History of baseball team nicknames by calling them "Pirates" for "stealing" their players. The "Pirates" tag stuck and the alliterative name was eventually adopted as Pittsburgh's official team nickname. By the time of the 1903 World Series, the team was commonly known as "Pirates", although the club did not acknowledge it on their uniforms until 1912. Alternate nicknames such as "Bucs" or "Buccos", short for "buccaneer", have been used through the years. "Buccaneer" is typically used synonymously with "pirate", although historically "buccaneer" is a more specific term for pirates who operated in the Caribbean, especially along the Spanish Main coast. The Pittsburgh Steelers of the
2008 East Carolina Pirates football team 2000. Virginia Tech won that meeting and lead the head-to-head record 9-4. After a blocked field goal placed the Hokies up 16-13 over the Pirates, T.J. Lee would return the favor by blocking a Hokie punt and running it back for the game-winning touchdown, leading the Pirates to their first victory over Virginia Tech since 1992. This was the first time since 2002 that a Conference USA team had defeated a ranked BCS-conference team, and also made the Pirates the first C-USA team ever to defeat ranked teams in consecutive games (counting ECU's win over Boise State in last season's