That last time the Pirates were winners
Finally, a day at the ballpark means more than an electric green parrot launching hot dogs from an air gun, racing pierogies and postcard views of the Downtown skyline. The Pirates will end the season as winners – an accomplishment that the 20 percent of the southwestern Pennsylvania population born after 1992 have never witnessed until now.
The Pirates secured their first winning season in 20 years with a shutout victory over the Texas Rangers on Sept. 9.
Twenty years is a long drought.
Pittsburgh Today took a look at several indicators to see how the region has changed since the losing streak began on that crisp October evening in 1992, when Atlanta’s Sid Bream scored in the bottom of the 9th to give the Brave’s a comeback victory in Game 7 of the National League Championship series and end what would be the last Pirates’ winning season in a generation.
There are fewer of us today. Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh are down 111,581 people since 1992. But the region has grown younger and has in the past five years become a place that more people move to than leave –reversing a decades long trend. In 2012, nearly 1,800 more people moved in than moved out and economists estimate about 70 percent of them were young adults.
They’re moving here because of the cost of living, low then and low now, but also because of job growth, which has picked up considerably since 1992. The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area added 135,200 jobs from July 1992 to July 2013, according to non-seasonably adjusted U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
And 7.5 percent more people are working today than when Sid Bream broke our hearts in 1992.
Housing has also been a bright spot, for the most part. Housing prices have appreciated 84.3 percent since 1992, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency data. But more housing stands vacant today in neighborhoods throughout the Pittsburgh MSA, where vacancy rates have increased from 6.8 percent to 11 percent since the Pirates last had a winning season.
The air is also cleaner, in some regards. Levels of particulate pollution known as PM10, for example, are down significantly in Allegheny County to well within regulatory limits, while 8-hour ozone, despite being lower, is still above federal health-based limits.
But everything isn’t sunnier than it was in 1992. That’s particularly true for people who rely on public transportation to get around. Since the 1992 season, chronic budget shortfalls and other problems led the Port Authority of Allegheny County to cut fixed transit routes by more than half – from 224 in 1992 to the 102 operating this year. Not surprisingly, ridership is down 18 percent.
More southwestern Pennsylvanians are also living in poverty today than in 1992. The poverty rate in Allegheny County, for example, has risen from 11.5 percent in 1992 to 13.6 percent. In City of Pittsburgh, it climbed from 21.4 percent to 23.8 percent.
Yet, despite the rise in poverty, vacant and blighted properties and the most recent recession, the region’s overall crime rates have steadily fallen since 1992, including steep declines in rape, robbery, burglary, larceny and car theft.
Speaking of cars, this season’s Pirates shouldn’t have trouble affording one. One of the biggest differences between the two teams is payroll, which has risen from $32.6 million in 1992 to more than $79.5 million this season – a 144 percent increase. That may be a lot of money. But finally ending the longest losing streak in the history of professional sports is worth every penny.