PITTSBURGH -- During baseball season, you’ll usually find banners featuring photos of Pirates players hanging outside of PNC Park at the corner of General Robinson Street and Mazeroski Way. On Saturday, the Pirates lined the facade of their ballpark with banners celebrating 10 front-line healthcare workers.

Those banners will continue to adorn the outside of PNC Park for the rest of the year, representing one way the Pirates set out to honor local doctors, nurses and hospital staff from Allegheny Health Network on Saturday as part of their AHN Heroes Day.

• Meet our Pittsburgh heroes

The Pirates invited three doctors, four registered nurses and three staff members from Allegheny Health Network to PNC Park on Saturday to express their appreciation for the thousands of doctors, nurses and staff who have been on the front lines of the area’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Those healthcare workers and their families were provided with a unique experience at the ballpark, with Pirates president Travis Williams saying it was important to recognize not only the hospital staff but also “their families who supported them through all this.”

“The men and women we honored today were here representing the thousands of healthcare workers at AHN who pledge to keep us safe,” Williams said in a statement. “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic we have focused on doing everything we can to support our front-line workers and our community as whole. While I wish we could have every AHN employee out to the ballpark, it was an honor to thank these healthcare professionals personally and hopefully give them and their families a memory they will never forget.”

After seeing their banners on either side of the Honus Wagner statue outside the ballpark, the healthcare workers and their families spent some time on the field. Appropriately, the Pirates painted their modified Jolly Roger logo -- in which he’s wearing his bandanna as a face covering -- behind home plate for the event.

Using PNC Park’s public-address system and the video board in left field, the Pirates introduced each one of their guests like they were in the starting lineup then displayed a personalized message for each person from manager Derek Shelton, Joe Musgrove, Jameson Taillon, Trevor Williams, Kyle Crick, Adam Frazier and other players. After that, the Pirates treated their guests to a picnic lunch on the outfield grass.

“This is my favorite place on earth, so acknowledging us healthcare workers at PNC Park is the best,” said Risa Candelore, an oncology nurse navigator at Forbes Hospital. “Today is an absolutely incredible experience.”

Allegheny Health Network has been the Pirates’ official medical provider for more than two decades, with their physicians overseeing the medical needs of Pittsburgh’s players and staff. On March 23, Pirates players purchased more than 400 pizzas and had lunch delivered to the staff at Allegheny General Hospital. On April 30, Jameson Taillon and Josh Bell partnered with the Acorn restaurant to have 300 bagels delivered to healthcare workers at West Penn Hospital. Last month, the Pirates teamed up with Dunkin’ to provide breakfast at seven local Allegheny Health Network hospitals during National Hospital Week.

To ensure the safety of the healthcare workers and the Pirates' employees in attendance, the club's training staff screened everyone upon entering PNC Park and coordinated the program with social-distancing measures in place.

“We greatly appreciate the Pirates' organization for taking the time today to recognize some of our front-line employees in such a special way, and for their generous support over the last several months of everyone at AHN and Highmark Health who have been working hard to meet the needs of patients and communities during this challenging time,” AHN president and CEO Cynthia Hundorfean said in a statement.