How to cope with the Pittsburgh Pirates

It was a dark, cold October night.  The year was 1992.  Ok, I'll admit I have no recollection of the temperature or amount of light outside, but it was a 1992 October night.  In my short life up to that point, I had known many emotions -- joy, fear, envy, love, and obsession.  But it was that night in autumn when I had my first run-in with heartbreak.


Some important background

The previous year, in the summer of 1991, my dad introduced me to organized baseball.  He coached my team (his first of many years in that role), and I was the worst player ever (this may someday get its own post because of how funny it was; fortunately, my "embarrassingly awful" phase only lasted one year).  But somehow, despite my literally jaw-dropping inability to play the game, I began to love it.

My newfound love for the game and my dad's ticket-producing business relationships led to many, many visits to Three Rivers Stadium to watch the Pirates in those years.  So by the following fall, after two full seasons of watching Barry Bonds, Andy Van Slyke, and Jay Bell, I was a Buccos fanatic.


That night in October

The Pirates were in the NLCS against the ugly, racist Atlanta Braves (I'm just stating facts).  The series was tied 3-3, so the winner of Game 7 would be playing in that year's World Series.  The Braves had home field advantage, so I was watching the final showdown with my dad in our basement.

I won't go into too many details, but we were winning heading into the last half-inning, and our closer gave up two runs, blowing the save, and we lost.

I wept for two hours.  But little did I know, the Pittsburgh Pirates were just getting started.

A neverending cycle of false hope and shattered dreams

The crushing soul-murder of the Pirates in the years since has been dramatically different from that of the '92 team.  Rather than making it super close to the title and losing, they have just lost right out of the gates.  In EVERY SINGLE SEASON since 1992, the squad has lost more games than it's won.

As the years of this losing streak have piled up, a question has begun to loom, pregnant with depression and despair -- when, O when, will the Pirates have a winning season (one in which our winning percentage is over .500)?  It's really remarkable that the question on all Pirates fans' minds has nothing to do with when we'll win another championship, or even when we'll make the playoffs... just winning more games than we lose.

There are 3 basic approaches to answering this question.  They're all depressing:

1. "This is the year."
These fans are on an annual emotional roller coaster that rivals the Millenium Force.  Spring training and the first two weeks of the season are filled with joy.  The rest of the season is filled with increasing torment.  There's never a logical basis for this position, and the person who holds it knows that; it is admittedly believed as an act of faith.

2. "Ok, not this year, but seriously, like 2 or 3 years from now."
These fans (I'm usually one of them) are trying to ride the fence.  It's almost the perfect example of trying to eat a cake but still be able to have the cake in front of you to gaze at with gratitude and anticipation.  Not possible.  The reasons it's so easy to dismiss the Pirates "this year" will inevitably still be true in 2-3 years.  But some of us need to sleep at night.

3. "Forget about it.  The Pirates will always be terrible.  Life is meaningless."
Ok, not all of these fans have existential crises, but you catch my drift.  This third camp has abandoned all hope and bought a lot of Steelers and Penguins gear.  But the problem is, they are forced to always be around themselves, and that Negative Nancyism can't be good for your health.  So instead of hope and crushing defeat, this fan lives with steady sorrow in the background.


Pirates fans, commiserate with me

Even if you're not a Buccos fan, join in and help the rest of us feel better about life:

When will the Pirates have a winning season?

What silly things break your heart?

Jon