Pittsburgh Pirates Logo
The Pirates have had many uniforms and logo changes over the years, with the only consistency being the "P" on the team's cap. It was adopted in 1948. Aside from style changes in the cap itself, the "P" logo has remained since.
The Pirates have long been innovators in baseball uniforms. In 1948, the team broke away from the patriotic "Red, White, & Blue" color scheme when they adopted the current black & gold color scheme, to match that of the colors of the Flag of Pittsburgh and, to a lesser extent at the time, the colors of the then-relatively unknown Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL. While they were not the first baseball team to do this, they were one of the first to do this permanently. Along with the San Francisco Giants, the Pirates are one of two pre-expansion National League teams that completely changed their colors, although red returned as an "accent color" in 1997 and remained until 2009.
In the late 1950s, the team adopted sleeveless jerseys. While not an innovation by th
To coincide with the move into Three Rivers Stadium in 1970, the team introduced pullover spandex uniforms, the first such team in baseball, and a look that would quickly be adopted by most other teams by the end of the decade. The Pirates ditched the pullover style in favor of the traditional button-down style in 1991, one of the last teams to switch.
The Pirates were also innovators in third jerseys. Even though it would be the Oakland A's that would beat them to having such jerseys, the Pirates, by 1977 had different uniform styles that included two different caps, two different undershirts, three different jerseys and three different pairs of trousers. They would actually rotate (and sometimes mix, with painful results) these styles daily until returning to the basic white and gray uniform ensemble in 1985.
In 1976, the National League celebrated its 100th anniversary. To coincide with it, certain NL teams wore old-style pillbox hats complete with horizontal pinstripes. After the season, the Pirates were the only team to adopt the hats permanently, (alternating between a black hat and a gold hat for several seasons until keeping the black hat in 1985) and kept the hat through the 1986 season, which would be Barry Bonds rookie season with the team. The hats, which recall the team's last World Series championship season (1979), remain popular items in the throwback market.
The 2013 season marked the last of one of the team's former logos, introduced in 1997 just after former owner Kevin McClatchy took over the team. The Pirates chose to use the "P" on their caps as the primary logo; however, the former logo will continue to be used as a secondary logo.[45]
On December 13, 2014, the Pirates unveiled a new camo alternate jersey, which honors the soldiers in the Armed Forces. It was worn on every Thursday home game during the 2015 season.
On February 18, 2016, the Pirates unveiled a new throwback alternate uniform in the style of the 1979 team. This uniform features yellow jerseys and old-style pillbox hats. It will be worn on every Sunday home game during the 2016 season.
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