Former Manager Looks Back on Pirates Tenure

PITTSBURGH — Former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle spent almost a decade in the home dugout at PNC Park, but his return placed him on the opposite side for the first time in a long while.

Hurdle returned to Pittsburgh in colors of grey and purple of the Colorado Rockies, as he took over earlier this season as their interim hitting coach, following an historically awful start to 2025.

The 68-year old is on a Rockies team that sits 37-92 overall for the worst record in the MLB, eight wins less than the next team, the Chicago White Sox, at 45-83.

Hurdle joined on April 17 as Rockies interim hitting coach, after previously serving as the special assistant to the general manager.

Changing roles to one where he traveled more often and being away from family wasn't easy after being in semi-retirement, but Hurdle saw a team that needed guidance and wanted to help any way he could.

“My wife told me, you are built for hard. I’ve done hard personally. I’ve done hard professionally when I was a player and coaching in life. I did some more hard a couple of months ago, why I missed the Pirates series when my mom passed. Maddie just had a situation here where I thought I would have to stay in Denver and not make this trip. So I’ve done hard. I know what that looks like. I know what that feels like. I also know what it means to other people when there aren’t people that want to help. More people want to pour more gas on the fire than help pu t out the fire. I always thought of myself as somebody, just give your best effort and see if you can help make a difference.”

Hurdle found himself in a similar situation in 2011 when he started his first season as the Pirates manager.

The Pirates were coming off their 18th consecutive losing season and off of three miserable campaings under John Tracy, where they lost 95, 99 and 105 games from 2008-10, respectively.

Hurdle then had early success with both the 2011 and 2012 teams, including getting to a 47-43 record in 2011 at the All-Star break, the Pirates' first .500 record at that point since 1992. He also did the same in 2012, going 48-37, but both seasons had late collapses ended under .500, serving as the 19th and 20th consecutive losing seasons.

He and the Pirates finally got things right from 2013-15, endin g the longest consecuitve losing season streak in North American Sports history and making three straight playoff appearances.

The Pirates finished 94-68 in 2013, 88-74 in 2014 and 98-64, earning three National League Wild Card appearances.

Pittsburgh won the NL Wild Card Game in front of a soldout, blackout crowd in 2013 over the Cincinnati Reds and finished one game short of the NLCS, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in five games. They lost both Wild Card games in 2014 and 2015 to the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs.

While the Pirates never made it back to the postseason in the final four seasons of Hurdle's regime, he made turned the franchise from perennial losers to successful in a shortspan, giving the city a baseball team worth rooting for again.

“One of the things that I shared publicly when I was given the opportunity to be the manager were the hopes were to rebond the city with its baseball team and I believe we did that," Hurdle said. "There are a lot of finger prints on the success that we had collectively. We didn’t get to where we wanted to go, the final destination, a World Series championship. This park became a hostile environment for op posing teams. That three year period in ’13-15, I probably had as much fun in the game of baseball as I’ve ever had anywhere.

"The fans made part of that happen because the fan base, as you well know, here is so deeply passionate. There are a lot of good feelings coming back because we did a lot of hard together too. It’s like an old friend, one that I haven’t seen in a long time that I’m happy to see.”

Many players thrived under Hurdle's tenure, including current Pirates player Andrew McCutchen, who made five straight All-Star Games from 2011-15, won four conecutive NL Silver Slugger Awards from 2012-15, won an NL Gold Glove Award in 2012, the NL MVP in 2013 and the Roberto Clemente Award in 2015.