Would someone please put me and the millions (can it still be millions?) of Pittsburgh Pirates fans out of our misery?
How much are we supposed to stomach as fans? It isn’t the losing seasons that bother me, we’ve done that for 16 straight (soon to be 17, a record, woo-hoo!), it’s that any glimmer of hope we have is constantly being brushed aside under the promise that ‘tomorrow’ will bring a winner. Well, guess what, I’m sick and tired of waiting for tomorrow.
I’m sick and tired of waking up to trades and I’m sick and tired of seeing guys that played their heart out for us get shown the door when it’s time to pay them. The team likes to call it ‘rebuilding’ but 17 seasons into it, let’s call it what it is, cheap owners who keep slapping new paint on a house that’s practically falling in just to save a buck.
When the 2009 season opened up, Pirates fans knew that it was a long shot to break .500 but we also knew that we had a talented, scrappy bunch that would give anything to do it. We had talent, we had heart, and we were only a few games out of first place in the National League Central when June rolled around.
Then the bomb hit. Nate McLouth, our power hitter and locker room standout, the only Pirate All-Star from 2008, was traded to the Atlanta Braves.
But it didn’t stop there.
Adam LaRoche was traded to the Boston Red Sox, Freddy Sanchez to the Giants, Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett to the Washington Nationals. Eric Hinske went to the New York Yankees, John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Chicago Cubs and the heart of the Pirates, Jack Wilson, was traded to the Washington Nationals.
Enough is enough.
I’m a Pittsburgh Pirates fan and I always will be, but we’re the laughing stock of the league and a sad joke to a community that welcomed two Championship winners in the past year.
And I, for one, am tired of it.
This has to end and this has to end NOW. No more trades, we are all so, so sick of all the trades. Tomorrow is not good enough anymore for any of us, we want results and we want them now. We’ve been patient for over a decade but that ends here.
I’m calling you out, Pirates owners, the lines have been drawn and here we stand. Give us a winner or baseball should put us out of our misery and take the Pirates away from you, and maybe away from baseball altogether.
