Validation
It's official: Andy Van Slyke knows.
A big thanks to David Brown, who actually contacted me and solicited me for some questions (which he used) before he did the interview.
(If you were directed here by the interview, by all means click around a bit and check things out especially if you're a Pirate fan or you enjoy schadenfreude.)
UPDATE: This is so incredibly, mind-bendingly cool that I can't even put it into words. The interview is really awesome and you have to read the whole thing. It's a real reminder to me, personally, about what it was that drew me to those Pirate teams in the early '90s as a little kid.