@@Baseball

My local Subaru dealer’s kids area has an in-game picture of PNC Park on the wall. I decided to try and figure out the exact moment the picture was taken.

  • March 25, 2024


As my 5-year old was building some sweet Lego creations while I was getting work done on my car, I couldn’t help but notice all the telling details in the crayon-defaced picture of PNC Park. There was no date on the image, but I figured there was enough visible info (and Baseball Reference) to figure it out.

Details from observation:

  • Neil Walker is batting
  • Neil’s BA is .000 and only has 6 ABs
  • The Cardinals logo is visible on the visitors dugout (which is accidentally cut out of the photo)
  • The out of town scoreboard says Washington is playing Florida, and the Astros are still in the NL making the picture from between 2005 and 2012.
  • The Pirates are wearing the sleeveless pinstripe jerseys placing them in the most god awful part of the 20 year losing streak.

My initial thought was that since Neil Walker only had six ABs, it may have been the first series of the season. All I had to do was look at when St Louis came to Pittsburgh for the home opener and see if the schedules with the rest of the league matched up. No dice. There were no opening series that lined up with the info on the scoreboard.

I was a little hung up on the 6 ABs and tried to remember if Neil Walker had ever started a season on the IL and missed a few months of the season. Then it hit me that I hadn’t used Neil’s debut to help narrow down my window. He debued on September 1, 2009. AH HA! No, the low AB number wasn’t because it was the beginning of the season, it was because Neil was a September call up!

I check BR and there it is: STL at PIT September 4-6. I found the series, but now i had to figure out which game.

More info from the big screen:
* It’s between the 1st and 4th inning (again I cut of some of the picture accidentally)
* The game is tied 1-1
* There are runners at first and second

This was easy to check. All I had to do was see which game had an early 1-1 score and the third game fit the bill.

The picture was taken on Sunday, September 6th 2009 at the bottom of the first inning. St Louis had taken the lead in the top of the inning when Jason Jaramillo air mailed a throw back to Paul Maholm while Julio Lugo was on third, but the Bucs got one back when Andrew McCutchen scored on a Lastings Milledge single up the middle. Then Brandon Moss gets on, bringing Neil Walker to the plate and the moment this picture was taken. Neil had debuted five days earlier and this at bat was his first at PNC Park, still looking for his first big league hit. He popped out to center, but he did get his knock later in the game.

The Pirates wound up walking off the Cards with a Garret Jones single to center. 6-5.

If you look at Neil in the picture, you can tell by his posture that he’s taking a deep breath before he steps into the box. I was able to find this moment on the broadcast thanks to the power of YouTube.

https://imgur.com/a/6s2tN8X

I’m sure some people here could have figured it out quicker and more directly, and that’s fine. I was super proud when I figured it out, and that’s okay with me.

Have a great season ladies and gents. Thanks for reading my shit post.

31 comments

  2. Idk why but I loved this from the first word. Thanks for the post lol.

    (I’m so ready for baseball season)

  6. This is the perfect way to close out a weird and relatively annoying winter break from the greatest game on earth. It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball….

    I fucking love you bunch of baseball nerds.

  7. Y’all think Lastings Milledge will finally break out in 2024? He’s a generational talent.

  9. There is a guy on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@noproblemgambler who does this based on games playing in the background of some random TV show or movie. Like there will be a scene in a bar and behind the pool table is a blurry hockey game for like 2 seconds and this guy almost always manages to track it down. Its absolutely insane

  11. Getting the last of the offseason posts in before it’s too late. This is a great one!

  15. Brandon Moss, Paul, Mulholland, Jason, Jaramillo, Lastings Milledge. I do not miss those days.

  16. Looks like it was before the Astros moved to the AL as they are playing the Phillies, Marlins are at DC, SD is at LA, Cubs at Mets.

    Scoreboard also showing someone 6’5 215lbs at bat or pitching can’t tell.

  17. this is soooooooo awesome, great job /u/ZyuMammoth

    no idea why a post like this scratches such a particular itch in my brain, but boy does it ever. something magical about looking at that TV shot of him and the shot on the wall and realizing it was the same moment. you really sleuthed that shit!!

  18. Since it’s the Pirates, it definitely wasn’t taken in October. Let me know if I can provide any other help.

  19. I actually have this same picture in my office, but my version is much wider and I already figured this out one day when I was bored at work. On my version of the picture you can see the whole lineup as well as the scoreboard factoid talking about how Neil Walker went to Pine-Richland high school. It’s 1-1 in the bottom of the first and Maholm started for the Pirates against St. Louis. [Here’s the game.](https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT200909060.shtml)

    Edit: Didn’t realize you had figured all of this out and written a lengthy description in the caption of the picture. The web version/RES hides that behind a click. Good job figuring it out!

  22. Based on the logos on the wall and around the park, this looks like a late 2000s game (probably 2008 or 2009).

  24. I did this myself and so proud i found it too. Used the games on the score board cross referenced with each other, and Walker plus it being a day game that was fun

  25. Was the explanation always attached to this post? Cuz I was bored and figured it out, too. How did you figure it out was Neil Walker to start? That was one of my last discoveries.

    Based on the outfield banners, I think it’ll be 2009. 2010 on appears to have changed from BudLight to Budweiser, 2008 and earlier seems to have a different Southwest Airlines banner.

    Out of town score board: Cincinatti at Atlanta happened once, that year, 9/4-9/6. As confirmation, the Padres were also at the Dodgers & Giants @ Brewers.

    9/4, the Cards scored 2 in the top of the 1st, so it was never tied 1-1. 9/5 was tied 1-1 from the 6th to the 10th (we can see an empty 9 frame, so that narrows it down further), 9/6 was tied 1-1 from the 1st to the 4th

    We’ve got a switch hitter at the plate, and so far as I can tell there were 4 players in these games who were switch hitters, Jason Jaramillo, Delwyn Young, Ryan Doumit and Neil Walker (All pirates)

    Player height listed a 6′ ?”, that ? is a crooker number. This eliminates 5’10” Young, 6’0″ Jaramillo and 6′ 1″ Doumit. That leaves Walker, who had 4 ABs in the 2 games. He pinch hit for the starting pitcher on 9/5, who went 8, which mean he came to bat in the 9th, so that eliminates that game based on the empty top of the 9th box score.

    So, September 6th, 2009, bottom of an inning with Neil Walker at the plate between the 1st and 4th.

    EDIT: You were right, I mixed up which was the PH game.

  27. Excellent sleuthing. But the question I have is did you figure it out BEFORE your car was done?

  31. Great job. Walker was a local kid, made good. He was a big Pittsburgh high school athlete in both baseball and football, so this moment was a really big deal for both Neil and the city.

    Also, Walkers father, Tom Walker, a pitcher himself, was supposed to go on the relief trip where Clemente disappeared. The reason he didn’t is that Clemente told his father to go out and enjoy the new year.

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