Pittsburgh Pirates: All Time ”Flash in the Pan” Team

Second Base: Tony Womack, 1997

Womack is on this list by association, as he was not a flash-in-the-pan type player. However, since I had a hard time finding any other second baseman that would be a good choice for this list, it came down to the fact that the 1997 Pirates were the definition of a flash-in-the-pan type team. ”The Freak Show” as they were known, might have been the closest thing Major League Baseball has had to a real-life adaptation of the 1989 classic ”Major League”. Kevin McClatchy’s cash-strapped Pirates came into the season with a $9,000,000 payroll and wound up falling short of a division title in the last week of the season. Womack was at the heart of the madness, hitting .278 and stealing 60 bases. While Womack would go on to play nine more seasons and play a vital role on the 2001 Diamondbacks squad that won the World Series, the team he was on was never able to build off of ”The Freak Show”.