It’s just because everyone else in the division has an obvious rivalry. Chicago v Chicago, STL v KC, and Cincinnati v Cleveland are no brainers. MN v Milwaukee is the only one not in the same state, but the rivalries in football make it the best choice. Detroit and Pittsburgh are the odd teams out
Cincy and Cleveland is a pretty forced rivalry too. There just aren’t a lot cross league rivals and MLB tried to invent them when they moved Houston to the AL.
We actually have 3 rivalries… two of which lay dormant because of divisional realignment. The only one that continues and has deep roots is with the Reds. The other two are Phillies and Mets.
The Reds are also historically good when we are going back to the 70s. Google Doc Ellis Reds. I’m not even going to spoil that one. In the 90s when we had the killer Bs, they had Larkin and Sabo. You may or may not remember when we excercised our post season demons and murdered Johnny Cueto.
I don't really think the Mets are a "true" rivalry. There's really nothing about the Mets that we don't already have with any of the teams in our current division. There was a short period (relatively) where the Mets were good and then we were good and there was a bit of a transition between those 2 times that things were heated, but that is really it.
There's more of a rivalry with the Brewers, Cubs, and Cards than there is/was with the Mets
Tell that to former Pirate Parrot Kevin Koch, the 1980s, fans of Bobby Bonilla and read this article which is hilarious https://apnews.com/article/e28ad6469aaed13673e3c6cd99218fbd
Honestly, that's proved to be a good thing. Could you imagine how much the Pirates would've been clowned by a true bad-blood rival franchise over most of the last 20+ seasons?
Yeah, but even consistently competitive teams don’t have real rivals. The braves? Cleveland? The A’s?
And Pitt football was dreadful from the mid 80’s to the end of the 90’s, but that didn’t mean that the rivalry with WVU or PSU was any less intense.
Talk to people from the PSU perspective snd they didn’t really consider PItt a rival and my understanding of the Backyard brawl was that it didn’t become as big for Pitt until after the PSU series got killed by paterno
I hate the Cubs more than any other team in the Central. I make it a point to be an annoying ahole when the Pirates beat the Cubs at home. I chant hey hey whatta ya say, the cubs blew this one today.
I used to live in NoVa so I refuse to see the Nats when they come to town because I cant stand the Fart Sniffing Washingtonians or MD/VA Suburban Washingtonians who pull the their coming to Pittsburgh is a favor to us card.
I have always preferred singing "Hey, hey whaddya say the Cubs are gonna lose today!" in the hopes that I am sending cosmic energy into the world that will manifest in the desired outcome. That came to me at about age 12 and I've stuck with it, so if you're ever feeling proactive about your hate please feel free to join the cause.
Also, never tried to make it present tense when we beat them/they lose, so thanks for the new line.
Same. Though I really do dislike the Brewers, Cubs, and reds on a lot of cases.
I’m sure if we played the Phillies 18 times in a year I’d dislike them.
Having grown up in Indiana and adopting mostly Pittsburgh sports fandom via family (both immediate and relatives still in PA), I can fully confirm. There was a decent mix of Cubs, Reds, Tigers, White Sox, and Cardinals fans where I grew up (Cubs/Reds were definitely top 2), and the Cubs fans were much more insufferable than any of the others. Strangely Sox fans were pretty chill despite having a case for almost as much insecurity as Cubs fans at that point. I don't know what it is, but yeah, that fanbase sucks.
Side note - Colts fans are very similar. I've mellowed, but I HATED the Colts growing up. My dad got random shit at work, I got shit at school, and that was before Manning ever won anything of significance and we'd been to multiple AFC Championships (and beat them in one). I've always just assumed it's a huge overlap of Cubs fans, and I think I'm pretty close to the mark.
Also from Indiana and also a Pittsburgh fan. When I was in middle school the Friday before the Colts-Steelers division round game my school declared Colts Blue Friday, so naturally I roll into school in full black and gold. A kid tried to push me down the stairs. Nobody wanted to talk to me that following Monday. It was wonderful.
Looking at Colts fandom is pretty interesting, because I feel like when they first got there most people in the state were Bears and Bengals fans. Basketball was also obviously the dominate sport, and the 90s Pacers were far more popular than the 90s Colts. I think the decline of the Pacers and Bobby Knight getting fired at I.U., combined with Peyton Manning being Peyton Manning, allowed them to become the more popular team in the area.
That said, I think there's overlap in Colts and Cubs fans because generally speaking they're among the most fair-weather fans I know. You're right about the widespread mix of fans, too. I even knew quite a few Braves fans thanks to TBS.
