Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pirates compete in in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member team of the National League (NL) Central division. The Pirates play their home games at PNC Park; the team previously played at Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium, the latter of which was named after its location near the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, the Ohio Rivers. Founded on October 15, 1881 as Allegheny, the franchise has won five World Series championships. The Pirates are also often referred to as the "Bucs" or the "Buccos" (derived from buccaneer, a synonym for pirate).

The franchise joined the NL in its eighth season in 1887 and was competitive from its early years, winning three NL titles from 1901 to 1903, playing in the very first World Series in 1903 and winning their first World Series in 1909 behind Honus Wagner. The Pirates have had many ups and downs during their long history, most famously winning the 1960 World Series against the New York Yankees on a game-winning home run by Bill Mazeroski, the only time that Game 7 of the World Series has ever ended with a home run, still to this day. They also won the 1971 World Series with Roberto Clemente and the 1979 World Series under the slogan "We Are Family", led by "Pops" Willie Stargell. Overall the Pirates have won five World Series and lost two. (The Pirates have won nine NL pennants which implies 9 World Series results. However, the first two NL pennants they won, as stated above, were in 1901 and 1902, before the advent of the World Series.)

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh (/ˈpɪtsbərɡ/ PITS-burg) is the second largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with a population of 305,842 and the county seat of Allegheny County. The Combined Statistical Area (CSA) population of 2,659,937 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia and the 20th-largest in the U.S. Pittsburgh is known as both "the Steel City" for its more than 300 steel-related businesses, as well as "the City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges. The city features 30 skyscrapers, 2 inclines, a pre-revolutionary fortification and the source of the Ohio River at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers. This vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest through the mineral-rich Alleghenies made the area coveted by the French and British Empires, Virginia, Whiskey Rebels, Civil War raiders and media networks.

Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For much of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, second to New York in bank assets and with the most U.S. stockholders per capita. America's 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters of Gulf Oil, Sunbeam, Rockwell and Westinghouse moved. This heritage left the area with renowned museums, medical centers,parks, research centers, libraries, a diverse cultural district and the most bars per capita in the U.S. In 2015, Pittsburgh was named on a list of the "eleven most livable cities in the world."

Piracy

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Privateering uses similar methods to piracy, but the captain acts under orders of the state authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation, making it a legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors.(For a land-based parallel, compare the association of bandits and brigands with mountain passes.) Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic strictures facilitated pirate attacks.

St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri, that competes in the National League (NL) of Major League Baseball (MLB). The new Busch Stadium has been their home stadium since 2006. With origins as one of the early professional baseball clubs in St. Louis, entrepreneur Chris von der Ahe purchased a barnstorming club in 1881 then known as the Brown Stockings and established them as charter members of the American Association (AA) the following season. Upon the discontinuation of the AA, St. Louis joined the NL in 1892; at that time, they were called the Browns and the Perfectos before they were officially renamed as the Cardinals in 1900.

One of the most successful franchises in baseball history, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships (second only to the New York Yankees' 27 and most among National League franchises), 19 National League pennants (second only to the San Francisco Giants' 20), and 13 division titles. While still in the AA, St. Louis won four league championships, qualifying them to play in a forerunner of the World Series. They tied in 1885 and won outright in 1886 (both times against the predecessor of the Chicago Cubs) in a storied rivalry that continues on today.

St. Louis

St. Louis (/seɪnt ˈluːɪs/ or /sənt ˈluːɪs/) is a city and port in the U.S. state of Missouri. The city developed along the western bank of the Mississippi River, which forms Missouri's border with Illinois. In 2010, St. Louis had a population of 319,294; a 2014 estimate put the population at 317,419, making it the 60th-most populous U.S. city and the second-largest city in the state in terms of city proper population. The St. Louis metropolitan area includes the city as well as nearby areas in Missouri and Illinois; with an estimated population of 2,905,893, it is the largest in Missouri and one of the largest in the United States. St. Louis was founded in 1764 by Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau and named after Louis IX of France. Claimed first by the French, who settled mostly east of the Mississippi River, the region in which the city stands was ceded to Spain following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War. Its territory east of the Mississippi was ceded to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the victor. The area of present-day Missouri was part of Spanish Louisiana from 1762 until 1803.