Pittsburgh Pirates: At a Seasons End
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by Pittsburgh Pro Sports Report
from PittPSR :
(Reader discretion is advised)
Once upon a time in a land approximately 45 minutes away, there played a baseball [1] team. Well some would call it a baseball team, others would call them posers but that’s beside the point. Anyway this baseball team went by the name of the Pittsburgh Pirates. They used to be a very storied franchise with 5 World Series titles and players such as Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Honus Wanger, and Bill Mazeroski. But these Pirates have fallen on hard times because every season for the past 14 years they have failed to win 50 percent of their games and every year is said to be “their year”.
At the beginning of every season players, management, and fans are overflowing with confidence that this would be the Pirates year. Fast-forward through 14 miserable seasons and these battling buccos haven’t smelt the .500 mark. What they’ve smelt has been pretty sickening to say the least. Kids you may want to ask your parent for permission to read this section. During the past 14 years the Pirates have had a plethora (that’s a lot) of 90 loss seasons. They have seen many All-Stars traded away or released from the team- ie. Barry Bonds, Aramis Ramirez, Jason Schmidt, Gary Matthews Jr., and plenty more. The team did attempt to fill these holes, but with the likes of Derek Bell, Jose Hernendez, and Tony Armas, just to name a few. With all this said, the years went by with every season beginning with the optimism of a World Series champ and ending with the pessimism of any loser.
[2] Now it was the beginning of the 2007 campaign, the Pirates year! Armed with the new motto WE WILL and with a young talented pitching staff and a young core of position players the team [3] was filled with confidence. The team showed signs of improvement going 37-35 in the second half of the 2006 season so this was going to definitely be their year. They had a rookie of the year in Jason Bay and the NL batting champ Freddy Sanchez. WE WILL DO IT!
It seemed as though these not so lovable losers would do it, with a sweep of the Houston Astros to start the season. WE WILL GO UNDEFEATED! Well no but they did keep it close and finished the first half on a high note, winning 9 of 13 games and only 8 games out in a weak division. WE WILL TURN IT ON THE SECOND HALF! This is the year! Two staff aces in Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny, three players with over 50 RBIs at the break, and so much confidence you could bottle it. Oh my God buy playoff tickets now. WE WILL BE PLAYING IN OCTOBER!
So these Pittsburgh Pirates traveled to Atlanta ready to ride the hot streak they were on. Sadly they were they swept by the big bad Braves. That’s OK the Braves are a good team. WE WILL NOT LOSE TO THE ROCKIES! After the Braves series the Colorado Rockies came into town and it was this series that would determine if WE WILL DO ANYTHING this season. If you want a storybook ending, go see a Disney movie, because this story has no happy ending. The good guys were swept by those evil Rockies ending pretty much any hope for the Pirates. It will be 15 years of losing come September and WE WILL have to wait until next year. But don’t worry that’ll be the year.
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