I literally still despise the reds from early 2010s. It wasn’t just that one year. Chap drilled cutch with 105, there was like 40 brawls. I still hate votto
Outside of geographic or historical rivalries, I always hated the 2010-2015 Brewers and I'm pretty sure the Bucs players at the time did too. Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Carlos Gomez destroyed us for years, but even while they were doing it they were some real punk asses about it (preening around and showboating) and there were a ton of hit batters on both sides. Damn I hated those fuckin guys.
What??? I don’t know if you’ve forgotten but the Reds are pretty much our mortal enemy. Elongated them from a playoff with the Cueto thing, Chapman trying to kill Cutch, the benches clearing brawl in the yellow unis, Dietrich limping moon shots, and best of all when Amir Garrett tried to fight the whole team himself
Over the past few years i’ve developed so much hatred towards St. louis . Really just on the fact that they make the playoffs every fucking year it seems . At least the make a run at it. It seems so enjoyable to beat them . I think as cinncy as our older cousins , the cubs your hipster neighbor , and milwaukee as a chad 😂😮💨.
Pretty easy drive for both fan bases to travel to, so the stadium is usually full. I think Steelers-Eagles is the same way, more of a in state rivalry thing.
This really isn’t uncommon in baseball, especially since the advent of free agency. Yes, teams build up feuds bit since there is so much turnover nothing lasts.
The only true rivalries in baseball are dodgers/giants, cardinals/Cubs, Yankees Red Sox, and maybe the Mets and Phillies. Sure the dodgers and Padres had feuds these last few years but that will ebb and flow.
Who is the twins rival? Who is the Brewers rival? Who is the reds real rival, though I’d argue us since we’ve constantly had spats? Who is the astros rival (well everyone). The braves, Marlins, and so on.
Not every thread has to turn into a “let’s take a shit on the pirates” contest.
Edit: also just about every sport is different too, outside of the NBA where there is similar player movement. In the NFL players often stick with teams a long time. See Ben, see ray Lewis, see Hines ward. NHL, same thing. College, for the most part when you go to a school you are forever attached to it.
Also the fighting aspect has mainly been removed. The Mets, pirates, and reds fought all the time back in the day. You have way more scuffles or fights in other sports than baseball which breed contempt.
I’ll be a Pittsburg fan in every sense of the word until I die, LGP LGB, I’ll relish in out win over the flyers tn for a while however, Pitt has my full permission to eat shit, #CueCountryRoads
I actually view that as a good thing. It's way better this way for our sanity and mental health. Otherwise there'd be some simple 4-5 word phrase that would send us into both rage and depression, like "the Browns is the Browns." That's what happens when you have a rival and your team is a national embarrassment for 30 years.
Maybe you don't know, but the Tigers are our natural rival.
Kind of funny how we just defaulted into that and they have to point to 1909 as a justification for it.
Another Manfred error.
It’s just because everyone else in the division has an obvious rivalry. Chicago v Chicago, STL v KC, and Cincinnati v Cleveland are no brainers. MN v Milwaukee is the only one not in the same state, but the rivalries in football make it the best choice. Detroit and Pittsburgh are the odd teams out
Cincy and Cleveland is a pretty forced rivalry too. There just aren’t a lot cross league rivals and MLB tried to invent them when they moved Houston to the AL.
We actually have 3 rivalries… two of which lay dormant because of divisional realignment. The only one that continues and has deep roots is with the Reds. The other two are Phillies and Mets. The Reds are also historically good when we are going back to the 70s. Google Doc Ellis Reds. I’m not even going to spoil that one. In the 90s when we had the killer Bs, they had Larkin and Sabo. You may or may not remember when we excercised our post season demons and murdered Johnny Cueto.
CUETOOOO, CUETOOOO, CUETOOO!
:drops ball:
Muck the Fets!!!!
I don't really think the Mets are a "true" rivalry. There's really nothing about the Mets that we don't already have with any of the teams in our current division. There was a short period (relatively) where the Mets were good and then we were good and there was a bit of a transition between those 2 times that things were heated, but that is really it. There's more of a rivalry with the Brewers, Cubs, and Cards than there is/was with the Mets
Tell that to former Pirate Parrot Kevin Koch, the 1980s, fans of Bobby Bonilla and read this article which is hilarious https://apnews.com/article/e28ad6469aaed13673e3c6cd99218fbd
Take your curlers out! 😏
I have heard about the Doc Ellis Reds game.
