The Pirates All-Losing Streak Team

The big discussion right now on the post-gazette pirates blog is the best and worst players at each position over the pirates 17 season losing streak. Their roster will be posted on Sunday, I will try to project this team before-hand. Note that the players chosen had to have significant playing time with the team.

Worst list-

C - Keith Osik - Long time backup for Jason Kendall. When Kendall needed a rest you knew it was going to be a tough night.

1B - Craig Wilson - Dude could crush the ball, oh wait, that was only a fastball down the middle.

2B - Warren Morris - Good rookie season, then the pirates management started instructing him.

SS - Pat Meares - Could this guy still be on the payroll???

3B - Charlie Hayes - How did this guy get 459 at bats in 1996?

LF - Midre Cummings - Never hit over .245 with the bucs. went to Philly and hit .303.

CF - Chris Duffy - Decent ball player, if he could keep his head on straight. Honorable mention - Chad Hermansen - He was supposed to be our savior!

RF - Derek Bell - The anti-legend.

Lefty Starter - Jimmy Anderson - Came back in his second spring training with a gut so massive he couldn't reach his arm around it to throw the fastball.

Righty Starter - Matt Morris - Dave Littlefield intentionally screwed us.

Lefty reliever - Terry Mulholland - Tried to make a comeback as a bucco reliever but it ended up being early re-retirement

Righty Reliever - Keith Osik - He did pitch 1 inning in 2000. He gave up 5 runs with a career era of 45.00.

Closer - Rich Loiselle - By default. One thing the bucs always seem to have a decent one of is a closer.

Best List

C - Jason Kendall - In a 123 year history it is impressive to hold the franchise record for career games behind the plate.

1B - Kevin Young - Maybe if more of the buccos did roids we wouldn't be having this discussion.

2B - Tony Womack - Sorry, Freddy Sanchez gets honorable mention here. Tony Womack was a hitting and base-stealing machine.

SS - Jack Wilson - Defensive wiz, hard worker, and class act. He will be missed.

3B - Aramis Ramirez - This is before we traded him for a bag of doritos and before he hurt himself while charging the mound.

LF - Brian Giles - One of the best home run hitters in bucco history.

CF - Andrew McCutchen - Haven't seen a player on the team as electric as him since Bonds.

RF - Xavier Nady - Slim pickings on this side of the outfield. Nady did have his best seasons as a Pirate. Honorable mention - Matt Lawton - He was an OBP master.

Lefty Starter - Denny Neagle - You knew he was too good to stick around for too long. Just don't ask him what he is into these days.

Righty Starter - Jason Schmidt - See above, except his recent issues have been on the field.

Lefty Reliever - Damaso Marte - Have you ever seen a lefty get a hit off of him? I haven't.

Righty Reliever - Solomon Torres - The go-to-guy. Led the league in appearances a couple of times.

Closer - Mike Williams - Holy cow that slider was deadly.

Bench Player - John Vander Wal - Lanky power!

You know what I hate... #1

Slow motion celebration replays. As if we don't see a plethora of slow motion replay angles of the scoring play itself, the television crew decides to add this nonsense! Ok crew! just about to go to commercial. Cue theme music. Cue slow motion man embrace shot. Just change the theme music to something a little more dance inspired and throw in a couple bottles of chablis and you have something a little more kinky. It really is just silly. Just like the obsession with showing the opposing coaches face after a score. They rarely ever react to it, so stop! It's just 3 seconds of blank stare. Come on TV people, it's time to be more creative with our time.

Since when did ESPN become more entertainment than sports?

Following in the steps of MTV, sports fans beloved network has shifted away from its primary genre. Really, i enjoyed seeing highlights from every game the previous night, even if that includes Pirates vs Royals highlights in the last few minutes of Sportscenter. Now the show is nothing but a twisted game of mad libs with a rotating infamous sports figure as the proper noun of choice for the week. I don't care what (name) had for breakfast this morning. Yes we know there are (number) days until (name)'s court date. Why is the focus on how awesome (name)'s dunk was when his team lost? There are still real sports fans out there and we want all of the boring stats, all of the touchdowns, goals, and opposite field R.B.I. slap singles we can handle in a one hour rotation. Now, what was a one hour rotation is 20 minutes of things you would see on TMZ, Extra, and entertainment tonight. That is of course unless you live in a major city with an overpaying sports franchise. Then you might get a shred of in-depth coverage. So from here on out I will start a segment called "You know what I hate?". It will slowly list all of the things that I think entertainment television has done to take the sport away from sports.

