That's 20

   In some ways this story started in April of this year, but in some ways in also started in the fall of 1992.  It was in 1992 that the Pittsburgh Pirates would claim their third straight division title, finishing the regular season with a 96-66 record, before losing to the Atlanta Braves 4 games to 3 in the National League Championship Series, losing game 7 of that series 3-2 after having a 2-0 leading heading into the bottom of the 9th inning.   Pirates manager Jim Leyland would win NL manager of the year, starting pitcher Tim Wakefield would be the NL Rookie of the year and outfielder Barry Bonds would be named the NL Most Valuable Player. 


     Then the wheels fell off the wagon, so to speak, Barry Bonds would opt to ply his trade with the San Francisco Giants, after receiving a 6 year, $42 million dollar contract offer from them, and the Pirates would begin a decline that would go on and on and on.  Over the next 19 seasons, the Pirates would fail to not only make the playoffs, but would fail to even post a winning record in any of those seasons, setting a dubious record in the process for the most consecutive losing seasons by a professional sports franchise in North America.

     So when April rolls around in Pittsburgh and the subject is baseball, the question isn't whether or not the Pirates will be competitive anymore, the bar has been lowered to such a degree that for the vast majority even finishing with a .500 record would be deemed an accomplishment.  The thing about losing for 19 straight years is that you now have an entire generation of potential fans who have grown up not even knowing what a winning team looks like, unless they are catching the out of town highlights on Sportscenter.

     That was the case this year as well, early season chatter was not on whether the Pirates could win their division, or even compete for one of the two wild card spots in the National League, but could they end their streak of losing seasons. 

     The season began auspiciously enough, with a 1-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, and that game was a microcosm for the first month of the season, good pitching but a lack of hitting kept the Pirates on an almost even keel.  Despite not scoring more than 5 runs in a game until April 30th (a 9-3 over Atlanta), the overall record was still 10-12, well with reach of at least a season of breaking even. 

     Things would get better though, the hitting would eventually start to come around before the All Star break, what is generally recognized as the halfway point of the season.  A stretch that would see the Pirates go 10-2 over a twelve game span just before the All Star break had the Pirates record at a more than respectable 48-37.  In fact the Pirates were very much in contention for a wild card spot if not a division title with that mark.  Things were definitely looking good as far as ending the streak.

     They would get even better, as the All Star break did nothing to slow down the Pirates momentum, by the end of July they had actually pushed their mark even further over .500, the team had a record of 59-44.  One week into August, and another game would be added to that total, the Pirates were 16 games over .500 on August 6th at 62-46, a one game lead in the divison, a decent lead over the teams that were competing for one of the two wild card spots and one of the best home records in all of major league baseball .  With only two months left in the season the Pirates would have to have a pretty epic collapse in order to have another losing season.   Talk of post season baseball became all the rage, the Pirates were enjoyable again.  In fact it became hard to get a ticket to most games, weekday afternoon games would draw 30,000 fans and the team set a PNC Park record for most sellouts in one season. 

     The Pirates even made a couple of trade deadline moves in hopes of bolstering their post season chances.  After years of the team being sellers at the trade deadline, auctioning of talented players for prospects, instead this year the Pirates were buyers, looking to add rather than subtract, and compete rather than concede.

     So maybe it was simply the fact the Pirates messed with what was working, or perhaps they woke up and just realized that they are the Pittsburgh Pirates after all, but what was viewed and inconceivable began to happen, the losses started coming in faster than the wins.  By the end of August, what what a mark of 16 games over .500 was down to just 9 games over (70-61).  The Reds had overtaken them for the division lead, but a wild card spot still seemed to be a distinct possibility, so much so that they had actually announced the pricing for post season tickets by mid August.

     Then came September, and with it what can only be called a collapse of historic proportions by a team that first began playing baseball in 1891.  From September 1st through September 27th they would win a grand total of 6 games, while losing 18, bringing their record all the way down to 76-80. A major league baseball season consists of 162 games, so in order to finish at .500 a team must win 81 of them.  That meant as the Pirates came home to play their last 6 games of the season they would need to win them all in order to finish with a winning record.

      Their hopes of a winning record would be quickly dashed, as on the first game of the last homestand of the season the Pirates would see Homer Bailey of the Cincinnati Reds throw a no hitter against them in a 1-0 Reds win.  As bad as some of the Pirate teams have been in the past, the last time the Pirates were actually no hit by anyone was all the way back in 1971, so not only did the Pirates guarantee themselves of a non winning season, but they did so in historic fashion.  Still, with 5 games to play, they could finish with a .500 mark, provided that they won the last five games in a row.  Saturday would see the Pirates win, staving off a losing season for one more day, but then came Sunday and for the first time all season, the Pirates lost a game where they were leading after 8 innings. 

     The loss guarantees the Pirates of consecutive losing season #20 (and counting) and further pushes their record out of reach for any sports franchise that may want to take a run at it.  The collapse this season was so complete that Jason Stark (ESPN.com) and the Elias Sports Bureau actually determined that it was the first time in baseball history that a team was so far over .500 two thirds of the way through a season, yet some how managed to finish with a losing record.

     So, halfway through the season, heck even two thirds of the way through I could have hoped that I would be writing the end of this story of futility, but it seems the story just doesn't end, at least not here, and at least not now.