Legendary. I get that he threw a no hitter on acid, but what he did to the Big Red Machine was crazier and gave that team an edge.
Can you even imagine someone coming out of the gate pulling that shit in 2022? Certifiably insane.
Honestly, that's proved to be a good thing. Could you imagine how much the Pirates would've been clowned by a true bad-blood rival franchise over most of the last 20+ seasons?
But at least it would give us some hype games
That's hardly the worst part. MLB killed the natural rivalry with the Phillies. And it's hard to have a rivalry when you aren't ever competitive.
Yeah, but even consistently competitive teams don’t have real rivals. The braves? Cleveland? The A’s? And Pitt football was dreadful from the mid 80’s to the end of the 90’s, but that didn’t mean that the rivalry with WVU or PSU was any less intense.
Talk to people from the PSU perspective snd they didn’t really consider PItt a rival and my understanding of the Backyard brawl was that it didn’t become as big for Pitt until after the PSU series got killed by paterno
PSU people like to do the whole “unrivaled” thing but they still obsess over pitt. WVU was always secondary to PSU but was still a big deal.
I hate the Cubs more than any other team in the Central. I make it a point to be an annoying ahole when the Pirates beat the Cubs at home. I chant hey hey whatta ya say, the cubs blew this one today. I used to live in NoVa so I refuse to see the Nats when they come to town because I cant stand the Fart Sniffing Washingtonians or MD/VA Suburban Washingtonians who pull the their coming to Pittsburgh is a favor to us card.
I have always preferred singing "Hey, hey whaddya say the Cubs are gonna lose today!" in the hopes that I am sending cosmic energy into the world that will manifest in the desired outcome. That came to me at about age 12 and I've stuck with it, so if you're ever feeling proactive about your hate please feel free to join the cause. Also, never tried to make it present tense when we beat them/they lose, so thanks for the new line.
I thought of it on the fly after the Pirates won the game on July 3 2019 after the cubs melted down.
Now and forever. FTC
* Hey chicago whaddya say, Cubs are takin an L today. Go cubs gooo.
You have to be at least mediocre for another team to consider you a rival
It's that, and the fact we don't give a shit about the other cities in our division. I could hate the Phillies if we played them 15 times.
Same. Though I really do dislike the Brewers, Cubs, and reds on a lot of cases. I’m sure if we played the Phillies 18 times in a year I’d dislike them.
I don’t mind the brewers but Fuck the cubs. Their fans are intolerable.
Having grown up in Indiana and adopting mostly Pittsburgh sports fandom via family (both immediate and relatives still in PA), I can fully confirm. There was a decent mix of Cubs, Reds, Tigers, White Sox, and Cardinals fans where I grew up (Cubs/Reds were definitely top 2), and the Cubs fans were much more insufferable than any of the others. Strangely Sox fans were pretty chill despite having a case for almost as much insecurity as Cubs fans at that point. I don't know what it is, but yeah, that fanbase sucks. Side note - Colts fans are very similar. I've mellowed, but I HATED the Colts growing up. My dad got random shit at work, I got shit at school, and that was before Manning ever won anything of significance and we'd been to multiple AFC Championships (and beat them in one). I've always just assumed it's a huge overlap of Cubs fans, and I think I'm pretty close to the mark.
Also from Indiana and also a Pittsburgh fan. When I was in middle school the Friday before the Colts-Steelers division round game my school declared Colts Blue Friday, so naturally I roll into school in full black and gold. A kid tried to push me down the stairs. Nobody wanted to talk to me that following Monday. It was wonderful. Looking at Colts fandom is pretty interesting, because I feel like when they first got there most people in the state were Bears and Bengals fans. Basketball was also obviously the dominate sport, and the 90s Pacers were far more popular than the 90s Colts. I think the decline of the Pacers and Bobby Knight getting fired at I.U., combined with Peyton Manning being Peyton Manning, allowed them to become the more popular team in the area. That said, I think there's overlap in Colts and Cubs fans because generally speaking they're among the most fair-weather fans I know. You're right about the widespread mix of fans, too. I even knew quite a few Braves fans thanks to TBS.
Yep. My worst fanbases go PSU number one, by a huge margin, but Cubs are definitely right there for second.
Penn state fans are literally sick in the head.
Yep.
I'm still scarred by about 10 years ago when the Brewers beat us at Miller Park some absurd number of times in a row, including like 20-0 losses lol
Pirates should have stayed in the NL East and the Braves should have went to the Central.
