500 miles, 10 hrs driving, 93 deg. heat: Brewers 4 – Pirates 1

Posted: July 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Sports | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I got to see the Pirates play for the first time in a few years this past Sunday.  Originally the plan was to go with my father who graciously bought us some of the best tickets I’ve ever had to a game.  This plan was shot when it turned out pops had to fly to India to pick up a Tibetan Buddhist monk–long (I guess not all that long) story.

Instead I took my good friend’s eight year old son for his first MLB game.  Now, this kid’s father grew up with me under the Pirates tutelage of Mike Lybarger, but somehow the fandom didn’t stick.  My young companion cheered for the Brewers–acceptable, I guess, since he does live in Madison.  Wanting to support the tyke’s love of baseball, I did buy him a Brewers hat:

Cheering for the wrong team is better than cheering for no team.

The game itself, unfortunately, was fairly unremarkable.  What promised to be a good pitching duel between A.J. Burnett and Yovani Gallardo turned out to be rather one-sided in Gallardo’s favor.  Yovani had 14 strikeouts while A.J. got himself into and out of trouble in multiple innings before giving up four runs in the sixth.  Andrew McCutchen lived up to his MVP candidate status going 3-4 with a HR, but that was about it offensively for the Bucs.  Trust me, after 19 years (!!) of losing, it doesn’t take much to get disheartened anew.

A couple of pictures from the game:

I wish this was a shot of McCutchen’s HR, but no, it’s a serious swinging strike.

Walker loses his bat in the process of striking out.

I actually got to see several of these Pirates play in the minors in 2009.  I took my nephew to a Charlotte Knights’ game while my now wife shopped for a wedding dress with her mom and sister–fortuitously the Knights were playing the Pirates’ AAA team, the Indianapolis Indians.

Andrew McCutchen, Garret Jones, and Neil Walker in the Indianapolis Indians lineup in 2009.

Go Bucs!

Update:

The Brat loses the Sausage race to Italian Sausage. A real slap in the face to hardworking Wisconsonian encased processed meat fans everywhere.

The Opposite of Disgust: Vote for Pedro

Posted: June 18, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Sports | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Pedro Alvarez was picked by the Pirates as the second pick of the draft and got a hefty six million dollar contract from the organization.  The man has power–his nickname is El Toro, The Bull.  Unfortunately what he doesn’t have is consistency.  Earlier this season Alvarez was benched by Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle in an effort to get him focused.  It seems to have worked, at least in the short term:

Alvarez’s six RBIs power Pirates past Indians 9-5 from the Associated Press via Yahoo Sports.

Pedro Alvarez had one of his best games yet. Still, it was a win by the Pittsburgh Pirates that had him really excited.

Alvarez drove in a career-high six runs with his second two-homer game in two days, powering Pittsburgh past the Cleveland Indians 9-5 Sunday.

”I’m just glad to help us win the series,” Alvarez said as music blared in the clubhouse following the Pirates’ second victory in three games, giving them a sixth series win in their last seven matchups.

Wishing Pedro a continuation of this level of production.

Overall, it is good to see Pirates other than just Andrew McCutchen produce some offense.  Neil Walker is another player putting up solid numbers of late.

Go Bucs.

Ah…those are the Pirates we know (and still love)

Posted: June 15, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Sports | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

After sweeping KC in interleague play last weekend to take a share of the first in the NL Central, the Pirates were swept by Baltimore this week.  On the plus side, they did put up six runs in games one and three of the series.  But, as last night’s game showed oh so clearly, it’s hard to win baseball games when you spot your opponent 10 freaking runs!

As an aside, I am still opposed to interleague games.

The Opposite of Disgust: It is June 11 and the Pirates are in (a tie for) 1st in the NL Central

Posted: June 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Sports | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Five games above five-hundred and tied with the Reds for first in the NL Central.  Obviously a lot of baseball yet to be played this year, but my goodness this feels good!  The last nineteen years (!!) and last year’s post All-Star break collapse help keep this all in perspective, of course.

I’ve said for a number of years (as probably every small-money team’s fan has) that the (Devil) Ray’s give me hope.  Good perspective on that issues comes from Pat Lackey who writes the Pirates blog Where Have You Gone Andy Van Slyke:

This is Water by Pat Lackey Jun. 8, 2012

This Pirate team does not look like the Tampa Bay Rays. They’re an assortment of underrated pitching castoffs, once mediocre players past their prime, middling young players that may or may not ever have a prime, and Andrew McCutchen. Early in the season, when they couldn’t hit all, they looked very, very bad despite a decent record. These last two weeks or so, with the offense perking up, they suddenly look quite good. We’re only through 56 games so far; they could be either of those two things or they (more likely) will fall somewhere in between.

Personally I’m just glad not to be using my personal catch phrase from a few years back: .400 is the new .500.

Go Bucs.

I am a Pittsburgh Pirates fan

Posted: May 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Sports | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

Given that this is a blog about disgust and disappointment, I reckon it’s high time I talk about my baseball team.  While I have been disappointed for the last 19 years, I am no longer disgusted given that the Dave Littlefield era is over.  I love the Pirates.

My love for the Pirates can be traced back to one man: Mike Lybarger.  Mike was a history professor* at Edgewood College in Madison, a friend of my father’s, our across-the-street neighbor during my childhood, and a Pittsburgh area native.  There was a group of boys my age in the neighborhood, and Big Mike raised us all to cheer for the Pirates.  He regaled us with stories of hitchhiking to the 1961 World Series, and had us over every Pirates’ opening day for fudgesicles which we would use to ceremoniously make P’s to the East.  I was hooked.

Back in the mid eighties my dad and Mike took my brother and me down to Chicago to see the Pirates play at Wrigley–this was back before the Brewers switched over to the NL.  I was about eight years old and decked out in my flat-topped gold-banded Pirates hat, carrying my prized 1979 Pirates’ World Series Champions pennant**.  On that trip I learned that drunken middle aged men in Chicago have no shame in subjecting young children to a barrage of foul language.  Also, how much fun it was to cheer for the Bucs.

I was in middle school back when the Pirates had their last winning season in 1992.  After a number of years of success with such notable players as Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla, the Pirates decided in the mid nineties to invest in the future with a number of young prospects.  Roughly twenty years later, they are in that same position.

People often ask me why I stick with the Pirates.  For a number of years, I must admit, I didn’t follow baseball at all, so following the Pirates meant little.  I’ve been back at it as a dedicated Pirates fan for ten years now, and all I can say is that dedication means something in this life.  (What exactly it means, however, remains to be seen.)  As cheesy as it is, I enjoy telling my eighth grade students that just like I’ve never given up on my Buccos, I’ll never give up on them–this usually gets a pretty good eye-roll in response.

Go Bucs.

*Mike studied and wrote about the history of social studies education.  I had known he was a historian growing up, but didn’t realize his field until I got my first reading in my masters in social studies education program: Origins of the Modern Social Studies: 1900-1916 by Michael Lybarger.

**This pennant currently hangs in my classroom.  Back in 2007 I took it out to Pittsburgh on a motorcycle trip east.  I took the pennant to a game at PNC and held it proudly aloft cheering: “You’re still my World Champions!”  A fair amount of Yuengling was involved.