On November 14, 2010, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington made a hire that would forever change the franchise. It was on this day that Clint Hurdle was named the manager of the Pirates.
When Hurdle arrived in Pittsburgh the Pirates had suffered through 18 consecutive losing seasons. Due to this Hurdle said the first thing he needed to do as Pirate manager was to reconnect the city of Pittsburgh to its baseball team. It did not take Hurdle long to accomplish this.
While the Pirates finished below .500 in 2011 and 2012, Hurdle had the team in contention into August in 2011 and 2012 in September.