I'll skip the apology for not updating in a while. I don't think anyone can blame me for not wanting to write about this team with much frequency. I'll skip the doom and gloom, but while I love baseball and the Pirates, I'm going to be looking forward to this offseason more than anyone.
I mentioned a lot of this in an on camera rant that will probably show up in the final project, but I'll put some of those thoughts here. Like anything, there are two sides to how you feel about this losing streak as a Pirates fan and like most issues, most of us reside somewhere in the middle of the spectrum rather than one far end or the other.
I like to think now that I've gotten older and become more of a professional, I can look at things more objectively. Sports mean very little in the grand scheme of what's important in life and things will happen no matter how much I like it or not. I do get very into the analysis and feel like I don't get too crazy emotional over the game. Those that know me know that I'm rarely someone who yells when I'm at the ballpark. I like to just sit and observe what's happening. At the same time, while reporters and the like will tell you different, it's hard not to get emotionally attached to what's happening on the field. 162 games plus PirateFest and Spring Training is a long time. Think of how many hours you or I have spent watching or listening to games this season. I can recall about 4 or 5 games that I missed from start to finish this season. That's really it because I'm lucky enough to have a job in which I'm usually pretty close to a television or radio. So if you lowball the season total to 150 games at 3 hours per game, that's roughly 450 hours of non-stop baseball watching. The Simpsons is the longest running American sitcom with 508 episodes, so you could knock out the entire series in 254 hours. Obviously fans of that show have grown to become attached to those characters. Or imagine reading a novel followed by dozens of sequels. At the end of the day, professional baseball players are entertainers and like all entertainers, they make their living by evoking emotionally responses from us. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, the Pirates losing makes me feel bad.
That being said, I guess all we can really do is look at what our preseason expectations were. I don't seem to be able to see it on here, but I know before the season I predicted the team would win 77 games. This was based on me thinking that the FA acquisitions were a slight upgrade and our younger players would get better to make up the rest of that 5 win improvement. The season took many twists and turns and at one point I laughed at my prediction when it looked like we'd win over 90 games. I'm certainly not patting myself on the back now.
With that being said, I'm still pushing on with this progress, but as with the nature of documentaries, the story has unfolded before me and it looks to have taken quite a turn in the final act.
If any of you are in the Pittsburgh area and want to share your thoughts with me on camera for the documentary, please get at me on Twitter (@piratesfandoc) or email me at piratesfandoc@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment