The fact that the Pittsburgh Pirates have fans is weird, isn’t it? Think about this for a minute; fanhood is an investment. You pour hours of your day into following the team, and the majority of fans invest monetarily in the team as well, buying tickets and merchandise to prove their interest in the team is legitimate. So what’s the possible return on this investment? Pride, enjoyment and some extent of happiness. Everyone has a different view on the value of time, money, pride, enjoyment and happiness. For some people, investing money to get the possible return of pride does not seem worth it. For
Pittsburgh Pirate fans, it seems obvious that even the possibility of getting some gratification and enjoyment out of cheering for a baseball team is well worth the hundreds of hours and dollars they put into their fanhood. In a way it’s like investing money in a small company that competes against big companies. The chances of making money on an investment like that are small, but the return on a David beating Goliath scenario makes it worth the risk. This is how I look at being a Pirate fan. You are investing in a team with all the odds stacked up against them and no history of proving that they can find any way to get even close to beating those odds.
Everyone has their own reason for why they stick with the Pirates, I personally think a lot of people just cannot escape it. I tried to escape it and failed. After last season’s collapse I wanted nothing more than to just not care about the team anymore. I told myself I’d watch them casually and keep up with what was going on in 2013, but I didn’t think I would care as intensely as I had in the past. That went well throughout the offseason and for the first couple weeks of the season, but for right now, the Pirates have me right back to where they’ve had me for the last 10 or so years of my life.
It appears to me that I’m stuck, and I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way. So the rest of this post is directed at all of the people that cannot seem to escape their attachment to this seemingly hopeless baseball team.
The past two collapses have been rough, and that is probably a big time understatement. Nothing is quite as demoralizing for a sports fan to have all the hope in the world and then have that quickly squandered in a short period of time. It is especially true when you are rooting for a team that has not done anything substantial in two decades. So now we are in an even tougher position. The last two years, Pirate fans got really excited when they got their first whiffs at real contention. The team playing meaningful games in July and August was almost gratifying enough for some. Fans expectations were so low that it did not take much at all to get them excited and for them to start enjoying the returns on their investment.
The problem now is that we are past that. Simply being over .500 is no longer good enough, playing for first and second place in August is not exciting anymore. Nothing will satisfy a Pirates fan in 2013 other than finishing above .500, and a lot of fans won’t be happy until they watch the Pirates play an actual postseason game. Due to this, the Pirates early season success does not have quite the same affect as it would have in the past. So how do we combat this? For me, the answer is to start ignoring the future. Do not let yourself worry about August, September, and October until we get there. Focus on the current series, the current game, the current at bat. Shrink your focus, savor every win while you have them. Do not put your hopes down because of what has transpired the last two seasons. Ignorance truly is bliss, take advantage of that.
Letting the possibility of letdown let you down is foolish. Letting a possible collapse take away the enjoyment you get from building a winning record takes away all the positives from actually having a winning record in the first place. Sports are not the end all thing in life. Despite how the Pirates do this year, your life will go on and frankly will not change significantly. So why short yourself the little enjoyment you could have in your hand right now. Think positively and enjoy what the Pirates have done so far this year, because we all know that enjoyment can be a very short lived thing with this franchise.
Photo Credits: ESPN.com
