Phillies–Pirates rivalry

Before 1970, the rivalry seemed to be low-key, because the two teams were seldom equally good at the same time. However, afterward, the Phillies would not win their first National League pennant until 1915, thanks to the pitching of Grover Cleveland Alexander and the batting prowess of Gavvy Cravath, who set the major-league single-season record for home runs with 24. During that time, the Pirates dominated the National League, winning three more pennants, in 1902, 1903, when they lost the inaugural World Series, and when they won their first World Series, in , becoming the first team to open a new stadium with a World Series championship, having played their first season at Forbes Field that year. The Phillies were in the midst of a period of futility from 1918 to 1948 when the Pirates won the 1925 World Series and the 1927 National League pennant. During that time, the Phillies had only one winning season, in 1932. From 1933 to 1948, the Phillies posted 16 consecutive losing seasons, a major league record that stood until 2009 (ironically broken by the Pirates). After World War II, the Pirates had limited success, despite the presence of a genuine star in Ralph Kiner, who led the National League in home runs for seven consecutive seasons (1946–1952). During that time, the Phillies would have their first winning season in 17 years in 1949, and the following year, the Whiz Kids of the Phillies would win their second National League pennant, though they lost to the New York Yankees in the 1950 World Series. In 1960, the Phillies were in last place when the Pirates won the World Series. ==1970s: Exclusive reign of division championships==

It was during the 1970s that the rivalry became intense. The Phillies and the Pirates made up 10 of the possible 11 National League Championship Series appearances from 1970 to 1980. However, neither team enjoyed success during LCS appearances. The Phillies went 1–3 and the Pirates went 2–4 in NLCS appearances. In most cases, the teams had to face "The Big Red Machine" of the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS. In each of the years the two teams won a pennant, they won a World Series (Pirates in and and Phillies in ). From 1970 to 1980, the two teams reigned exclusively as National League East champions, except in 1973, when the New York Mets won the National League pennant. while the Phillies opened Veterans Stadium in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex the following year. During this period, the Pirates won three straight division champions, from 1970 to 1972. On June 25, 1971, Willie Stargell of the Pirates hit the longest home run in the history of Veterans Stadium in a 14–4 Pirates win. The spot where the ball landed was marked with a yellow star with a black "S" inside a white circle until Stargell's 2001 death, when the white circle was painted black. The star remained until the stadium's 2004 demolition. 1974–1980 The rivalry was heated as both the Phillies and Pirates reigned exclusively as National League East Division champions. Indeed, for a while, it looked as if they could. They led the division for 51 days. However, in August and September, the Phillies suffered a minor collapse, going 25–32 and it was "No They Couldn't," In the 1975 National League Championship Series, they were swept by the eventual champion Reds. The Phillies won their first National League East title, eclipsing the century mark for wins in a season for the first time in franchise history with 101 wins, nine games over the Pirates. However, like the Pirates the year before, the Phillies were swept in the National League Championship Series by the eventual champion Reds. However, they lost in the 1977 National League Championship Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1978, the Pirates came from fourth place and games behind in mid-August to challenge the Phillies for the division title and the teams met in the last regular-season series of the season to decide the division title. The Pirates swept a double-header to extend their winning streak of home wins to 24 and to trim the gap to games. In the third game of the series, Willie Stargell hit a grand slam home run and it looked like the lead would be cut to half a game. Instead, Phillies pitcher Randy Lerch hit two home runs to help the Phillies come from behind to win the game, 10–8, to win their third straight division title on the next-to-last day of the season. This was the first time that visiting teams won a division title at Three Rivers Stadium. In the postseason, the Phillies lost for the second year in a row to the Dodgers in the 1978 National League Championship Series. Both teams won World Series in successive years in 1979 and 1980. In 1979, the Phillies acquired infielders Manny Trillo and Pete Rose, but the Pirates were too dominant as Stargell shared MVP honors with Keith Hernandez and won their most recent one that year. The following year, the Phillies won their first one. The Phillies winning the 1980 World Series was a moment of peace in the rivalry. Moments after Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals with the bases loaded to preserve the win for Steve Carlton and the Phillies, leaping from the mound to embrace catcher Bob Boone on the field at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh, himself from Pittsburgh, signed a proclamation declaring the next day "World Championship Philadelphia Phillies Day" in the state. During the team's post-parade celebration that day at John F. Kennedy Stadium, the governor said that the rivalry was at peace because "nobody competes with the Phillies today. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, today is the baseball capital of the world. All Pennsylvania is proud of you." ==1980s==

