[Nick Soulis]

Series #249



Modern Power Survives Deadball Resolve
2003 Pirates Just Get By Deadball Cardinals



Series #249 — Game 1
Venue: PNC Park — Pittsburgh, PA
1908 St. Louis Cardinals 2
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates 0
Winning Pitcher: Bugs Raymond (1–0) — 6.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 4 K
Losing Pitcher: Brian Meadows (0–1) — 6.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER
Save: Ed Karger (1)
Home Runs: St. Louis — Red Murray (1) Pittsburgh — None
Player of the Game: Bugs Raymond — 6 shutout innings, set the tone for the Cardinals’ Game 1 victory.
1908 St. Louis leads 1–0

The Cardinals of 1908 arrived at PNC Park as an enigma from another century, but by the end of the night they were simply the better team. Behind six masterful shutout innings from Bugs Raymond, St. Louis blanked the 2003 Pirates 2–0 to seize a 1–0 lead in Series 249.
Game 1 unfolded as a slow-burn duel, the kind of tense, low-scoring affair that suits a Deadball club perfectly. The first breakthrough came in the fourth inning when Red Murray jumped on a Brian Meadows pitch and sent it soaring into the right-field seats, a rare show of power from an era not known for it. Two innings later, Ed Konetchy delivered the decisive blow — a two-out RBI double that pushed the Cardinals ahead 2–0 and silenced the Pittsburgh crowd.
From there, the St. Louis pitching staff smothered every flicker of a Pirates rally. Raymond’s dancing, unpredictable offerings forced impatient swings and soft contact, while relievers Sandy McGlynn and Ed Karger stitched together the final nine outs with calm precision. Pittsburgh mustered only two hits, both from Kenny Lofton, and never advanced a runner past second base. In a park built for modern power, the Cardinals won with grit, guile, and an old-era understanding of pressure. The Pirates now look to regroup before Game 2, while St. Louis carries early momentum — and the comfort of knowing their style, at least for one night, translated across a century.

Series #249 — Game 2
Venue: PNC Park — Pittsburgh, PA
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates 9
1908 St. Louis Cardinals 1
Winning Pitcher: Jeff Suppan (1–0) — 6.0 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K
Losing Pitcher: Johnny Lush (0–1) — 2.0 IP, 5 H, 5 R (4 ER)
Save: None
Home Runs: St. Louis — None Pittsburgh — None
Player of the Game: Kenny Lofton — 4-for-5, triple, double, 3 R, 2 RBI, SB
Series: Tied 1–1

Game 2 unfolded like a thunderclap over the Allegheny, a complete reversal of the tense, minimalist duel that defined the opener. The 2003 Pittsburgh Pirates erupted early and never eased off, overpowering the 1908 St. Louis Cardinals 9–1 at PNC Park to level Series 249 at one game apiece. Pittsburgh seized control from the very first inning. After Kenny Lofton singled and stole second, Jason Kendall ripped a two-run double to ignite the crowd and tilt the field. Moments later, Morgan Stairs added another RBI, giving the Pirates a 3–0 lead before St. Louis had even settled into the night. The barrage continued in the second when Lofton tripled to right-center, then came home as part of another surge that pushed the lead to 5–0 and sent starter Johnny Lush to an early exit. From that point forward, the Pirates swung freely and ran confidently, fully embracing the power and pace of the modern game. The defining moment came in the sixth inning — a four-run eruption fueled by Lofton’s second extra-base hit, Randall Sanders’ RBI double, and opportunistic hitting up and down the lineup. By the time the dust settled, Lofton had assembled a masterpiece: 4-for-5 with a triple, a double, 3 runs scored, 2 driven in, and a stolen base. It was a performance that energized the ballpark and drowned out any lingering frustrations from Game 1. On the mound, Jeff Suppan gave the Pirates precisely what they needed: six efficient innings, six strikeouts, and just one run allowed. The bullpen — Sauerbeck and Lincoln — sealed the final three frames without incident. For the Cardinals, Red Murray drove in the lone run, but the Deadball style that thrived in the opener never took root. Falling behind early stripped St. Louis of its preferred tactics, and the Pirates dictated every inning from that point forward.

