Column: Opening Day a ‘special’ one for Pirates players, alumni

The past, present and future coalesced on a sunny Monday afternoon at PNC Park. Jim Leyland, Barry Bonds, Dick Groat and Jack Wilson stood mingled between Clint Hurdle, Andrew McCutchen, Pedro Alvarez and Francisco Liriano as former Pirates helped to present current players with the awards they won a season ago.

For Hurdle, it was the National League Manager of the Year. For Alvarez, it was a Silver Slugger. For Liriano, it was the National League Comeback Player of the Year. Last, but most importantly of all, McCutchen received a Silver Slugger and his 2013 National League Most Valuable Player trophy.

It was an important day.

From Leyland emphatically claiming that Bonds belonged in the Hall of Fame to Bonds asserting that he “got to play for a great manager and a great city” to Wilson recalling the first time he and Freddy Sanchez saw McCutchen play in a pre-draft tryout, to Wilkinsburg, Pa.,-native Groat telling the assembled media that he was “home,” it was an important day.

At the present, the Pirates have begun a new season that will tell a new story. A story that Hurdle and the Pirates hope will have a different ending from that of 2013’s tale, with the St. Louis Cardinals dispatching Pittsburgh from the playoffs in the National League Divisional Series.

“We’re viewing ourselves as still chasing,” Hurdle said. “There’s one team that took home the trophy last year, we were one of eight to get to the dance. We want to play longer, so we’ve still got more to accomplish.”

As a result, he and the organization are aware of heightened expectations from both inside and outside the walls of the clubhouse. And that’s a good thing, Hurdle said as he listed winning the Central Division and the World Series as goals that come as a part of those higher expectations.

Hurdle said multiple times last year that a challenge for these Pirates, and anyone, really, was not only attaining success, but maintaining it. Monday morning, Hurdle introduced a new element to the formula — excellence.

“We’re looking for excellence, not success, because success is comparing yourself to somebody else,” Hurdle said. “Excellence is being the best you can be, and that’s what we’re looking to do this year, to be the best team that we can be. And we feel confident that if that is accomplished, everything’s going to end up really, really good for everybody.”

Monday’s game ended up good for the Pirates, and that’s a start.

The afternoon was capped in the 10th inning when Neil Walker — from Gibsonia, Pa., and a two-sport standout at Pine-Richland High School — stepped to the plate against Carlos Villanueva. When Chicago’s reliever left a changeup elevated in Walker’s wheelhouse, he smacked it over the Clemente Wall for Pittsburgh’s first win of the season.

With his Pittsburgh connection, many wanted to know after the game if it was special for the Pittsburgh kid to hit a walk-off home run on Opening Day.

“I think I’ve become numb to that over the past 11 seasons in this organization,” Walker said. “But at the same time, special moments like today, being a part of the pre-game like that, having a game finish like that, is very, very special. I certainly have a little bit better understanding of the tradition of this organization, I think, than most guys.”

With that understanding in tow, Pittsburgh’s second baseman recognized that his first-ever walk-off hit was a small part of a much bigger day.

“This was a really special day for this team, this organization, we’ve come a long way,” Walker said. “The last 20 years have been a tough thing, and to get to where we are now over the last couple years is pretty amazing.”

Even Hurdle, the man who focuses always on the game his team is playing that day while remaining cognizant that there will always be another game, allowed that there was significance to the events on the North Shore Monday. 

“I’m mindful of reminding the guys that there will be a tomorrow after today,” Hurdle said. “We want to embrace today, by all means.”