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Most sports fans probably know the major professional franchises located in the city of Pittsburgh share an identical color scheme, but it actually took the Penguins a little while to get in on the action before deciding to take the plunge courtesy of the Pirates and the Steelers.
I probably could’ve broadened “sports fans” in the previous paragraph to “anyone who turned on the radio in 2010” thanks to Wiz Khalifa, who repped his hometown while drawing inspiration from the aforementioned color scheme to create the anthem dubbed “Black and Yellow.”
Those colors (technically black and gold) have been associated with Pittsburgh since 1899, which is when the city adopted the flag that was inspired by the coat of arms of William Pitt (the British prime minister who serves as its namesake).
The Pirates were the first of those three teams to set up shop in the Steel City (the team has a history stretching back to the 1870s), but the Pittsburgh Steelers (who were also known as the Pirates when they played their inaugural NFL season in 1933) were the first ones to don black and gold uniforms.
In 1948, the MLB team decided to get in on the action by abandoning the blue and red duds it had rocked since its inception, and close to two decades later, the city welcomed a new franchise when the Pittsburgh Penguins made their NHL debut in 1967.
That squad initially decided to go in a different direction, but it didn’t take very long for that to change.
The Pittsburgh Penguins abandoned their blue uniforms after the Pirates and the Steelers took the sports world by storm
The Penguins opted for a blue and white color scheme when they entered the NHL, which was a pretty obvious nod to the environment the animal they drew their name from calls home.
Their jerseys underwent a few changes over the first decade of the team’s existence, which included replacing the block lettering that originally spelled out the name with the logo of the skating penguin they still rock today. However, the colors remained largely untouched.
The Penguins didn’t experience a ton of success in the 1970s, but the same can’t be said for the other two teams that hailed from what would be dubbed “The City of Champions” by the time the 1980s rolled around.
The Pirates kicked things off by winning the World Series in 1971, and five years later, the Steelers brought the Lombardi Trophy back to Pittsburgh for the first time. In 1979, they added a second one to their collection with a win over the Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII, and later that year, the Pirates took home another title by triumphing over the Orioles.
The Steelers got the chance to defend their title against the Rams in Super Bowl XIV, and they gave the city of Pittsburgh its third championship in the span of 366 days with a 31-19 victory.
At that point, the Penguins realized they may be failing to take advantage of the good vibes that come with rocking black and gold, and it took them a grand total of 10 days to address that issue before unveiling the colors they’ve been rocking ever since on January 30, 1980.
It did take them more than a decade to channel that positive energy, but the team managed to win back-to-back Stanley Cups after securing the first one in franchise history in 1991.