Be thankful Steeler fans...

Be thankful Steeler fans, our team has single-handedly started the new trend of hiring young energetic head coaches. The Steelers choice, however, seems to be working out by miles ahead of the rest. Most other teams forgot about one very important thing in their interview process. They forgot to ask how big their ego was first. We all know about the Raiders and Lane Kiffin, but no other young hot-head has completely destroyed a franchise as quickly as Josh McDaniels in Denver. Not long after he took over the Broncos he was already trying to trade the Quarterback with the third highest passing yards in the NFL. This immediately started the domino effect of mistrust throughout the players on the team. Cutler wanted out because of the uncertainty of his future and other players would soon follow. After Cutler's trade to Chicago for the highly conservative Kyle Orton, their leading receiver Brandon Marshall (born in Pittsburgh) demanded his own trade. Whether it was fueled by mistrust with the team or knowing that they just unloaded the guy he knew could get him the ball, either way it comes back to McDaniels. His careless use of his powers as coach and inability to communicate with current players is leading them down the opposite path that Mike Shanahan had them on for so long. He needs to learn to project confidence on to his players instead of instilling uncertainty and confusion. Maybe Mike Tomlin is just mature for his age.

Beware the ghost of better teams past...

The expectations are very high for your returning champion Pittsburgh Steelers this year. Their losses in the off-season were minimal and have more than competent replacements waiting to fill their spots. The loss of Larry Foote is huge, the perennial run-stopper knew that his playing time would be impacted with the speedy Lawrence Timmons ready to take the field, so he returned to his home town to help the hapless Lions dig their way out of the basement. Timmons will be a little green at the position, but his quickness combined with the weight he added in the off-season will lead to an eventual devastating force at middle linebacker. Nate Washington decided to test the free agent market and take his field-stretching ability elsewhere. That, however, was the extent of his abilities, the hands were not up to NFL standards. His position will easily be filled by the former Longhorn Limas Sweed. Sweed gives Ben the big receiver he has missed since the departure of Plaxico Burress. The only major loss is cornerback Bryant Mcfadden, a replacement for him may be a little harder to find.
The additions are even brighter. The return of such players as Daniel Sepulveda and Rashard Mendenhall from injury this season will be a blessing. The punting of Mitch Berger last season made our top-rated defense work extra hard last season with poor field positioning. And handing the ball to untrusted Gary Russell made a lot of Steeler fans worry themselves into a coma. This and a slew of strong draftees make this team look even stronger than last year. Don't get your hopes up too much. The hopes of better defending champs have been crushed before. The 1976 Steelers supposedly had the best year of any steel curtain defense, recording numerous shutouts. This should have been another repeat season but an early injury to Terry Bradshaw set the tone for a disappointing season. The 92-93 Penguins followed their back to back cups with a stellar regular season only to be upset by the Islanders and David Volek in game 7 overtime. The 1972 Pirates were another. So remain hopeful, repeat champs do happen, but more than a great team is needed, the stars must also align.

Just another tough stretch for Pirate fans

After the Buccos took the first two games of a four game series with the Washington Nationals everything appeared as if our lowly baseball franchise would be taking a turn for the better. The swapping of Nyjer Morgan might not have been such a bad thing and our newly acquired players would start fitting into place. Then our worst fears came to fruition. The Bucs dropped the following two games on their way to an eight game losing streak. And something magical began for the even more lowly Nats. They went on to win their next eight games and Nyjer Morgan is being praised as nothing short of amazing by his teammates, a slap in the face to Pirates management that has already been criticized for unloading almost all major league ready talent. The Bucco brass, however, remains firm on its complete rebooting of the system, sacrificing all current talent in the hopes that young potential will one day win out. It is often said that things have to get worse before they get better and for the Pirates we can only hope that is the case. We can only hope that this is the rockiest of bottoms.