It’s not easy being a Pirates fan.
People often roll their eyes in disbelief at my loyalty to the team over the years.
Yes, the team is coming off a 76-86 record and fourth-place finish in the NL Central. Yes, the team hasn’t finished over .500 since 2018 and hasn’t won a game in the postseason since 2013, which happened to be their first postseason win since 1992. But, as anyone who attended that National League Wild Card thriller against the Cincinnati Reds will attest, it was exhilarating. From the moment you walked into PNC Park, you could just feel the electricity.
Hope sprang eternal after that victory, but that’s not where my fanship, defined as devotion to something, began.
My enthusiasm for the Pittsburgh Pirates apparently started very early, as witnessed by an old black-and-white photo of two-year-old me sitting on my porch, donning a Pirates helmet the year the team won the 1960 World Series; only to be accelerated by my Brush With Greatness [1] when I met Pirates legend Roberto Clemente when I was 13.
Fast forward to my career as a TV news producer, when I got the chance to interview John Candelaria, Nellie Briles, Dave Giusti and Pirates broadcaster Nellie King in the Pirates offices at Three Rivers Stadium for a story on the 1971 World Series championship. If only young me could see me then!
As I head to yet another Pirates home opener, maybe it’s the eternal optimist in me that’s excited by the team’s 5-0 record out of the gate for the first time in 41 years, while averaging nearly 8 runs per game, harkening back to the Lumber Company years of the 1970s. Or, maybe I’m just too patient for my own good!