Pirates Win Fourth in a Row

Humble Blogger Who Predicted Team Could Not Win Three Straight!

by The Last Hollywood Star

The Buccos roll on! To think that earlier this week I scoffed at the idea of the Pirates winning three in a row. Now here the team is all the way to four straight victories with their win over the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2

I was down at PNC Park last night, one of about 23,000 fans enjoying the perfect summer evening and celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the 1979 World Series Championship victory.

Say what you will about the Pirates, you can’t top PNC Park as a place to watch baseball. The stadium that comes closest is the San Francisco Giants’ ATT Park.

Not only did we have great weather but Friday was dollar hot dog night and, adding to the 1970s atmosphere, was disco music by Blondie and the Village People.

Fans got hand outs at the gate---the yellow pill box hat with the black stripes worn by the Pirates in the 1970s and by last night’s team in honor of the old champs. (More about the hat later; mine was immediately designated for re-gifting.)

Pirate pitcher Charlie Morton, shelled for ten runs in one inning during his last outing in Chicago, redeemed himself with six strong innings, Garrett Jones hit his fourteenth home run and Lastings Millege, his second.

Still...it’s hard not to get the sense that the Reds and the Pirates are two struggling teams playing out the stretch in totally meaningless games unless you count battling for fifth place in a six team National League Central division race as important.

As of today, the Red hold a half-game lead over the Bucs for that dubious distinction.

What does it say about a team when everyone agrees that a fifth place finish would be an achievement even though seventeenth straight losing season is unavoidable?

The reality is that the Pirates are good at home against bad teams and bad on the road (18-31) against any team.

The Reds are a bad team. As a painful reminder of how bad, last night the scoreboard juxtaposed images of the 1979 Reds against the current players as they came to bat.

As Reds’ center fielder Drew Stubbs (.154); shortstop Paul Janish (.202), second baseman Drew Sutton (.167) and third baseman Adam Rosales (.209) came to bat, we saw George Foster, Dave Concepcion, Ray Knight and Joe Morgan on the Jumbotron.

Of their 42 remaining games, the Pirates play eleven of them against the Reds. Ouch! Even the most dedicated fan will have a hard time watching that match up in late September.

Back to the hat...from 1977 to 1979, the Pirates wore various combinations of yellow and black uniforms with the hat to match.
I mean, it was ugly and comical at the same time.

But the Cleveland Indians had uglier one, the fire engine red uniform worn from 1975-1977.

Poor Harvey Haddix. After his active playing career ended, Haddix became one of baseball’s most productive pitching coaches tutoring among others a young Nolan Ryan with the New York Mets.

But it was his extreme misfortune to have coached the Pirates and the Indians at the exact time they wore the hideous uniforms.

Haddix the only pitcher to famously throw 12 perfect innings but also to wear both the Pirates’ yellow and the Indians’ red uniforms.

Tonight the Bucs hope to tie a season-high five consecutive wins. Whether they do or not, K.C. and the Sunshine Band will party on after the game.

The Pirate players may never have heard of them, however, since none of last night’s starting nine were born by 1