This is probably the most unique article I’ve ever done. I’ve written a ton of niche things during my time as a writer, but this is on a whole new level.

Sitting at a hightop table just a few days ago at a restaurant out in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (just a little under an hour outside of Pittsburgh), I noticed something on the table. 

This particular establishment has advertisements streaming across the entirety of all their tables, and mine was no exception. However, a familiar sight struck my eyes when I took a first glance. 

Set right in the center of the table was a picture of PNC Park, set in the middle of a Pittsburgh Pirates game. To be quite honest, I have no recollection of what potential company this was used for in an ad (I didn’t care), but this particular picture had me rather curious. 

With some time to kill, I decided to dive further into a picture seen thousands of times, and probably never given a second thought. And maybe, just maybe, I could find out just what particular game this was. 

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: this is quite an old picture. The quality of the picture makes that a given, but also the state of the scoreboard makes it pretty obvious as well. The Pirates haven’t used a scoreboard with that small of a screen (the surrounding areas are just lights in this photo) in quite some time. So off the bat, we can infer this picture is from PNC Park’s infancy. 

I started with the wording that was the easiest to read. On the screen, someone with the last name Bay is up to bat, a man who, at the time of this game, has safely reached base 15 straight games. 

A quick roster search from the early/mid 2000s Pirates rosters reveal Jason Bay was a member of the Pirates from 2003 to 2008. It’s still a very large window, but it’s something to start, eliminating both 2001 and 2002 as potential years. 

However, this is where things get a little more tricky. The picture’s lower quality makes it hard to understand what any smaller text says, including the Pirates’ roster for that game, who were currently up to bat when this particular photo was taken.   

One of the few names I can make out is Wilson. Craig Wilson was a Pirate that fit this timeline, and he shaved off a few years. Wilson played in Pittsburgh from 2001 to 2006, but he was not the only Wilson there at the time.

Jack Wilson, a shortstop for the Pirates, played in Pittsburgh from 2001 to 2009, essentially putting us right back to where we began.

One other name I could make out was Castillo. In the history of Major League Baseball, there have been multiple Jose Castillos, but one of them was a Pirates infielder from 2004 to 2007. This eliminates 2003 as an option. 

Unfortunately, Castillo was the only other name I could be sure of, so I had to turn to some other hints. On the left side of each player’s last name was their jersey number. Now that I had narrowed it down to anywhere from 2004 to 2007, if I could read some numbers, perhaps I can zero in on the actual year. 

Wilson’s 36 is one of the first numbers I can read. It establishes that the Wilson in this game is Craig Wilson. It’s one of the very few numbers on the board that is legible.

However, there is a 12 that I can read, which turned out to be Freddy Sanchez. Once again, after you know the same, it becomes easier to read in the picture. Now, it definitely looks like Sanchez. 

Duffy, a name that came to me after another look, is wearing 6, which he only wore with the Pirates in 2006 and 2007 (he wore 26 in 2005). Now we’re down to just two years. 

One final legible number was 34. Pitcher Roberto Hernandez once wore 34 for the Pirates, as he appears to be in this picture. Once I connected the two, it was easier to see that name as Hernandez. 

But Robert Hernandez, this beautiful man, solves the puzzle. A closer look at Hernandez’s career shows that he only played for the Pirates in 2006, and there, we have our year! 

This picture is from the 2006 season. 

Any sane person would have never embarked on this task, and any reasonable person would have stopped at this point. But that wasn’t enough for me. I needed to know exactly what game this was.

Luckily, from the scoreboard, I can see the opponent’s name: Cardinals. (It was easier to read in person as opposed to in this picture).

Very luckily, now that I have an opponent, the search becomes a lot easier. Although they were hard to read, I was able to figure out the most of the scores per inning in this game. It looks as though the Cardinals scored one run in each of the second and third innings, and tacked on two others in the ninth. 

It also helps that this is a daytime game, which eliminates a handful of contests from the 2006 season. 

For this search, I assumed that the Pirates did not score in the bottom of the ninth inning, meaning that the final score was likely 4-0. Only one game between the Pirates and Cardinals had a 4-0 final score: April 19th, 2006. 

A little skeptical at first because I couldn’t be 100% on the score per inning numbers, I looked further into the details of the game. 

It was a Wednesday afternoon game, with first pitch coming at 12:36 pm local time. The scorecard looks very similar, if not the exact same; the Cardinals scored once in the second, once in the third, and twice in the ninth. The Pirates, meanwhile, had 0 altogether. 

But the defining piece in all of this, was the batting lineup. Here was the order:

Chris Duffy, CF

Freddy Sanchez, SS

Jason Bay, LF

Jeromy Burnitz, RF

Craig Wilson, 1B

Mike Edwards, 3B

Jose Castillo, 2B

Ronny Paulino, C

And of course, this was back when National League teams had to have their pitcher bat in the order. 

After reading this order, take another look at the lineup in that picture. It’s much easier to see many of those names now after reading them in a clear format. 

And alas, we have found this exact game: a 4-0 Pirates loss on April 19th, 2006. 

A couple quick notes on the game: 

-Jason Bay was walked twice in this game, allowing him to extend his safely on base streak to 15 games, as pointed out in the graphic for him when he was up to bat in the ninth. That streak would extend to just one more game, in Pittsburgh’s 3-2 loss to the Houston Astros two days later. 

-Chris Duffy was hit by a pitch twice, both by St. Louis pitcher Matt Carpenter.

-Ronny Paulino and Freddy Sanchez had the only two Pittsburgh hits in this contest.

-Pirates starting pitcher Victor Santos gave up just two runs in 6 innings pitched, but gave up two solo home runs.

-The recorded attendance for this Wednesday afternoon game was 15, 085.

It was quite the fun adventure (for me, anyways), and if you stuck with me through my madness till the end, I hope you enjoyed the journey. And a big shoutout to the dinner party that evening.