BATTER UP: PITTSBURGH PIRATES

Counting down the seconds till Opening Day when life begins anew involves providing a "starting nine" for all 29 major-league teams, and if there's time, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Presenting: The Pittsburgh Pirates.

1. This preview is as hard to write as it will be to read: The Pirates are not only bad -- the last time they had a winning season was 1992, when the Sager children were clamouring to get a Super Nintendo for Christmas -- but they're not even exceptionally colourful.
2. Opening Day in Pittsburgh is pretty much synonymous with... starting to X off the days until the Steelers open training camp. Pittsburgh is a one-team town (Stillers, Stillers, Stillers) and that's unlikely to change.
3. Jason Bay (top photo) is the best active Canadian major leaguer, but not many people north of the order know it: Twins first baseman Justin Morneau is the flavour of the month since he was a (poor) choice as the 2006 American League MVP, but Bay is the better player. Need convincing? Here's the two B.C. bashers' Win Shares and Win Shares Above Bench across the past two seasons:
   
   Bay: 58 Win Shares, 30 Win Shares Above Bench
   Morneau: 46 Win Shares, 13 WSAB
   
4. Another reason to be a Bay fan: He has a smoking-hot sister who can throw smoke -- Lauren Bay, a left-handed pitcher for the Canadian national women's fastpitch team. She's attractive, she's into sports and there's no chance of Jason delivering a brotherly beatdown. After all, he's a Pirate, and they almost never beat anyone who's not wearing a Cubs or Brewers uniform.
   
   By the way, what does it say about yours truly that left-handedness is considered a factor in whether or not I find a woman attractive?
5. He's Bucked the odds: Third baseman Freddy Sanchez is the most anonymous National League batting champ since Harry 'The Hat' Walker back in 1947, but if you don't cheer for him you may be lacking a soul. Sanchez was born with foot problems so severe that it was feared he would never walk properly, and after overcoming that played his way into the pros while spending time with three different college programs, including noted baseball factories Dallas Baptist and Oklahoma City University. Looking at his stats is also fun since it looks like he stepped into the Pirates lineup straight from the 1920s. Last season, he had more doubles (53) than strikeouts (52).
6. Still, the Bucs are the Chicago Blackhawks of baseball, only worse: There's no equivalent of Bill Wirtz, the crusty old owner who's seen in public about these days as often as Fidel Castro. The team just got sold to Robert Nutting, a media mogul. Still, the analogy fits: The Pirates are a historic charter franchise which has been down for so long that it's forgotten what up looks like. Their two most famous stars of the past half-century, the sainted Roberto Clemente and Willie (Pops) Stargell, aren't even with us anymore to show up at spring training and regale us with finely polished anecdotes about what it was like back in the day.
   
   Honestly, if it wasn't for their jewel of a ballpark, one would wonder why the Pirates stay in Pittsburgh. The franchise has had crises before, in the early '50s and in the '80s, but it could be reaching its all-time nadir.
7. Retro Cool Pirate: John Candelaria (left-handed pitcher, 1975-85, again in '93) gets singled out since that baseball card captures just how ugly Pittsburgh's 1970s uniforms were. The Pirates had something like nine different combinations of V-neck jerseys and elastic-waistband pants, each one more putrid than the last.
   
   The Candy Man was destined to pitch for a World Series champion that got down to Sister Sledge's We Are Family from the time he was 15, when he wore a T-shirt with a marijuana leaf on it to a tryout held by the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers got all paranoid (ironically enough) and the fear that Candelaria's "wicked stuff" might include more than a fastball with great natural movement was reason not to sign him. Years later, Candelaria threw a no-hitter against, wait for it, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
   
   Across 19 seasons, Candelaria posted a solid .592 career winning percentage and has one of the top 50 strikeout-to-walk ratios in history. Like Roy Halladay, he was a tall pitcher (6-foot-7) whose stuff was so good that he just threw it over the plate and let guys get themselves out. In 1977, he led the NL in earned-run average, fewest walks per nine innings and most home runs allowed.
8. He knew something about leaving on a high note: Comedian Lenny Bruce attended only one major-league baseball game in his life -- Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, when Bill Mazeroski of the underdog Pirates hit a ninth-inning homer to beat the Yankees. (Bruce attended the game as a guest of sportswriter Dick Schaap, who had caught a couple of his performances while in town to cover the Series.)
9. Need-to-know: Like any team, the Pirates have a handful of players who would help any major-league team. This includes but is not limited to Jason Bay, Sanchez, new first baseman Adam LaRoche (.561 slugging percentage in '06) and lefty starter Zach Duke.
   
   Bottom line: When everyone else is playing for high stakes and the Pirates are playing for pride (in other words, any time after June 1), there will be times when Bay and LaRoche will hit a few bombs and really mess up someone's playoff hopes. Mostly, though, their big challenge is keeping the Cubs in last place.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.