Finally, it's over.

82. The streak is over.

Quote: Mosca

82. The streak is over.

82 what. Days without rain? Days without showering? Days your
wife has been pissed at you? 82 what.

The Pirates' streak of losing seasons. They won their 82nd game of 2013 tonight.

Oh. Sports. Never mind..

I was at a New Year's Eve party in 1972. Thought the guy was drunk. Roberto Clemente was dead.

The 5 year waiting period for the Hall of Fame was waved for only the second time. The other player was Lou Gehrig.

Shame on Barry Bonds.

Quote: Mosca

The Pirates' streak of losing seasons. They won their 82nd game of 2013 tonight.

Let's Go Mets!

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Congrats Mosca. That was a long drought. Must have been tough for such a big sports town to endure.

Quote: s2dbaker

Let's Go Mets!

Thanks for trading us Marlon Byrd, I like the way he plays.

Quote: kewlj

Congrats Mosca. That was a long drought. Must have been tough for such a big sports town to endure.

Yep. It's been a Steelers & Penguins town for so long, it was very gratifying to see PNC Park filled on the last few home stands. Haven't seen that in a long time.

Buzzard, I had one of Clemente's bats, I stole it out of the dugout after a game in 1966. About 25 years ago I gave it to a close friend of mine as a gift on the birth of his son. He still has it.

He was MVP that year. And not a steroid in sight. Class act Mosca. Hope your friend knows how lucky he is !

I love PNC Park and Travis Snider, but I love the BlueJays more (though I prefer PNC park much much more). A 2009 highlight for me.

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Scherzer's human. He's lost two in a row.

Any truth that ORR is trying to figure out how to sell off the TIGERS and RED WINGS ?

Quote: Mosca

Yep. It's been a Steelers & Penguins town for so long, it was very gratifying to see PNC Park filled on the last few home stands. Haven't seen that in a long time.

It is good to see fans can go to see the team and not just the park. PNC is such a nice ballpark that I swear people go just for that, all that 3 Rivers Stadium got wrong PNC got right. I have in fact met people who gave up on the team and just went because of how nice it is. One guy said he and his family decided to just be "baseball fans" and went to see whoever was playing but gave up rooting for the Pirates because of how bad they had become. Another had tickets on the third base line so close he said you could hear umpire/coach/player chatter. How cool would that be? He half-intentionally missed the deadline to get them again because of how sick he was of the team. Quickly thinking the better of it he too decided he liked baseball enough to just enjoy the game, but they were snapped up in no time.

Other folks around town would complain about this, stating that if you give bad attendance then there is no reason for ownership to put out a winning team (see: Chicago Cubs.) In fact after the luxury tax was put on and PNC opened the Pirates became a nice little moneymaker for ownership. Probably a lesson in there.

As a side note it does amaze me how the team has in fact kept the interest of many in town. The Steelers and football will always rule the roost here, but there are more baseball fans than most realize. A funny story there is last year the only not-bad part of the job I had was they had TV monitors once used for call-center stats hooked up to cable. The security guard would put Pirate games on. Once after the last out of the game some guy picks up a Pirate flag and is doing a victory lap around the room, which was the size of the building. I asked the guy next to me, "Does this goofballl realize that this was a day-game replay and the thing ended 3 hours ago?" A fan is a fan I guess.

When baseball teams start to win, the fans come a'runnin to the bandwagon. When the Jays became world series favorites in the off-season, there was all of the hype. Ticket sales jumped by about 25-30% for every home game. Then they started to stink up the joint.

I usually go to 8-10 games a year, picking up seats off Stubhub with the greatest value. The beauty of people jumping off the bandwagon is that people who bought flexpaks and season tickets as part of the hype have plenty of extra severely discounted tickets to sell. Tomorrow, I get to sit in $67 seats behind the visitor's dugout for $30.

Now, some of you would say that seeing the Blue Jays is always a negative EV experience, but that's another story.

Pittsburgh is my favorite NL team and you can blame the stadium, the city, and the fans for that. It's also the closest NL park to my home.

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Quote: boymimbo

Pittsburgh is my favorite NL team and you can blame the stadium, the city, and the fans for that. It's also the closest NL park to my home.

