Willie Stargell would be ashamed.
Posted on 09/07/2009 12:54:30 PM PDT by Artemis Webb
PITTSBURGH -- The Chicago Cubs assured the Pittsburgh Pirates of a record-breaking 17th consecutive losing season, getting two homers from Derrek Lee and an effective start from Ted Lilly while winning 4-2 on Monday.
By losing their 10th in 11 games, the Pirates will finish below .500, just as they have every season since 1993. The string of losing seasons is a major league record and the longest for any team in the four major North American pro team sports. Only the Phillies (1933-48) have had as many as 16 losing seasons in a row.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
Willie Stargell would be ashamed.
If you would like to be on the ping list let me know.
This will be a medium volume ping list during the baseball season and a low volume ping list when all life stops in late October.
At first I thought this was about Somali Pirates... then I read the article and was like, “Oh yea, Pittsburgh has a team.”
It is just a curse based on the stupid caps the Pirates used to wear.
I became a Pirates fan when they won the World Series in 1960 with the Maz’s homerun. I know everybody likes a winner, but I was only 7 years old. My hero was Roberto Clemente. But since the early 90s, the Pirates have become basically a minor league team. I remember a few years ago their total player payroll was less than $30M, about the same as one single player from the Yankees (A-Rod)
Bruce
Stop complaining!
You have got the Steelers and Penguins - in the same year, no less.
Tigers got their last winning manager in Jim Leyland.
I remember the Pirates had some great teams in the early ‘90s.
There’s still a strong Pirate fan base here. The big problem is mainly due to incompetent management. While money has (I should say had) a lot to do with it, we’ve done nothing but draft morons over the past several years.
The Pirates are now a profitable team. This doesn’t mean that they can go sign Arod and the like (not like that kind of talent would want to play here), but they do have serious cash to start building the team from the bottom up. This was never done in recent memory. They’d always trade players away and focus only on the Major League team.
Wow, 17 years. A record that will stand the test of time. We’ll probably make it to 19 or 20 years before anything even hints at changing.
Wow - and I thought being an SF Giants fan was tough.
The Chicago Cubs assured the Pittsburgh Pirates of a record-breaking 17th consecutive losing season
Must be embarrassing to walk the streets of Pittsburgh as a Pirate Baseball player.
Bad enough to have one of the worst franchise in history but to have it in the same city as one of the best sports franchises in history, the Pittsburgh Steelers, must really suck...
The Pirates had a 2 to 1 lead and were ready to celebrate when the game collapsed. What I remember as much as ultra slow Sid Bream chugging around the bases was the look on Jim Leyland’s face. The poor guy looked like his family had just died.
I was a huge Braves fan at the time but my heart went out to that guy.
Baseball needs to be more competitive or it’s going to die a slow death. When they are ready to talk team salary caps, let me know. Maybe I’ll actually attend a game for the first time in 20 years. It always comes down to who is paying the most that year. Most teams except for NY and Boston, usually break a winning team up once they’ve achieved a world series and start again from scratch. They don’t have the ability to compete financially on a consistent basis.
They sure did. For the combined three seasons prior to the beginning of the losing seasons streak the Pirates had the best regular season W-L record (289-197) in all of MLB (the Athletics were second at 283-203).
Individual regular season two best W-L records for 1990-1992:
1990 Athletics 103-59 ... Pirates 95-67
1991 Pirates 98-64 ....... Minnesota 95-67
1992 Atlanta 98-64 ....... Pirates, Athletics and BlueJays 96-66
Each of those three Pirate teams lost the NLCS and never made it to the World Series, partly because Barry Bonds bat went silent in each series.
... then ownership dismantled the team and in the process tarnishing the proud Pirate brand. Totally inept ownership and management have been norm for the Pirates ever since. It is very painful.
Jim Leyland To Tigers: 'Do I Have To Get Naked And Yell Some Sense Into You?'
DETROIT—Following the Tigers' 11-0 loss at home against the White Sox Sunday, frustrated manager Jim Leyland attempted to get through to his struggling ballclub by screaming in their faces, gesticulating wildly while pacing up and down the locker room floor, and removing every article of his clothing save for his socks. "We gave up two f***ing grand slams in one game!" said Leyland, pointing at his bullpen with one hand and brandishing his recently removed pants in the other. "Do I need to run out to the mound with my d**k swinging in the wind between every pitch so you g*dd**n well don't do that?" Leyland then stormed out of the locker room, held a markedly stilted post-game press conference, walked out of the clubhouse, and drove home.
The Onion
April 17, 2008
Jim Leyland is pretty deadpan most of the time. Tigers just pulled off 3 of those come from behind in the 9th inning wins in Tampa.
In 06 he took the Tigers to the world series but I think the 12 day break before facing the Cardinals hurt them.
Pittsburgh hasn’t cared a whole lot about baseball for decades.
LOL last year was horrible. This year they took the lead in late may and havent lost it since. Now they’ve got the biggest lead they’ve had all season. (7 games)
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