The Pirates will honor Josh Harrison on Aug. 8 at PNC Park, bringing the former Pirate back for a first-pitch ceremony and a Harrison T-shirt giveaway. The game against the Mets starts at 6:40 p.m. ET, and the shirt giveaway is set for the first 20,000 fans in attendance.
For Harrison, the night lands quickly after his retirement as a Pirate, but the tribute fits the career that made him a favorite in Pittsburgh. He spent the first eight years of his MLB career with the Pirates and was a 13-year veteran, a player who gave the team one of its most productive stretches in recent memory.
His best season came in 2014, when he earned his first of multiple All-Star selections, won the league's Heart and Hustle Award, hit.315/.347/.490, posted a career-high 5.6 WAR and finished ninth in NL MVP voting. He was also a key member of the group that reached the playoffs and helped snap the Pirates' streak of 20 consecutive losing seasons.
That is why Aug. 8 is more than a date on the schedule. It is a night built around a player whose peak came in Pittsburgh, even as the club now folds that memory into a game that also sends Bubba Chandler to the mound, where he will look for his second straight win after striking out five against the Brewers in his last outing.
The honor gives fans one more chance to recognize Harrison in the setting where he made his name, and the timing makes the evening feel like a farewell and a celebration at once. When the Mets come to PNC Park, the tribute will not just mark what Harrison meant to the Pirates. It will show how much that stretch still matters there.
