The 82nd Raising of the Jolly Roger

This week the Pittsburgh Pirates will most likely clinch their 82nd win, and guarantee themselves their first winning season since 1992.

This year, the Pirates marched out of the gate at the beginning of the season, and by the beginning of summer, started tearing up the league and leapt out to 20+ games above .500. As summer wore on, fans worried the team would collapse as they did over the previous two seasons. That did not happen. They continue to win, and look to finish the season with over 90 wins, something else that has not happened since 1992.

The general consensus for the team is basically 82 wins is no big deal. It's merely a milestone on the way to bigger and better goals. Pittsburgh sports media has noted that the team, coaches and management have no plans to mark the occasion, other than the typical post game handshake line. They will allow the moment to pass as they work toward achieving the team's first post season birth since 1992. And it should be that way. With the rare exception, no one currently associated with the team was even here in 1992, and most did nothing to cause the team to fall into such pathetic disrepair that brought upon 20 years of losing.

I'm glad to hear the team is focused on bigger and better goals, and that 82 wins means little to nothing. I don't want them celebrating being merely above mediocre. I want them hungry and striving for more. But 82 wins is still a big deal. Not as much as it once was, when 82 wins seemed like an oasis in a desert of losing. Now that reality is about to set upon us, the moment doesn't seem nearly as large or important. But it is still a milestone of significance to Pirate fans, myself included.

A winning season would mean more than the end of the longest losing streak in North American professional sports. It means:

....An end to the jokes and ridicule Pirate fans have suffered throughout the years at the expense of their team, often deservedly.

....The often promised, but never realized, 5 year plan to turn around the team has finally worked, albeit 15 years later.

....The promise of PNC Park, which when proposed was to help put a winning team back on the field, will finally be realized.

....We can move past the Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series.

....The magnificent venue that is PNC Park will finally be home to a winning baseball team for the first time in its history.

....Pirate fans will now be featured in the national media, with pride and dignity instead of as a punch line.

....The weight of 20 years of losing will finally be lifted off the shoulders of beaten down, but not broken, fans.

....that with the 82nd win of the season, the team and fans will finally cross the threshold from downtrodden franchise to proven winner, and begin hopefully a long term renaissance of successful baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise.

And it means that finally, Pirate fans can look forward to, and expect more than, milestones and events more significant than 82 season wins.

Believe me, I am rooting for the Pirates to win their division, to make it through the playoffs and hopefully bring home a World Series victory.

But when win 82 comes, I will close my eyes and let out a sigh of relief. No, it's not a major milestone worth celebrating, but it will feel good to bask in the glow of being a winner again.