Farm System: The Pittsburgh Pirates Plan to Grow Success
Banana Peppers in the bullpen? What’s going on at PNC Park?
Casey Stengel, the Hall of Fame Yankees manager and baseball philosopher, had a theory as to why they call it the “bullpen.” According to Stengel, the place got its name because it’s the place where he would send pitchers to sit around and bullshit until it was their time to pitch. Certainly, the ‘pen remains one of the stranger places in sports, one of those quirks that could only exist in baseball: Every game, a dozen pitchers head to the outfield where they are exiled to sit and watch the game, only contributing sometimes.
Pitchers find novel ways to pass the time. They have dance parties. They play bocce ball. They schlep Dora the Explorer backpacks. And now, according to an eagle-eyed fan at PNC Park last week, it appears that the Pittsburgh Pirates relievers have found a new hobby while the rest of their team flounders on the field. Take a look:
They have a garden of peppers, zucchini, and squash.
The Pirates, it seems, have developed a green thumb.
Ashlie D. Stevens at Salon did some heroic investigative journalism and spoke with Matt Brown, PNC Park’s director of field operations. Brown explained to Stevens that the gardening habit isn’t actually new; four years ago, the Pirates installed nine planter boxes in the bullpen, and they’ve been growing crops of “five to six different types of peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, [and] blueberries” ever since.
The pitchers don’t tend the garden, but they do enjoy its bounties. The team has grown ghost peppers, the spiciest pepper in the world, and the players have had competitions to see who can eat them straight off the vine (judging by the Pirates’ recent record, the peppers have failed to help the team stay hot). What about the rest of the food? "Whatever is harvested is given to our clubhouse chef, who makes great dishes out of it," Brown told Salon.
And perhaps most surprising, the bullpen’s peppers aren’t the only spot in PNC Park where the team is growing fresh veggies. Walk around the concourse of the first base line, and you might stumble upon the Rivendale Patio Garden, where the team grows even more fresh fruits and vegetables that are served at concession stands around the stadium. The idea started with the ballpark’s chef, who wanted to serve food from local gardens to make their operation more sustainable. The team partnered with Rivendale Farms and then looked around the ballpark and asked, “What about using some of this empty space as well?”
“One of the focuses is to show how food is grown in an urban environment,” Gabe Hays, one of the project’s designers, said in 2018.
Ever since, the Pirates have been showing how baseball and gardening can inform each other. Like a great player, growing perfect vegetables is about tiny improvements made over time. Like a great team, it’s about taking a balanced, holistic approach. And like a great bullpen, it’s about creating the perfect environment for success.
One final story: a few years ago, the Pirates decided to grow some tomatoes. The vines were falling over and needed trellises. Staff members found some extra Louisville Slugger baseball bats, stuck them deep in the soil, and the plants grew straight and true.
That might just be the best bullpen antic of all.
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