The Pittsburgh Pirates Riding Success of Social Media

Less than two years ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates had about 5,550 followers on Twitter on one of their accounts, the other had 3,000.   Major League Baseball seemed disinterested in the amount of work involved with social media.

But times have changed since we wrote this article in December of 2010 stating the Pirates could learn something from Lady Gaga–surprisingly, it’s been one of our most read posts.  Gaga owns social media–and less than two years later, the Pirates social media presence is well on track to becoming formidable..

We’re damn glad it has too.

The Pittsburgh Pirates invited bloggers for another #BucsSocial night at PNC Park last night. We can’t confirm with Elias, but we believe the team is undefeated when hosting such events this year.   As usual, the Pirates Terry Rodgers rolled out the red carpet for us last night.

We met at the press gate and were personally escorted to the field for batting practice. We have seen batting practice a few times. We noticed immediately that the Bucs didn’t seem at all fatigued, or pressing about the importance of the game which fans have heard so much about.

Thanks to social media–we saw firsthand what’s up.  This team was smiling, joking, laughing, high fiving, low fiving, mid thigh slapping, hip bumping, and just having fun.  Before the game even happened…. .

We took some pictures to try and capture the mood last night, but the final score probably says it better, no, it definently says it better than we ever could.

Before the game we were able to watch the Pitsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals take batting practice on the field.

Scenes from around the batting cages were interesting.

Pedro Gomez made it around to several players, including spending some time with the Hammer, Joel Hanrahan.

The bench having fun before the game:

Best Use of Social Media on this Night:   The highlight for future RumBunter Editor, Brody Smith, AKA–The Franchise happened when Joel Hanrahan took the time to autograph a baseball.

In the sixth inning, some more magic occured. Brody, his strawberry slushie covered teeth and the autographed Joel Hanrahan baseball made it on the PNC Park #ScoreboardPix

It’s yet another way for the Pirates and their fans to interact.    Who doesn’t want to see their face on the scoreboard at a sporting event?

Yeh, social media and the Pittsburgh Pirates have come a long way.

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P.S.

Anybody know who does the drawings for the players on the scoreboard…. sort of creepy, right?

Our last picture of the night, right before we closed the door to the suite. Thanks to Terry Rodgers, Jim Popovich, Terri Smith and the entire Pittsburgh Pirates organization for another invitation.