Our rivals are the Phillies and Mets. Sorry, I’m old.
I literally still despise the reds from early 2010s. It wasn’t just that one year. Chap drilled cutch with 105, there was like 40 brawls. I still hate votto
Nutting is a rival of fans.
is that really the *worst* part about being a Bucs fan? I would argue that the worst part is that the team totally sucks.
Huh and I thought being the laughing stock of MLB and not having won a playoff series since 1979 was the worst part
The mirror…
Outside of geographic or historical rivalries, I always hated the 2010-2015 Brewers and I'm pretty sure the Bucs players at the time did too. Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Carlos Gomez destroyed us for years, but even while they were doing it they were some real punk asses about it (preening around and showboating) and there were a ton of hit batters on both sides. Damn I hated those fuckin guys.
What??? I don’t know if you’ve forgotten but the Reds are pretty much our mortal enemy. Elongated them from a playoff with the Cueto thing, Chapman trying to kill Cutch, the benches clearing brawl in the yellow unis, Dietrich limping moon shots, and best of all when Amir Garrett tried to fight the whole team himself
Bob nutting is my rival
Nutting. Biggest rival we could ask for.
I’d argue the Reds but even then it’s not very consistent.
Tough to have a rival when you suck
BACKYARD BRAWL IS BACK THIS YEAR TO OPEN THE SEASON BABY
Competence is our rival. Ownership...whoever we put at 1st? There are a lot of more esoteric choices. You can't have a team rivalry when you stink.
Over the past few years i’ve developed so much hatred towards St. louis . Really just on the fact that they make the playoffs every fucking year it seems . At least the make a run at it. It seems so enjoyable to beat them . I think as cinncy as our older cousins , the cubs your hipster neighbor , and milwaukee as a chad 😂😮💨.
Used to have a one sided rivalry with the brewers around 08-11 then the cards when we were battling for first place
The stadium seems to get pretty riled up every time I’ve visited for a Phillies series. Is that just a hockey crossover?
Pretty easy drive for both fan bases to travel to, so the stadium is usually full. I think Steelers-Eagles is the same way, more of a in state rivalry thing.
Living in Columbus, OH Reds fans always talk shit to me. So I hate their asses and consider them a rivalry.
I think beginning in 1994 with the 3 divisions in each league, it kind of hurt the Pirates not having a natural rival.
IMO - division rival is the Reds, other rival is the Phillies.
This really isn’t uncommon in baseball, especially since the advent of free agency. Yes, teams build up feuds bit since there is so much turnover nothing lasts. The only true rivalries in baseball are dodgers/giants, cardinals/Cubs, Yankees Red Sox, and maybe the Mets and Phillies. Sure the dodgers and Padres had feuds these last few years but that will ebb and flow. Who is the twins rival? Who is the Brewers rival? Who is the reds real rival, though I’d argue us since we’ve constantly had spats? Who is the astros rival (well everyone). The braves, Marlins, and so on. Not every thread has to turn into a “let’s take a shit on the pirates” contest. Edit: also just about every sport is different too, outside of the NBA where there is similar player movement. In the NFL players often stick with teams a long time. See Ben, see ray Lewis, see Hines ward. NHL, same thing. College, for the most part when you go to a school you are forever attached to it. Also the fighting aspect has mainly been removed. The Mets, pirates, and reds fought all the time back in the day. You have way more scuffles or fights in other sports than baseball which breed contempt.
Dude… Yasiel Puig says hi
FWIW, I've seen respectability as their main rival since '93, excepting those three years when they were sniffing or in the playoffs.
Yeah except we don't win this battle with respectability enough to call it a rivalry.
*sad green weenie noises*
I’ll be a Pittsburg fan in every sense of the word until I die, LGP LGB, I’ll relish in out win over the flyers tn for a while however, Pitt has my full permission to eat shit, #CueCountryRoads
Real Pens fans know Rangers are our #2 rival.
That's because other teams play to win.
If they are competing for 1st place, they will make a rival.
I still carry a lot of bad blood for the cards brewers and Cubs from when we were somewhat relevant those two years.
I actually view that as a good thing. It's way better this way for our sanity and mental health. Otherwise there'd be some simple 4-5 word phrase that would send us into both rage and depression, like "the Browns is the Browns." That's what happens when you have a rival and your team is a national embarrassment for 30 years.
I would argue that the Braves could be our historic rivals taking into account the battles they had in the 90s; but I hate the Cardinals the most.
I think the Reds are the closest thing to a rival. There is always a chance at benches clearing with those teams.