Pirates turn viral Fanatics blunder into hilariously fitting dugout celebration

The Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t just fix their offense Tuesday night in Cincinnati — they leaned into the absurdity of baseball and somehow made it work.

And in the process, they turned a corporate mistake into the most on-brand dugout celebration you’ll see all season.

It started, of all places, with Fanatics — a company that has made headlines before for… let’s call them “creative interpretations” of team gear. Somewhere along the line, a Pirates shirt hit the market reading: “Hoist the Cone.” Not colors. Cone.

No one knew what it meant. There was no explanation. No correction. Just vibes.

Plenty of organizations would ignore it. Others might have a quick laugh at Fanatics' exense before quietly moving on. But the Pirates had other ideas.

Enter Jake Mangum. The Pirates outfielder didn’t walk into the visitors clubhouse in Cincinnati looking for a speech, a meeting, or some grand solution to the Pirates’ early-season struggles.

He walked in looking for a traffic cone.

It was a ridiculous request — the kind of thing that earns a double take, maybe even a laugh. But within hours, that same orange cone was planted in the dugout, stamped with a Pirates logo, and somehow at the center of everything that followed.

"Hoist the cone" might actually stick as the Pirates' accidental rallying cry

Mangum’s explanation was equal parts hilarious and accidentally insightful.

The Pirates hadn't been failing to get on base — they had been failing to finish. Entering Tuesday's game, they were 6-45 with runners in scoring position. They had stranded 40 men on base. They were creating constant pressure with no payoff.

“We’ve had traffic," Mangum said. "We just haven’t directed it”

The solution? Turn it into something tangible that the entire dugout could rally around. A literal object to say: get them home. It’s baseball logic filtered through beer league energy — and somehow, that’s exactly why it worked.

That night, the offense looked like a completely different group. Oneil Cruz crushed two home runs, including a 444-foot missile. Bryan Reynolds launched his first of the season. Ryan O'Hearn blew the game open with a three-run shot. Brandon Lowe saved runs with his elite defense. Yohan Ramírez escaped a jam that could’ve flipped momentum.

And front and center in the dugout? A bright orange traffic cone.

For a team that spent the first few games of the season tight, pressing, and visibly frustrated, Tuesday looked like spring training again — loose, loud, confident. That matters more than any hitting tweak ever will.

This roster, for all its flaws and weird fits, was clearly built with personality in mind: O'Hearn's blunt, no-nonsense leadership, Lowe's quiet steadiness, Mangum's "mayor" energy, and even Cruz's chaotic brilliance. The cone fits that identity perfectly.

It’s gritty. It’s weird. It’s a little unpolished. It’s very Pittsburgh.

So, what started as a merch blunder might end up outlasting anything Fanatics actually intended — because baseball is a sport built on superstition, inside jokes, and anything that can be tied to a win.

The Pirates are 1-0 in the Cone Era. If they keep hitting, you’re going to see that thing every night.
If they don’t, it might quietly disappear back into a clubhouse corner.

But for at least one night — maybe longer — an orange traffic cone did what hours of cage work and lineup shuffling couldn’t. It got the Pirates out of their own heads.

And sometimes, that’s all it takes to redirect traffic.