Rain, Rain Go Away… Oh wait, I live in London.

Even the players know it. Look at that first picture. Head in hands, probably crying his eyes out after their 12th consecutive loss. I know I would be. I don’t even know why I’m writing this post, considering I don’t even like baseball all that much. Perhaps I feel compelled as a Pittsburgher to take notice of my town’s sports teams. If that’s the case, then let me just say thank goodness for the Steelers (cause the Penguins certainly aren’t doing us too proud, either)!

At the end of this season the Pirates will have notched up 14 losing seasons in a row. That’s more than half my life that this team has been losing and doing it in spectacular fashion. I vaguely remember the good old days of Andy Van Slyke, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Sid Bream, Jay Bell and Doug Drabek with Manager Jim Leyland. Those were the days when we won 3 divison titles in 3 years, though we never made it to the World Series… I loved Andy Van Slyke, number 18. I had a little-girl crush on him and was convinced he was going to be a Pirate forever, so that when I was older we could get married and live in Pittsburgh. With the benefit of hindsight I realize he was a tad too old for me (being that he was born in 1960 and I was born 22 years later…)

I have a few memories of going to Pirates games with my parents and sister, and I remember being extremely excited by the prospect of going to Three Rivers to see the Buccos play. Not anymore. Last summer I probably went to more games in 3 months than I’d been to in my whole life, but the only time I ever got excited was when the game had ended and the fireworks started (amazing views over the rivers!).

An enterprising group of Pirate fans have formed an internet group called Iratefans.com to show their displeasure with the direction of our baseball team. Check out the second picture at the top of this post or go to this article to see an example of their stellar shirts… At this point it’s useless to even hope. Our only chance is to sell the team to Mark Cuban (actually it would probably make more sense to pay him to take over) and while we’re at it, we should give him the Penguins, too.

You know what? We should just have Mark Cuban take over the entire city in order to rescue us from our financially distressed status. After all he says, “I’m a Pittsburgh fan.” And he’s a local. We should start a petition. Someone get on that.