’ season was better. The award was given to Pendleton because he was a nicer guy (no argument there) and didn’t have the contentious relationship with the writers who vote on it that Bonds had.
Bonds coming up short for that MVP is a pretty good comparison to the Pirates’ fortunes as a whole. As a small-market team, the Pirates have a lot in common with my Royals. Their most consistent success came before I was even born, and though they’ve had pockets of success since, they’ve never been able to maintain it, thanks to the economics of baseball.
One of the best cores in baseball broke apart shortly after this season. Bonds and Bonilla were the biggest losses, but losing Drabek didn’t help either. Three quarters of the infield (Lind, Bell, and King) eventually ended up in Kansas City. Their fortunes didn’t improve much there— the Royals didn’t have Barry Bonds— but it is another link between the two franchises.
In fact, the Pirates most recent run of success coincided with Kansas City’s. Pittsburgh made the playoffs every year from 2014-2016, and I was really rooting for them to match up with KC in the World Series. I would have much rather lost to the Pirates in 2014 than the Giants, if I had to lose. But maybe they would have won. Pittsburgh didn’t have that son of a bitch Madison Bumgarner.
Unlike the Royals, who went to back-to-back World Series in 2014-15, and won it all in 2015, the Pirates were never able to translate their regular season success into postseason wins. Now, both franchises are back to where they spent most of the 90’s and 2000’s- either at the bottom of their respective leagues or close to it. The only difference is that there are flags flying over Kauffman Stadium, and none at PNC Park. None from that era anyway. That’s why you’ve got to cash in when you get to October.
The Pirates came close in the early 90’s, and that was probably their best chance in my lifetime. Over a three-year span, Pittsburgh won 95 (1990), 98 (1991), and 96 (1992) games, but they came up short in the NLCS all three years and never reached the World Series.
In 1990, they ran into a Reds team that had everything clicking at the right time. After dispatching the Pirates in six games, Cincinnati went on to dominate the mighty Oakland A’s, sweeping them in the World Series. So there’s no real shame in that result, but it was still a missed opportunity.
1991 and 1992 were the real heartbreakers. This is where the bad timing comes in, in my opinion. The Pirates were actually a pretty easy team to root for. Sure, Bonds had a reputation as a jerk and Bonilla could be salty, but their talent was undeniable. The rest of the roster provided a bit more likeability, and even if they weren’t as talented as Bonds and Bonilla, they were still damn good. Personally, I always liked Andy Van Slyke going back to his days in St. Louis, though it was definitely easier to root for him in black and gold.
But something else was happening in baseball at that time. The Atlanta Braves, perennial doormats of the NL West, were catching fire and ascending. Powered by a talented young core and the spotlight provided by TBS, the Braves were riding a wave of popularity and momentum. I’ve written before about how I was caught up in it, and I’ll freely admit that I was rooting for the Braves back then. In nearly forty years of watching baseball, the early years of the 90’s Braves were one of the true phenomena I’ve witnessed.
The Pirates did their best to stand up to that tsunami, taking the Braves to seven games in both the 1991 and 1992 NLCS. The 1991 NLCS is probably the best pitched postseason series in baseball history. It featured three 1-0 games, 4 shutouts, and 4 one-run games. 1992 ended with the far from fleet-footed Sid Bream’s epic slide across home plate, barely beating Bonds’ throw and LaValliere’s tag.
Hard to say which hurt Pirates fans more, though based on some of the feedback I’ve gotten on social media, I’d lean toward Bream’s slide. The fact that Bream was a former Pirate and member of their 1990 NL East champion team had to feel like salt being rubbed into their wounds.
On the other hand, the 1991 team might have been their best squad. The Braves were viewed as Cinderella that season, no one had any idea they were going to dominate the National League for the next decade plus. I have to think that a lot of Pirates fans felt like that was their year, and that’s a rough comedown. So close, yet so far away.
I guess that’s the distance from great to good.
Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. Next week, we’ll be back with part two of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But in the meantime, drop your picks for really good, but not quite great teams in the comments.
I liked Andy Van Slyke as well, Pittsburgh had some great teams, but I must say I enjoyed seeing the Braves beat them. Great read as always!