What about how close it is to a major casino?

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Way to go Pirates! Your fans are proud. Only 1 game out of the WC spot.
I'll cheer them on since my team hasn't won anything in 108 years.

Quote: wroberson

Way to go Pirates! Your fans are proud. Only 1 game out of the WC spot.
I'll cheer them on since my team hasn't won anything in 108 years.

You must be a scrubs, er, cubs fan.

Yep, but only when they're winning. I've listened to a few games while driving the last few years. It's difficult.

The beat the Reds last night and helped the Pirates, so there's something.

I still do not think the Pirates will win the Stanley Cup. But I like their chances better than the Maple Leafs !

Anyone who is a fan of good baseball writing should read today's entry from Pat Lackey at Where Have You Gone Andy van Slyke?

Quote:

This is how it starts: in 1989 in a living room in front of an old cathode-ray tube TV, the kind with the power button that pulls out into a little knob to adjust the volume and the individual buttons for channels running down the side, with a four-year old asking his dad a non-stop stream of questions about the Pirates/Phillies game on the TV.

Where Have You Gone Andy van Slyke?

Quote: Buzzard

I still do not think the Pirates will win the Stanley Cup. But I like their chances better than the Maple Leafs !

LMFAO. True!

Quote: Buzzard

I still do not think the Pirates will win the Stanley Cup. But I like their chances better than the Maple Leafs !

Quote: boymimbo

LMFAO. True!

I'm shunning the both of ya!



On topic, I didn't even realize the Pirates still existed. I think the last time "Pittsburg Pirates" even entered my conscious though was in the mid 80s, and only then because of trading cards.

But, to be fair, baseball in general has faded from conscious thought since the early 90s. Gruber, Carter, Olerud, Guzman... my baseball fandom ended with the Blue Jays run.

Quote: Face

On topic, I didn't even realize the Pirates still existed. I think the last time "Pittsburg Pirates" even entered my conscious though was in the mid 80s, and only then because of trading cards.

Pittsburg, KS has a team?

lol

Quote: AZDuffman

Pittsburg, KS has a team?

lol

Bah...

"Pittsburgh", of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

I thought I had a friend in Pennsylvania? =P

Should've remembered the crazy Dutch and all their "H"s...

Whatever, now you, too, AZD.

Quote: Face

But, to be fair, baseball in general has faded from conscious thought since the early 90s. Gruber, Carter, Olerud, Guzman...

My early baseball fandom circled around names like Hodges, Reese, and Campanella. But that was in a different era, and I lived nowhere close to their crumbling, inaccessible stadium. Now, I no longer follow the game myself.

I lost interest in the NHL once this guy retired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCnNFNbcPvY

Quote: Buzzard

I lost interest in the NHL once this guy retired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCnNFNbcPvY

Which one, Roy or Roenick?

My first ever favorite player was Stephane Richer, the Habs winger, which I got from all the Canadiens/Nordiques games that would waft over the border and get caught by the rabbit ears at night. Watching him, I quickly fell in love with Roy and he was my favorite player for many years, pretty much until he went to the Avalanche (I say pretty much, because I fell in love with Tie Domi a few years before that, and was already bleeding Blue and White by '95 when Roy was traded) I'll never forget when he came out of the crease to play the puck, went up the ice, gave Gretzky a spin move, and kept going over the center line. That guy was a character =D

But Roenick... I always said if cloning was possible and you fielded a team of Roenicks against of a team of any other cloned players, he would dominate. He was eveything a hockey player is and should be. Fast, smart, angry, violent, smooth,... he can score, he can fight, he can smash the hell out of someone... he even looks the part and has the hair. That guy is 100% hockey, the way it should be.

(Cue the Orr/Howe fans... in my defense, that was before my time =p)

Which one, Roy or Roenick? ROFLMAO Roenick couldn't carry Roy's jock strap. Can I get a hit off whatever you are smoking ?

" Fast, smart, angry, violent, smooth, " None of that would put the puck past Saint Patrick.

Not the first time Roenick put his foot in his mouth.

During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, he addressed certain fans that perceive NHL players as being spoiled. Roenick told these fans to "kiss my ass" and accused them of being jealous.