The Pirates have signed free agent shortstop Bobby Crosby.
The Pirates could also obtain Red Sox catcher/first base/outfield prospect Jon Still.
There are also rumors that the Pirates are in talks to bring embattled outfield prospect, Greg “toe” Nash back to the majors.
Former Pirate Kevin Young lives happily in Arizona.
This is kind of old news but on November 30th the Pirates released pitcher Robinson Diaz, leaving Andrew McCutchen the only member of Naughty by Nyjer left on the Pirates rooster. Robinson will be missed we wish him the best in the future.
In other news you may have seen that Ross “Super Genius” Olendorf is interning with the USDA. It should also be noted that Charlie Morton took an off-season job working at Medieval Times.
Carmelo Anthony is set to produce a Roberto Clemente Biography film.
Our only suggestion is to give former Pirate, Robinson Diaz, some consideration when casting Clemente. He has some considerable acting chops.
Finally, we would also like to acknowledge Real Clear Sports for using our 17 losing seasons graphic in Top 10 Worst Sports Streaks story. The Pirates current streak ranked as number 4.
Can’t wait to hear this song blasting at PNC Park late October 2010!
In what is sure to be the first step towards making the playoffs next year the Pirates acquired Akinori Iwamura from the Tampa Bay Rays for reliever Jesse Chavez.
Here the two are together at the international gold chain convention. According to Wikipedia, Iwamura is commonly referred to as “Aki” and he has also been called by the nickname “Gan-chan”. I googled Ghan-chan and came up with this:
But most importantly to this blog Aki does have supernatural abilities which could help break the curse of Bonds. Midway through the 2008 season, Iwamura got a mohawk haircut, thus inventing the “Rayhawk” hairstyle which soon spread to many of his teammates and Rays’ fans. The team went on to become American League Champions.
Can’t wait to see what hairstyle he comes up with to propel the Buccos to victory. My suggestion “The Bucco Bowl Cut”
Happy (or unhappy) October 14 day. Today is the 17th anniversary of game 7 of the 1992 NLCS, Barry Bonds game in a Pirate uniform and the last time the Bucs were in the post season.
Bob Smizik summed up October 14 in a recent blog post “The inning that will live in infamy”
Take some time and read the whole summary of the game but here is an excerpt.
The Pirates were one out from the World Series.
Francisco Cabrera batted for Jeff Reardon and the rest, as they say, is history. Barry Bonds fielded Cabrera’s softly hit ball in short left-center with remarkable efficiency and got the throw off very quickly. Unfortunately, Bonds did not have a strong arm and since he was throwing against his body could get his full strength behind the throw. It was slightly off target, just enough for Bream to slide in safely and give Atlanta a 3-2 win and the Pirates 17 consecutive losing seasons.
So beware the eve of the Ides of October!
The Pirates only lost 99 games! Thanks to Dejan for some ominous numbers that confirm that some high power (Barry Bonds) is at work.
In a season dominated by the number 17 — the years of losing, the losing streak to Milwaukee and the 17-2 loss in Chicago — another was added: The Pirates were shut out 17 times, the most since 19 in 1985.
Also Jalapeno Hanna lost 17 races.
So now that counting down to 17 losing seasons and counting up to 100 loses is over it time to get back to keeping track of the Bonds Curse threat level. For the time being the curse threat to the Pirates is being set at its lowest level “Not Bad.”
With the Pirates season over Bonds may have been at least partially to blame for keeping Jim Leyland’s Detroit Tigers from making the playoffs tonight by losing a tiebreaker game with the Twins.
The Tigers end of the season meltdown was historic they became they had a seven-game division lead with three weeks remaining. But tonight they became the first team to fail to clinch a division title after leading by three games with four remaining. Perhaps it was the Curse of Bonds on Leyland but that is not likely. Maybe it was because Miguel Cabrera was drunk. Or maybe it was the SI jinx.
The Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx is a myth that states that individuals or teams who appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine will subsequently be jinxed (experience bad luck).
Last time the Pirates were featured on the cover of Sport Illustrated May 04, 1992.
Since that time we all know what has happened.
The Pirates have won a few games and are now only one win away from avoiding a 100 loss season, thanks in part to mother nature. First Cubs players were attacked by the ivy at Wrigley, this also could have been the work of Brandon “Mossman” Moss’ special plant communication abilities. Secondly last night’s game was canceled due to rain. Is Bonds’ curse on the Pirates weakening? Or does he just not care anymore? Is mother nature a Bucco fan? Or does she just hate Barry Bonds?
Finally we are starting to see the beginings of Neal Huntington’s brilliant plan. Dejan from the PG gave us a glimpse into to the future in his article Pirates will pursue familiar faces in free agency
The Pirates plan to be more aggressive in free agency than last year, general manager Neal Huntington said yesterday, and that could include a pursuit of recently traded players.
“We will look into the free-agent market, and we have some money to apply to the right situation,”
“We are open to all avenues and, just because a player left here, we haven’t closed the door on anyone,” Huntington said. “Without getting into specifics or tampering, we’re open in all areas to bringing some players back if there’s the right financial fit and they think it’s the right fit for them.”
Neal is a genius trade players away get some other players that might be good, avoid paying some of the money to your teams best players because you traded them, then sign some of the same players that you just traded away back as free agents with the money you saved by trading some of those same players away! Not really sure if am completely smart enough to understand how brilliant this is.
Here is our projected 2010 opening day line up.
Jason Bay
Andrew McCutchen
Lastings Milledge
Andy LaRoche
Jack Wilson
Freddy Sanchez
Garrett Jones
Ryan Doumit
We assume Paul Maholm will start and John Grabow will make an impact in there somewhere. Also Andy LaRoche will be traded when Pedro Alvarez is ready.
In 100 loss news the Pirates would need to go .500 over their final 14 games to avoid the 8th 100 season in franchise history.
Well the Bucos keep losing and no one in Pittsburgh seems to care. But one thing Pittsburghers do seem to care about is the G-20. What is the G20? At first I thought it had something to do with rapper 50 cent.
But he is busy in the studio. So I did some more research and found out it has something to do with a new Gatorade product.
But that also turned out not to be true. So I turned on the news and everyone talking about this thing is dressed like a polar bear.
Not sure why these polar bear haters have chosen Pittsburgh. The only polar bears I know in Pittsburgh are Anana, Aurora, Koda and Nuka at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium. So I stopped to ask them about the G20.
They all had no comment.
So how does this all relate to the Pirates? Well during the G20, on Sept 24-25, while most businesses in Pittsburgh will be closed, due to the fear of polar bear attack.
The Pirates will be playing baseball.
According to the Tribune Review they are even welcoming these masked Polar bear haters.
The Pirates offer preferred seating to groups of 20 (can you believe it?) or more. Those groups also get recognized on the scoreboard during the game.
Protesters probably could get boffo box seats where they would enjoy superior views of our inferior team, as well as a Jumbotron greeting something along these lines:
“THE PIRATES EXTEND A WARM WELCOME TO ALL G-20 AGITATORS FUTILELY ATTEMPTING TO CONVERT OTHERS TO THEIR OVERLY IDEALISTIC WORLD VIEW.”
We hope all goes well and no one is hurt, especially the Pirate Parrot. We will keep you updated on the Pirates race to 100 loses.
Even though nobody bought a Forgive Barry shirt I decided to give the t-shirt business another shot. Commemorate the Pirates 17 consecutive losing seasons with this t-shirt.
Get if from Zazzle. I think you can get it for 12.95 for a value shirt.
