Tim Neverett on October 1, 2013, PNC’s Wildest Night

The Pirates have won 13 of their last 15 games, which, as Craig Edwards explained on Wednesday, places them on the periphery of playoff contention. With two months to go in what has been a fast-moving season, the suddenly overachieving Sons of Honus Wagner are seven back in the NL Central, and just four-and-half out in the Wild Card race.

Pittsburgh fans are familiar with the Wild Card. The Buccos’ 2013, 2014, and 2015 seasons — which followed 20 consecutive years of October-less baseball — all included the one-game nail-biter that qualifies a team for Division Series play. And while the latter two qualify as forgettable, the first was a never-forget Pittsburgh sports classic. The game, a 6-2 conquest of the Cincinnati Reds at PNC Park, was played on October 1, 2013 against the backdrop of a black-clad cacophony.

Tim Neverett was there. A member of the Pirates’ broadcast team at the time — he’s now calling games in Boston — Neverett never tires of recounting that epic night. Nor should he. It was an experience like none other, as he explains here.

———

Tim Neverett: “Ron Darling had the best line on TBS that night. I went back and watched their broadcast later, and they panned around the stadium. It was a ‘blackout’ — everybody is wearing black — and PNC was going crazy. I think they gave the fire marshall the night off, because the place was overcapacity. Ron said, ‘This is what 20 years of frustration looks like.’ And he was exactly right.

“I got down to the ballpark in the afternoon, and I had never seen the North Shore buzzing with activity the way it was that day. It was incredible. People in costumes. People hanging out on the Clemente Bridge. People actually watched from the Clemente Bridge. That’s the first time I ever saw that. They were hanging on the bridge, just looking for a glimpse of the ballpark, to see the game.

“The broadcast booth in Pittsburgh is second highest in baseball next to Washington, so you can get a great view of the bridge and anybody who is going across it. During the game, I kept seeing this guy on a bike with these flashing lights all over his body. I’d never seen him before. There was different watercraft on the Allegheny River that I’d never seen. There was a logjam of boats behind the right-field wall, along the walkway, at PNC Park.

“People ask me what the greatest sporting event is I’ve ever been to, the loudest and best atmosphere. Until then, it was when the USA played Greece in the 2004 Olympics, in basketball. I was doing that game. It was a 20,000-seat arena in Athens, and I thought the roof was going to pop off that building. Greece played a US team led by Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury, and all those guys. It was unbelievably close — they thought they had a chance to upset them — and the atmosphere was the most incredible I’d ever experienced… until October 1, 2013.

“I’d never seen anything like it, and I’ve never seen anything like it since. The way the community came together. The way that it was such an important thing. And then the game started.

“Johnny Cueto, who was really good, gets on the hill. Russell Martin is at the plate and the fans are cheering Kway-toe, Kway-toe, Kway-toe. It was deafening how loud it was. And as he’s standing on the rubber, somehow the ball slips out of his glove and rolls down the slope of the mound. You have 40,000 people going crazy — they’re laughing at him — and Cueto picks up the ball, walks back on the mound, and delivers the next pitch. Russell Martin hits it into the left-field seats. If PNC had a dome, it would have cracked open. It was the loudest I’ve ever heard a stadium.

“One thing about that night is that there was no way the Pirates were going to lose. You just had a feeling that there was no way on earth they were going to lose. It was the first time in the postseason in two decades, and that wasn’t about to happen.

“Fast forward to the following year. The Pirates now have Edinson Volquez on their staff, and he’s best friends with Johnny Cueto. First road trip we’re in St. Louis, and we’re in the lobby near the elevator. Volquez is there with Francisco Liriano and we’re talking. He brought up Cueto’s name. I go, ‘Hey, I have to ask you a question. You know Johnny real well. How could he drop the ball on the mound?’ He goes, ‘Oh yeah, he told me all about it. He was breaking in a new glove.’ I said, ‘In the Wild Card game?’ He starts laughing and says, ‘That’s what he told me.’

“But back to that night… just the faces, the happy faces, of the Pittsburgh people. They’re so passionate about their teams. They love their teams. The way they support the Penguins and the Steelers is off the charts. Even the Pirates when they’re bad. They’re diehards. It’s a passion, much like it is here in Boston… except they cry a little more in Pittsburgh. They don’t win as much as they do here. The Penguins and Steelers win, but the Pirates… not as often. The fans cry because they care.

“But when Martin hit that home run… I think the stadium was shaking. I really do. To see that reaction and hear the chants… it was a sea of black going absolutely crazy. The next year they played the San Francisco Giants in the Wild Card game, and that was good too, but it wasn’t nearly what it was when they played the Reds — especially when Brandon Crawford hit the fourth-inning grand slam. I had that call, unfortunately. And then Madison Bumgarner slammed the door.

“The next year, the Pirates played in the Wild Card game again. Jake Arrieta goes on Twitter and riles up the Pittsburgh fans, saying ‘Bring it.’ So they came loaded for bear. They were after him the whole night, but Arrieta had one of his best games. He loved it. The fans in Pittsburgh didn’t. The Cubs won.

“Three Wild Card games in a row, and the Pirates won one of them. I feel it was the most important of the three — they got that postseason monkey off their back — but since that run, things haven’t been as good. The crying is back, I guess.

“But I’ll always remember October 1, 2013. The Pirates gave us these framed photos of the team on the line, with their black uniforms, and the postseason logo on the ground. I’ve got that hanging in my living room. I miss Pittsburgh. I have some great memories of my time there.”