Series #249 — Game 3
Venue: Robison Field — St. Louis, MO
1908 St. Louis Cardinals 6,
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates 4
Winning Pitcher: Art Fromme (1–0) — 7.0 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 5 K
Losing Pitcher: Kip Wells (0–1) — 2.0 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 0 BB, 3 K
Save: Sandy McGlynn (1)
Home Runs: Pittsburgh — Brian Giles (1, 8th inning) St. Louis — Billy Byrne (1), Red Murray (2), Jack Bliss (1)
Player of the Game: Ed Konetchy — 3-for-4, double, 2 runs, RBI, central catalyst in Cardinals offense
1908 St. Louis leads 2–1

Game 3 at Robison Field felt like baseball slipping back into the century that shaped the 1908 Cardinals. The wooden stands, the tight alleys, the muted outfield gaps — all of it seemed to welcome St. Louis home. And once the game settled into its rhythm, the Cardinals played as though the ballpark itself had joined the lineup.
The Pirates struck first, scoring two early runs and attempting to bring the swagger of Game 2 into enemy territory. But the Cardinals answered immediately in the bottom half, matching Pittsburgh’s burst and calming the crowd’s nerves. The tone shifted from anxious to confident, and St. Louis never relinquished that momentum again.
In the second inning, Billy Byrne sent a deep drive into the left-field seats, a crisp solo shot that gave the Cardinals their first lead. It was a swing that seemed to wake the old stadium, and by the time the third inning arrived, Robison Field felt like it was leaning forward with anticipation. Red Murray opened the frame with a home run that brought the Cardinals dugout to life. Ed Konetchy followed with a sharp double, continuing a three-hit performance that defined his night. Moments later, Jack Bliss delivered the blow that shaped the rest of the game — a towering two-run home run that lifted the score to 6–2 and sent the St. Louis crowd into full celebratory roar. From there, Art Fromme took the game into his hands. He worked seven innings, not without turbulence, but always with enough resilience to keep the Pirates from clawing all the way back. His only significant stumble came in the eighth, when Brian Giles homered to tighten the margin, but Higginbotham and McGlynn steadied the final innings with quiet, efficient relief work. By the time the final out landed in a glove, St. Louis had collected thirteen hits and reclaimed control of the series with the deliberate confidence of a team playing exactly the style of baseball it was built for. The Cardinals now lead Series 249 by a 2–1 margin, and with Game 4 still at Robison Field, the balance of the matchup has shifted squarely into their era’s hands.

Series #249 — Game 4
Robison Field — St. Louis, MO
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates 5,
1908 St. Louis Cardinals 4
Winning Pitcher: Kris Benson (1–0) — 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K
Losing Pitcher: Fred Beebe (0–1) — 6.0 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 5 BB, 5 K
Save: Julián Tavárez (1)
Home Runs: Pittsburgh — Morgan Stairs (1), Reggie Sanders (1), Brian Giles (1)
Player of the Game: Kris Benson — 7 strong innings, set the tone for Pittsburgh’s road win
Series: Tied 2–2

Game 4 at Robison Field carried the feel of a long, coiled wire — quiet tension, steady pressure, and then a sudden spark that changed everything. The 2003 Pirates edged the 1908 Cardinals 5–4, evening Series 249 at two games apiece and stealing back a measure of control on the road. St. Louis struck first, using their familiar early-inning craft to scratch across a run in the opening frame. But while the Cardinals tried to shape the game into their preferred tight, small-ball design, Pittsburgh’s starter Kris Benson slowly unraveled that script. Across seven innings he worked with calm persistence, scattering five hits and allowing only a single earned run. His steady hand kept the Cardinals from ever settling into the rhythm they found in Game 3. The turning points came in increments, not outbursts — at least at first. In the fifth inning, Morgan Stairs jolted a solo home run into left, tying the game and signaling that Pittsburgh’s bats were beginning to adjust to the ballpark’s stubborn geometry. An inning later, Kenny Lofton worked a bases-loaded walk, giving Pittsburgh a 2–1 lead with the kind of disciplined at-bat that can break a pitcher’s backbone more effectively than a double in the gap. The game held that shape until the eighth, when the Pirates delivered the decisive blow. Randall Simon doubled to start the inning, a clean strike that forced the Cardinals to tighten their defense. Then Reggie Sanders, patient all night, jumped on a Higginbotham pitch and crushed it over the left-field boards. And as if Pittsburgh wished to remind everyone they were a modern team playing in an old park, Brian Giles followed with a deep home run of his own. Two swings, back to back, and suddenly Pittsburgh led 5–1. St. Louis refused to fold. In the bottom half of the eighth, substitute W. Murdoch ripped a two-run double that reignited the crowd and brought the Cardinals back within one. For a moment, Robison Field felt alive in that old, unruly way — the kind of energy that can tilt a game into chaos.
But Pittsburgh’s closer, Julián Tavárez, with his odd rhythms and awkward angles, found a way to stagger through the ninth without surrendering the lead. The Cardinals left the tying run on base, and the wooden grandstands, for all their historic stubbornness, fell silent.
The series now leaves Game 4 exactly as it entered — precariously balanced, impossible to predict. St. Louis has proved their era can still command moments; Pittsburgh has proved the modern game can break through anywhere. With the series tied 2–2 and one more game in this old park before returning to Pittsburgh, the tension is rising, inning by inning.

