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It's September 1992. You're filing up your tank to the tune of $1.12 per gallon. You're trying to get home in time to catch the latest episode of that new drama The Heights on Fox. You're wondering whether voting for Ross Perot is akin to throwing your ballot away. And blasting from a nearby car radio is the No. 1 hit in the land, "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men.
While all this is going on, the Pittsburgh Pirates are on the verge of clinching their third consecutive National League East division title, their ninth overall, emblematic of their status as one of the premier franchises in baseball over the previous quarter-century.
Who knew in September 1992 that the end of the road had been reached by those very same Pittsburgh Pirates, that they were about to run out of gas, that they would never reach the heights in the next sixteen seasons, that, like Perot's ad hoc running mate Admiral James Stockdale in the upcoming vice presidential debate, by 2009 you'd be asking of them, who are they? What are they doing here?
It's been a long time since any fan of any team that isn't the Pittsburgh Pirates could answer that conclusively. From 1970 to 1975, they were the powerhouse of the N.L. East. In 1979, they were world champions. Hard times befell those Buc survivors in the '80s, but they were rebuilt, retooled, reloaded and, come the early '90s, remarkable, ending the Mets' dynastic aspirations by 1990 (as did age, overrating of prospects and cocaine) and making themselves at home every postseason.
Now they just go home when the year is over. The Pittsburgh Pirates may be the saddest franchise in baseball dating back to 1993 and the departure of Barry Bonds. Since he's been gone, they've had zero winning seasons. They've contended for a playoff spot exactly one time, a dozen years ago, hanging close to the Houston Astros with a sub-.500 record in a season when their division was known as the National League Comedy Central. Yet that 79-83 edition of the Pirates was clearly the most competitive Buc crew since the days of Bonds, Bonilla, Van Slyke and Jim Leyland making you feel bad he couldn't win just one more game and get to a World Series.
These days, it's a miracle they get to May.
Having framed the Pirates as baseball's ultimate sad sacks comes with a price, because as every Mets fan knows or at least imagines, the Pirates always find a way to take at least one game from us they have no business winning, thus providing (along with every other game we have no business losing) the margin of defeat when the bill comes due at September's end. Last season was particularly galling on this account, as on August 11 at Shea, Pedro Martinez handed his bullpen a 5-1 lead in the seventh and it became a 7-5 loss. One week later, at PNC, John Maine's carefully crafted 2-0 lead after five became a 5-2 loss. It always sucks to lose a game in which you were ahead. It really sucks to lose a game like that to a team that seems to have no use for wins.
So is anybody on the Pirates? I mean there's always somebody emerging from the point where the Allegheny meets the Monongahela to form the Mighty Ohio who you've never heard of getting a key hit in the ninth or tenth off Braden Looper. Last year, it was Steve Pearce driving home the winning runs in that August 11 makeup debacle. I checked and found Steve Pearce is down in Indianapolis. Figures. So who's the new Steve Pearce or Tike Redman or Humberto Cota? I'd say Nyjer Morgan, off to a pretty good start (.298 BA, 7 SB), except I've heard of him, so I need someone more obscure. I'm thinking it might be Jason Jaramillo, a 26-year-old rookie catcher filling in for the injured Ryan Doumit. He's got an .850 OPS in 14 games and when his name first crossed my radar, I thought he was that batting coach from Texas Omar allegedly wanted as manager instead of Willie Randolph a few years ago. But that was Rudy Jaramillo.
The Pirates are also good for a couple of retreads you had no idea were Pirates. Craig Monroe is a Pirate this year. As is Eric Hinske. They were both impact players in the American League earlier in this decade, which is to say I knew what teams they were on some time ago but lost track of them completely. Monroe's batting .235; Hinske's at .229. Not sure when Jeromy Burnitz will be returning to Pittsburgh.
A couple of good players form the nucleus for the team that will never properly fuse. Freddie Sanchez, Nate McLouth and at least one LaRoche are to be taken seriously. Jack Wilson has also been a headache in the past. if we were having this discussion a few years ago, we'd have marveled at Jason Bay, but he's gone. Funny how that happens.
Pitching matchups:
Friday: Jeff Karstens (RHP), ex-MFY vs. Jon Niese. I thought we faced Karstens in some Interleague clusterfuck but, no, I must be thinking of Brandon Claussen or Darrell Rasner or Tyler Clippard or Tyler Futterman. This was supposed to be Ken Takahashi's first start. Omar called him "Takashi" the other day. Jerry was at a total loss to remember his name. Let's hope Niese isn't at a loss at all.
Saturday: Paul Maholm (LHP) vs. John Maine. Weren't we being told what a shame it was we weren't seeing lefties? But don't we eventually succumb to a steady diet of lefties? Maholm, with Duke and Snell and Gorzelanny, should be a great rotation by now, based on what little Pirate hype I've managed to retain since 2005. He has a pretty good record (3-0, 2.97) on a pretty bad team (12-16). Tatis should get some whacks, which will be good. But I never trust lefties, not since Brian Barnes and Chris Nabholz, speaking of the early '90s.
Sunday: Ian Snell (RHP) vs. Livan Hernandez. Did you know entering "pirateball.com" will lead you to the Pirates official Web site but "metball.com" doesn't do a damn thing for you?
The Pirates have no record at Citi Field. They were part of some Amazin' games at Shea, from the very first one on April 17, 1964 to that dreadful Monday afternoon last August. But we'll always have the Melvin Mora and Ron Hodges games along with a sweet two-game sweep in September '90, just before we fell apart, just as they were getting it into gear to lose to Cincinnati in the NLCS. Then they lost two more NLCSes to the surging Braves. The Braves kept winning. The Pirates just stopped. Everybody's had a good season since they last did. The Expos had some good seasons. The Nationals had a .500 season. The Royals, who are back in business, were a contender as recently as 2003. The Pirates just exist to recall the old days and to serve as a point of discussion regarding woe be the small-market teams/screw you, you luxury tax-hoarding cheapskates. I mean seriously, who would have guessed actual pirates would be a bigger deal before the Pittsburgh Pirates would have another winning season?
Nice things to say? They have a beautiful park we will not see in this series. They sort of gave us Ralph Kiner. We have taken good care of him, I believe, and he has done fine things for us. Onetime Pirate part-owner Bing Crosby once crooned nothing could be finer than Ralph Kiner in the morning. With the construction of Citi Field, I no longer harbor my doomsday fear that the Mets will leave New York, but I've always had the Pirates in mind as my doomsday new team if it ever came to that, assuming I could bear to watch baseball ever again. Obviously winning isn't a dealbreaker for me.
I'll be at the game Saturday with bmfc and Mrs. Fafif Sunday, making no more sense then than I am now.
[OE: Crosby didn't sing. Crosby crooned.]
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