Hold that thought

Before we all make a huge deal about Jose Bautista being named the starting third baseman, maybe we should consider whether or not Freddy Sanchez will even be playing on Opening Day, no? It's certainly starting to become an issue.

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82 wins

  This is how it starts: in 1989 in a living room in front of an old cathode-ray tube TV, the kind with the power button that pulls out into a little knob to adjust the volume and the individual buttons for channels running down the side, with a four-year old asking his dad a non-stop stream of questions about the Pirates/Phillies game on the TV. Or maybe this is how it starts: in a parking lot at Three Rivers Stadium where the same little boy is tailgating before his first-ever Pirate game, eating food out of the back of a car, then watching the Pirates dismantle the Expos 6-1 with his favorite player hitting a home run.  Or maybe it starts in the second floor hallway on the morning of October 15th, 1992. That's where he finds out that the Pirates blew the 1-0 lead they when he went to bed the night before in the most painful way possible and that, for the third season in a row they will not go to the World Series. The worst is yet to come, though, and no one has any i...
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The Draft

In the first round we take Andrew McCutchen . The kid put up some amazing numbers in his senior year of high school, but it was unfortunately just that, his senior year of high school. Picking kids straight out of high school always scares me. Another thing that scares me, things like this: McCutchen, who writes poetry and sings in his church choir... Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with poetry and the church choir, but sometimes these kids right out of high school haven't experience a whole lot of life, and when they get to the minors, they do just that. Josh Hamilton comes to mind. Of course, McCutchen did say this, which is encouraging: I prayed every night that I'd get drafted by the right team. The Pirates impressed me. They stoodout more than any other team. Nice to see that someone that will be commanding a large signing bonus wants to come here (or so it seems). I'm really not trying to bash the kid, now that he's here I'll be pullin...
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80 wins

  Good morning. It is September 3rd  2013. With last night's win, the Pirates are 80-57 Since 1992, the Pirates failed to win 80 games in the following seasons*: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 , 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 . There is another way to write that list up. It could be written like this: 1993-2012. It's fitting that the final years on the countdown are 1997 and 2012, because there are not two more memorable years that the Pirates have had during their 20 year losing streak. The 1997 season was, of course, The Freak Show. As previously discussed , the Pirates jettisoned their entire post-Bonds core of talent over the end of the 1996 season and the following winter. The 1997 Pirates were supposed to be a lousy baseball team that would lose a bunch of games in the interest of laying a foundation for the 2001 Pirates, who would usher in a new era of Pirate baseb...
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