Series #249 — Game 5
Robison Field — St. Louis, MO
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates 1,
1908 St. Louis Cardinals 0
Winning Pitcher: Brian Meadows (1–1) — 8.0 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K
Losing Pitcher: Bugs Raymond (1–1) — 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 10 K
Save: Julián Tavárez (2)
Home Runs: Pittsburgh — Reggie Sanders (2, solo HR in 2nd inning)
Player of the Game: Brian Meadows — eight shutout innings in a pivotal road start.
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates lead 3–2

Game 5 at Robison Field felt like baseball stripped down to its barest, most unforgiving form — one mistake, one swing, one breath separating triumph from regret. In a game played entirely in the narrow margins, the 2003 Pirates outlasted the 1908 Cardinals 1–0, seizing the pivotal contest of Series 249 and pushing St. Louis to the brink. The night belonged to the pitchers, and they authored two entirely different masterpieces. Bugs Raymond was dazzling, spinning eight innings of three-hit, ten-strikeout brilliance. His spitball bent like something alive, forcing awkward swings and frozen stares from a modern lineup that had battered Cardinals pitching the previous two games. Raymond struck out the side in the third, danced around trouble in the fifth, and seemed to grow sharper as the innings grew heavier. It was the kind of performance that would be talked about for decades — if not for the one pitch that changed everything. Leading off the second inning, Reggie Sanders turned on a Raymond delivery and punched it over the wooden fence in left field. It was surprising not because Sanders was incapable of such a blow, but because Robison Field is notoriously stingy with home runs. The ball carried just far enough, just high enough, and just true enough to fall into a pocket of silence before the Pirates dugout erupted. That single swing — a rare flash of modern power in a Deadball space — became the game’s only run. On the other side, Brian Meadows pitched with quiet authority. He didn’t strike out many, didn’t overpower anyone, didn’t even allow a walk — but he kept St. Louis from ever finding the rhythm that usually carries their offense. Every time the Cardinals nudged their way into a small opening — O’Rourke’s double in the seventh, Murray’s hard contact in the eighth — Meadows calmly closed the door. His eight shutout innings were a clinic in restraint, timing, and trust in defense.
The Cardinals pushed one last surge in the ninth, the crowd humming with hope, but Julián Tavárez snuffed out the rally with sharp, jittering precision. Three batters later, the Pirates walked off Robison Field with a win stolen from the bones of a game the Cardinals felt they had controlled. A masterpiece for Raymond that ended in defeat; a quiet triumph for Meadows that may define the series.

Series #249 — Game 6
PNC Park — Pittsburgh, PA
1908 St. Louis Cardinals 4,
2003 Pittsburgh Pirates 1
Winning Pitcher: Johnny Lush (1–1) — 7.0 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 K
Losing Pitcher: Jeff Suppan (1–1) — 6.0 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K
Save: Ira Higginbotham (2)
Home Runs:
• Pittsburgh — None
• St. Louis — None
Player of the Game: Johnny Lush — seven innings of two-hit, one-run pitching in an elimination game
Series Tied 3–3