In the 1980s, the rivalry saw a moment of peace twice. The game between the two teams during the Phillies home opener on April 13, 1981, was a moment of peace in the rivalry. When the Phillies received their World Series rings, the team in the visitors' dugout was the Pirates. The Phillies won the game 5–1, giving Phillies starter Steve Carlton his 250th career victory. In 1982, when Willie Stargell played his final season, both the Phillies and Pirates declared "Willie Stargell Day" in honor of Stargell's last games. The Pirates honored him on September 6 before they won a game against the New York Mets, while the Phillies honored him during a game against the Pirates on September 19, Stargell's final game in Philadelphia. In the mid to late 1980s, the rivalry was often low-key, as both teams sank in the standings. The only time during that period either team was able to post a winning record was during the playoff years of the New York Mets, and on both occasions, not only finished second in the standings but also the only team in the National League East other than the Mets to post a winning record (Phillies in and Pirates in 1988). However, the rivalry had some memorable moments during that time. During a Phillies 8–6 win in Pittsburgh, on April 18, 1987, Mike Schmidt of the Phillies hit his 500th career home run in the ninth inning, a three-run home run. 1989: Phillies ten-run comeback Perhaps the most memorable moment in the rivalry during the 1980s came on June 8, 1989. The Pirates scored 10 runs in the top of the first inning of a game at Veterans Stadium, including three on a Barry Bonds home run. As the Phillies came to bat in the bottom of the first, Pirates broadcaster (and former pitcher) Jim Rooker said on the air, "If we lose this game, I'll walk home." Instead, both Von Hayes and Steve Jeltz hit two home runs (the latter would hit only five during his Major League career) to trigger a Phillies comeback. The Phillies, trailing now only 11–10 in the eighth inning, scored the tying run on a wild pitch, then took the lead on Darren Daulton's two-run single and went on to win 15–11. Rooker had to wait until after the season to make good on his "walk home" promise, conducting a 300-plus-mile charity walk from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. ==1990–1993: Another exclusive reign of division championships==

In 1990, the Phillies and Pirates began another exclusive reign of National League East championships, All NL East division titles during this period, except for 1990, were won at Three Rivers Stadium. The 1991 Pirates won the division for the second straight year, aided by their 12–6 record against the Phillies, and won the division championship in the final meeting between the two teams. The Pirates became the first NL East team to win consecutive division titles since the Phillies in 1978, but lost to the Atlanta Braves in the 1991 National League Championship Series. In 1992, Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini performed an unassisted triple play against the Pirates and, in doing so, became the first second baseman in National League history and the first overall player in the regular season to do so. The Pirates went on to three-peat for the second time, and were the first National League East team to do so since the Phillies in 1976–1978. Once again, they lost to the Braves in the National League Championship Series. 1993: Phillies go from worst to the National League pennant In 1993, the Phillies, who finished in last place in 1992, steadily led the NL East and were in first place every day but one day, April 9. The Pirates were in first place on the very day that the Phillies weren't in first place. They dropped five of seven at home, reducing their lead to four with 13 games remaining. The next day, the Phillies were trailing 4–3 after giving up three runs in the sixth, but with a six-run seventh inning, capped by Mariano Duncan's grand slam home run, they won their first division title since winning the 1983 National League pennant. Outfielder Wes Chamberlain ended all the references to 1964, screaming, "It's 1993, baby! It ain't 1964. Where are all those ghosts now?" Although Fregosi won the American League West title as manager of the California Angels in 1979, he said that 1993 was "the most gratifying year I have ever spent in baseball. It's just great. There's nothing like that. I'm just so proud of these guys. They've been great all year long." It was only the third time that a visiting team had won a division title at Three Rivers Stadium, following the Phillies themselves in 1978 and the Chicago Cubs in 1984. However, they beat the Braves, but lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series on the famous walk-off home run by Joe Carter. ==End of divisional rivalry==

