Cashing In!

I have a lot of cash in my paypal account from selling Pirates tickets this Summer.  It's time to cash in!  I have a birthday coming up and it's the holiday season, so, like it or not, I will be doing some shopping over the next month and a half.  In fact I already made my first purchase using some of my "Pirate Booty."  You'll never guess what it is....

I recently became a dude who wears hats again.  Wearing hats is somewhat universal for dudes.  You have caps for sports team, obviously; the whole hip-hop/urban cultural influence; dirty hippies have their rasta hats; 90's ravers and their visors; hunters wear hats; the trucker hat phenomenon; practical hats; status symbol hats; early 20th Century black-and-white Italian mafioso style hat sitting askew...  I think it satisfies an urge to collect something.  And it gives guys a way to "express themselves" by accessorizing in their own way.  You can  say something about your identity, your socio-cultural status, or just your mood -- with a hat.  I'm not saying it's who you ARE, but it is what you're wearing right there on top of your head, sometimes every day all day for a lot of guys!  

D-Train, the O.G. flat brim MLB guy?

Personally, I'm too fidgety to really rock a hat most of the time.  I'm more likely just to grab it  for certain occasions and constantly take it on and off or tug at it.  My return to hat wearing came for two reasons.  First of all, I realized why hats just started looking different... flat brims!  For years I didn't understand this.  I mean, it never occurred to me that there were just two different styles of "baseball cap" that were just shaped differently!  I can remember watching Dontrelle Willis pitch, and I'm like... how does he wear his hat like that?  Not why -- how?  How do you make it do that?  I just thought some people didn't bend their brim, but I didn't realize it was actually made differently. You really can't make a traditional style cap look like that.  

Anyway, I had stopped being a dude who wears baseball caps when I had long hair (and because, well, I'm a grown man, you know?).  In the early 2000's when I had lusciously long hair (and a few dreads) I did have a some very stylish rasta hats.  So a couple of years ago I started thinking in the back of my mind, Ok, I'm slightly on the look out for a hat.  If I find a hat that speaks to me, I'll check it out.  I had started to realize how the whole flat brim thing worked.  And then the Pirates hit first place for a day in the Summer of 2011.  By this point, I understood the fashion, I knew I was ready to get back in the game, and I felt like maybe it would be ok to wear a Pirate hat without shame -- the shame of giving my money to the Pirates franchise.

Having long hair at the time, I needed it to be a snapback, not fitted.  And just getting back into the hat wearing game, I didn't want to spend a lot.  Hats can cost 30 bucks or more, and I didn't want to spend that on something that might end up looking really stupid or ridiculous.

My very good friend Brandy, a graphic designer, works for a wholesaler in the Strip called Aim Gifts, and has access to unlimited Pirate/Penguin/Steeler junk, I mean gear, at a discounted rate.  Now, the Pittsburgh Pirates traditional baseball cap -- all black with the classic gold P -- is definitely classy.  So it became apparent.  The time was nigh.  She grabbed one of those classic Pirates hats, flat brim with a snap back, for me, and it has been a very solid item over the last 15 months or so.

But it's time to add to the collection.  My choice may seem odd, but I think it was a reasonable one.  This one is not about the actual team at all, but the style and the logo.  I love basketball.  I love music.  So check this out... 

Do you know what team this is?

Experiment Over

I thought that last drunken rant would be my last post, but I want to wrap things up. There is no completely new experience at PNC Park (yet).  This is still a pathetic sports team in many ways.  I'm glad I got to enjoy good baseball while it lasted for 2 months.  I don't regret the season ticket purchase at all because I was able to sell so many tickets and recover about two thirds of my initial cost -- still a great deal all around.  I will absolutely not be renewing next year (at the beginning of the season).  If they have another great first half, though, I will definitely consider it...

Absolute Garbage

Why did the chicken cross the road?  Because the fucking Pirates were on the other side and the goddamn chicken wanted to sweep those motherfuckers!!!

Absolute garbage.  Purely putrid.  Regurgitation.

As go the Pirates, so goes the Orange Kickball Squad (aka the PumKings).  Yesterday we (minus Gravely, Sylanski, Booth, Orenich, and Thovson) allowed 8 runs in the first inning and lost by the mercy rule a half hour into the affair.  It reminded me of the your Buccos, allowing untold first inning runs with runners on the base paths running rampant.  Absolutely rampant.