Game 6 in Pittsburgh unfolded with a quiet kind of intensity — not the explosive, momentum-swinging chaos you sometimes see in elimination games, but the steady tightening of a rope. And when it was finished, the 1908 Cardinals had pulled that rope taut enough to drag the series back to even ground. The Cardinals didn’t overpower the Pirates. They didn’t overwhelm them. They simply outlasted them — pitch by pitch, at-bat by at-bat, trusting the parts of their game that were built long before PNC Park ever existed. Johnny Lush set the tone from his very first inning. His outings can tilt dramatically in either direction, but tonight he found that thin seam between aggression and restraint. The Pirates couldn’t pick up his rhythm — soft fly balls, late swings, and uncertain takes filled the early frames. Before long, it became clear that Pittsburgh wasn’t just struggling to score; they were struggling to see Lush at all. Through seven innings he allowed only two hits, and when the lone Pirates run finally crossed, it came more as an interruption than a threat.
St. Louis didn’t give him much run support at first, but their chances came with a sense of inevitability rather than surprise. Jack Bliss broke open the scoring in the fourth with an RBI double into the right-center gap, the kind of swing that fits the Deadball identity — not majestic, but perfectly timed. An inning later, Ed Konetchy added a two-out RBI, part of his four-hit night that kept the Cardinals’ offense from sagging under the weight of so many missed opportunities.
The Pirates briefly stirred in the seventh when Reggie Sanders lined a run-scoring single, but that was as close as they came to shifting the game’s momentum. St. Louis answered in the ninth with two more Konetchy-driven insurance runs, and those final blows did more than pad the score: they reasserted control at exactly the moment Pittsburgh hoped adrenaline might carry them back into the fight.
Ira Higginbotham stepped in to secure the last six outs, pitching without panic, without spectacle — just enough to protect everything Lush had built. And just like that, a series that once leaned toward the Pirates now stands perfectly level again. Three wins apiece. A modern lineup staring down a team from 1908 that refuses to be outpaced, out-toughed, or out-thought.

SERIES #249
GAME 7
PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 48°, wind out to center at 8 mph
St. Louis 1908 Cardinals — 2 R
Pittsburgh 2003 Pirates — 6
WIN: Mike Lincoln (1–0)
LOSS: Art Fromme (0–1)
SAVE: Julián Tavárez (3)
HOME RUNS: STL — Konetchy (1), Murray (3) PIT — Stairs (2)
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Matt Stairs — 3-for-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 R


Everything a decisive Game 7 should be—tight early, tense throughout, and ultimately claimed by the team that found its swing at the right moment—played out under the cool Pittsburgh night as the 2003 Pirates defeated the 1908 Cardinals, 6–2, to advance in Series #249.
For five innings, the game felt like a chess match of missed chances and quiet escapes. Art Fromme and Kip Wells matched each other with scoreless frames, neither dominant but both resourceful. St. Louis showed flickers of life—Rube Murray doubled, Ed Konetchy worked long counts, Jack Bliss stung a ball to the gap—but the Pirates’ defense and Wells’ bend-but-don’t-break rhythm held the line. Pittsburgh’s early traffic fared no better; ground balls died in the infield, and Fromme’s mix of fastball and soft spin kept hitters guessing.
Everything shifted in the sixth. One swing—Matt Stairs turning on a Fromme offering and towering it into the right-field seats—finally broke the deadlock. The blast energized PNC Park, and before the Cardinals could steady themselves, Pittsburgh added a second run on a Kendall double, giving the home crowd the surge it had been waiting for.
The seventh inning became the true turning point. St. Louis went to the bullpen, but the Pirates pounced. Tike Redman lashed a run-scoring double, Stairs followed with another extra-base hit, and Reggie Sanders punched in a run with two outs. By the time the frame ended, Pittsburgh led 6–1 and the stadium felt the finish line approaching.
St. Louis fought back with the heart that defined their run. Konetchy launched a solo homer in the seventh, Murray added another in the ninth, and the Cardinals continued to bring the tying run to the on-deck circle. But the Pittsburgh bullpen—Lincoln, D’Amico, Sauerbeck, and finally Tavárez—held firm. Tavárez induced a simple final out, and the Pirates completed their climb from a 3–3 series tie to a Game 7 triumph.
As the players spilled onto the field, it was clear that this was no fluke: Pittsburgh survived a century-old, relentlessly stubborn Cardinals lineup, weathered the lows and highs of a seesaw series, and delivered the biggest swings when the pressure tightened. Series #249 ends with the Pirates marching on—and St. Louis returning to 1908 knowing they had pushed this modern club to its absolute limit.

2003 Pittsburgh Pirates Win Series 4 Games To 3

Series MVP:

.458, 4 RBI, 3 2B, 3 R, .536 OBP, 1.119 OPS)