The two teams met 18 times during a season for the last time in 1992. When agreeing on the realignment, the Pirates switched to the newly created Central Division and gave up their spot in the NL East to the Atlanta Braves. He also cited that "[the] Cleveland [Indians], the closest franchise to Pittsburgh, also chose the Central when faced with the same East vs. Central decision." However, manager Jim Leyland felt that the "move should have little on-field impact." However, he was fortunate that the realignment solidified their rivalry with the New York Mets. ==After realignment==

thought the rivalry "would definitely be magnified" if the two teams meet in the playoffs. After their loss to the Atlanta Braves in the 1992 NLCS, the Pirates lost Bonds and Doug Drabek to free agency, and had a long and protracted recovery following that: they had 20 straight losing seasons between 1993 and 2012, and did not reach the playoffs again until 2013. (The team's predictions on the Braves did turn out to be correct, however: the Braves would win every NL East title through the 2005 season, excluding the 1994 season, which was cut short due to the player's strike.) The Phillies, after winning the 1993 pennant, also struggled through the 1990s, but won five straight division championships from 2007 to 2011, had the best record in baseball back-to-back in 2010 and 2011, in 2011 set a franchise record for wins in a season with 102, breaking the previous record of 101 in 1976 and 1977, and broke the Curse of Billy Penn to win the 2008 World Series. Although the rivalry may not reignite soon, In 2005, Phillies pitcher Jon Lieber, a former Pirate, called it "a shame" that the two teams "don't play more often", and "we'd get back to playing more National League teams." He said that "it is a shame our fans only get one opportunity a year to see two clubs with whom we have had such great rivalries," Manager John Russell and first baseman Adam LaRoche agreed, saying that the Phillies, Pirates, and Mets should be in the same division, as all three "were interchangeable for a while, with the great matchups...But now, we're the ones separated." In 2011, when MLB was considering moving an existing National League team to the American League and requiring year-round interleague play, Coonelly suggested moving the Pirates back to the NL East if MLB decided against having a team switch leagues, with him adding, "If one National League division has to have six teams, nothing says it has to be the Central." MLB eventually decided to move the Houston Astros to the American League for the 2013 MLB season, leaving the Pirates in a reduced NL Central. On October 16, 2017, it was reported that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and the owners were seriously considering a radical realignment if MLB decided to pursue adding two expansion teams by eliminating the American and National League designations altogether and realigning teams to four eight-team divisions based on geography to cut travel costs down. The proposal would have the Pirates and Phillies within the East division, alongside existing rivals such as the Washington Nationals (for the Phillies) and Cincinnati Reds (for the Pirates) while including the Baltimore Orioles; the proposal, however, would leave the Mets (and by proxy the New York Yankees) out as well as the Cleveland Indians, all of whom would be included in the proposed North division despite the Mets having historic or existing rivalries with both the Pirates and Phillies and the Indians making geographic sense with the Pirates. The proposal is considered unrealistic by some experts, but more realistic proposals that retain the NL-AL setup have the two teams remain in separate divisions contingent on Montreal returning to the National League. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the season delayed the start of the season by nearly four months and went to a greatly reduced schedule that only had each team face division rivals as well as teams from the corresponding divisions in the other league, in order to reduce travel and limit the spread of COVID-19. As both teams also missed the expanded postseason (the Pirates having the worst record in baseball), 2020 marked the first time in 134 years that the Phillies and Pirates didn't play each other at all. The two teams resumed playing each other in 2021. Some sports fans in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh also want the rivalry to be reignited. The Phillies' fanbase comes from the Philadelphia metropolitan area, which includes southeastern Pennsylvania, central New Jersey south of Princeton, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware and extreme northeast parts of Maryland. Conversely, the Pirates' fanbase generally draws from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, which includes Western Pennsylvania, most of the state of West Virginia, and parts of both Southeastern Ohio and the Maryland Panhandle. The Philadelphia–Pittsburgh rivalry is evident in other sports, as seen between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the National Hockey League. Between 2022 and 2024, the score bug used by the NBC Sports Regional Networks and NBC Sports Philadelphia featured a horizontal layout displaying the score between the two teams' cap insignias: at the start of Phillies–Pirates games, the two teams' "P" insignias and a 0-0 score made the bug appear to read "P00P"—which became a meme among the two teams' fans. This phenomenon came to an end after the 2024 season, when NBC Sports updated the graphic to use team abbreviations instead of logos; during the teams' first meeting of the 2025 season, Phillies play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy jokingly memorialized the former scorebug, describing it as a "an unforgettable icon. Its name, once met with chuckles, quickly became synonymous with good times and fierce rivalries." ==Season-by-season results==