Shelby Pirates
November 16, 2020
The Shelby Pirates were a Class A farm club of the Pittsburgh Pirates that operated in 1979 and 1980 in the small Western North Carolina city of Shelby (pop. 15,310 in 1980). Shelby had long but spotty track record of hosting Minor League ball dating back to the Great Depression. Shelby clubs played under a dozen different names between 1936 and 1982, none lasting more than five years at a stretch.