So today we put together a nice crew of young urban professionals to head over to the late afternoon 4 o'clock game -- you know, the businessman's special.  By the time we had our tickets in hand the Pirates were already losing 3-0.  We were still in the process of texting each other to meet up by the time the Pirates had relinquished a seemingly insurmountable early lead.  It was already 4 to nothing as we sat outside Dominic's pounding domestic beers (and the occasional gin and tonic).  Boooo.

But your battling Bucs made a game of it.  As we continued to get schwilly your Bucs fought back. Andrew McCutchen went yard to bring the game back within reach.  The Pirates even took a lead. We were in our seats crunching peanuts and sippin' brews as the Pirates went ahead 7-4.  

But that lasted about two and a half minutes.  The Pirates are, if you didn't already know, officially garbage.  Under .500.  Another losing season.  Deep, so deep, into the tank.  Absolute, irreconcilable garbage.

Good article

http://mlb.si.com/2012/09/13/nl-wild-card-battle/?sct=mlb_t11_a0

Who Wins More?

Great question posed on the Fan 93.7fm (and streaming online): Who wins more games the rest of the season, the Pirates or the Steelers? The Steelers have 15 games remaining and are, of course, a perennial favorite. The Pirates play 21 more games and have been just plain awful for the last 5 or 6 weeks (and 20 years). So who wins more this year? The Pirates still need 10 wins to guarantee the first winning season in 20 years and end the streak. That actually seems unlikely at this point. I'll take the Steelers to win 9 this season, and the Pirates to win, oh I don't know, 6 more games this year? Ugh, putrid.

Wild Card Standings

Garbage!!

Why do I end up going to the worst fucking games and selling the good ones?  Pirates are GARBAGE tonight.  Worst game ever.

Nice Night for a Ballgame

I think I'll go! What a great idea, I have season tickets, baby!

Graphs Updated: Playoff Chances and Overall Season Graph

The most important line is the blue line.  It's suffered it's worst month of the season -- we need to see it turn upward.

Two in a Row a Good Sign

After losing the first of three at home to Houston on Labor Day, the Pirates played well on Tuesday and Wednesday to stay within a game and a half of the last wild card spot.  They're hanging tough. In other positive news, our kickball team started off the season with a big win last night.  Props to the Orange Team.  Our first game of the fall season got off to a miserable start when the first kicker crushed the first pitch down the right field line for a homerun, but it was all Orange the rest of the way.  We even nailed a base runner at the plate, which is perhaps the most rewarding play in all of kickball.  There just isn't a whole lot better than throwing that red rubber ball at some dude as hard as you can and drilling him in the chest.

Wild Card Standings

Sales Thinning Out!

As an example of my previous post today, I wasn't able to sell my tickets for tonight's game.  That's the first time that's happened.  Every other game that I've sold (14 total) I've been able to sell on game day (if not already sold in advance).  Today marks the first time that failed.  It's starting to seem like the Brand New Bucco Experience is becoming defined as 'showing potential in the middle of the season for 1 or 2 great months but stumbling through August and September like it was 2006.'  I would still be interested in going to these games if 30,000 other people were.  I'd still be interested in rooting on the home team, the team that's a couple games out of the wild card with an entire month to play, if there were some other like minded fans out there.  That's not to say I don't get it -- I do.  Losing more than you win and drawing 15,000 fan does not make me want to go to the games either.  But being right there in a potential play off race in September, isn't that all you can ask for?  Isn't that exactly what you'd hope going into a baseball season?  I don't know, it's a week night, it's rainy, it's the Astros... but still... last week against the Cardinals there was no buzz either.  So don't blame the Astros.  The Pirates are the 7th best team in the National League.  The best 5 make the playoffs.  That's really really close, it's within reach.  Is football season already taking over?

Well... It's September

Well... it's September... and the Pirates are in playoff contention.  Somehow there's no buzz, though.  Maybe it's because they've lost 4 in a row.  Maybe because August was awful.  But still, I think many fans are victims of their own heightened expectations.  They've lost 4 in a row, are playing horribly, yet they remain a mere 2.5 games out of the wild card.  That's a good thing.  There's a month of baseball left and the Pirates are within striking distance of making the playoffs.  So why all the empty seats?  Why all the disappointment?

More on this later...