The Morning Roundup: A record-breaking performance
A lot happened in the sporting world on Thursday night, but if no one minds, I’m going to take some time to reflect on something that’s a little closer to home here.
I’ll start with just this: 20-0.
No, it’s not a football score. It’s a baseball score. A baseball score that has done something that I thought no baseball score could have done to me.
Before we go too far, let’s get some background.
I first became aware of collegiate and professional sports sometime in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Don’t ask me when specifically, I don’t know the answer.
I remember watching part of the Penguins’ Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992. I remember watching the Steelers playoff loses in 1992 and 1993 and 1994 and, of course, in Super Bowl XXX.
And I remember not being old enough to stay up to watch the Pirates when they were playing the Reds, and later the Braves, in the NLCS.
In fact, I remember the morning after Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS. My Mother woke me up and I looked hopefully at her, and saw the sad look on her face. At the time, I thought she was sharing my disappointment that the Pirates had lost yet again; now I understand she was showing her hurt for her 11-year-old son’s disappointment.
There are three other moments I can pick out of my early sports memories.
One was the 1990 NFC Championship game. I remember my Father rooting hard against the 49ers, hoping that they would miss out on the chance to win a fifth Super Bowl and break the record they held at that time with the Steelers.
At one point, I asked him what he exactly he wanted to see happen in that game. He responded, not only did he want the 49ers to lose to the Giants, but he wanted them to knock out Joe Montana. Sure enough, Montana was sacked late in the game by New York’s Leonard Marshall and suffered an elbow injury that kept him out for most of the next two seasons.
Memory No. 2 came in November of 1989, during what had been to that point, the annual Pitt-Penn State football game. Sometime during the game, an announcer made note of the rivalry being up in the air, and again, I asked my Dad why. They were no longer going to be independent, was his response. Penn State was set to join the Big Ten in 1990 and the Big East, with Pitt as a member, was to start football in 1991.
(Tangent alert! I’m proud to say I was at the final Pitt-Penn State game at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 16, 2000, and I still remember Rod Rutherford running in the game’s lone touchdown. And I will always remember Pitt 12, Penn State 0.)
Finally, memory No. 3 comes to us courtesy of SportsCenter (or maybe Baseball Tonight). In an interview after the 1992 baseball season, Pirates star and free-agent-to-be, Barry Bonds, was asked where he might end up the following season. At some point he mentioned how he’d love to return to Pittsburgh.
And then this happened not too long after.
What 11-year-old wouldn’t want to believe the words coming out of his favorite superstar’s mouth?
Baseball used to be a big deal to me. As a kid, it was the sport I played the most. In third grade, when asked to draw a picture of myself performing my dream job, I drew a picture of myself batting for the Pirates. One summer in college, I purchased a (small) season ticket package to Pirates games.
Now? Baseball is something to keep an eye on between the end of hockey season and the start of football. And in recent years, the only thing worth following with the Pirates was who got traded and to where and for whom.
Maybe as a sports fan, I’m spoiled by the other teams I follow. Just look at 2009 – Steelers win the Super Bowl, Penguins win the Stanley Cup, Pitt basketball makes the Elite Eight for the first time, and Pitt football comes within one point of a BCS Bowl.
Do I even have a right to be upset that the Pirates set an American professional sports record in 2009 by losing for a 17th straight season?
Probably not. But after 20-0? After the worst Pirates’ loss in their 124-year history, I finally FEEL about baseball.
And what I feel, as a fan, is hurt.
I hurt because the closest this team has come to the playoffs in the last 18 years was in 1997, when they were four games UNDER .500.
I hurt because the best lineup this organization has had since then was in 2003, when it consisted of Brian Giles, Jason Kendall and Aramis Ramirez, along with Kenny Lofton, Reggie Sanders, Matt Stairs, Randall Simon, Jack Wilson and Rob Mackowiak.
Laugh all you want, but that’s the best lineup the Pirates have put together in almost two decades, and management matched it with a starting rotation of Kip Wells, Josh Fogg, Kris Benson, Jeff D’Amico and Jeff Suppan. Ugh. No wonder they had a fire sale that season, which brings me to …
I hurt because they gave away Ramirez, their best prospect and home-grown talent since Bonds, for nothing.
Their next best player, Giles, went for two guys with promise – Jason Bay and Oliver Perez. After an impressive rookie year, Perez flamed out. As for Bay …
I hurt because the Pirates traded Bay for Brandon Moss, Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen and Bryan Morris. One of those guys is no longer a Pirate, one is hurt and may never play again, one can’t get past Single-A ball and one has been a huge disappointment while he keeps third base warm for Pedro Alvarez, who will probably be traded for three or four players who will probably never amount to anything.
The sad thing is, it wasn’t always like this. For the better part of the 1900s, Pittsburgh was a baseball town.
Consider that from 1900 to 1973, the Pirates won eight National League pennants and four World Series while the Steelers won one playoff game.
Two of the greatest players in history – Honus Wagner and Roberto Clemente – played in Pittsburgh. One of the greatest moments in the sports’ history – Game 7 of the 1960 World Series – happened in Pittsburgh.
And now, in 2010, we get 20-0, the franchise’s worst loss in 18,813 games.
Somewhere inside of me, an 11-year-old boy weeps for the memory of glory passed and the utter disappointment at it never returning. The adult on the outside usually does a good job of blocking out that boy, but on a night like this, it’s hard not to.