The one question I remember from my first job interview in this industry 10 years ago at the St. Paul Journal was “why sports?”
My answer then, as it is now, is because of the stories that go beyond just the games, sports can be a unifying force for a nation, a rallying point for a city or about the underdog that overcomes.
But most of all they provide hope.
At the beginning of every season of every sport, hope is the one thing every team and its fan base has in itself — that even for a few days the ultimate is achievable.
Now this belief would not be so resonate if every once in a while one of the more moribund teams suddenly didn’t just jump into contention.
This year that team is the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Few teams of this generation can compete with the incompetence of the Buccos.
Despite being one of baseball’s powers during the 1970s, they have set a new level of futility since. Before this season they had gone a record 19 years without a winning season.
Their last gasp of competitiveness came in the 1992 NLCS when Barry Bonds’ throw from left field died like a quail in the infield and Sid Bream scampered home, sending the Atlanta Braves to the World Series.
Bonds left in the offseason for the San Francisco Giants and the Pirates were all but scuttled.
Compounding their ineptitude was the fact they’ve played in traditionally one of the weakest divisions in baseball, the NL Central.
But low and behold, here they are, a week after the all-star break and just a half game out of first place in the division heading into Thursday’s games.
They are also a staggering six games above the break-even point.
It has been a long road back through many rebuilding plans. And let’s be honest — many of those plans were based around spending as little as possible and collecting as much as they could from the New York Yankees luxury tax.
They haven’t been without stars — they even had NL rookie of the year and Canadian Jason Bay patrolling their outfield — but they were always sold off for dimes on the dollar as soon as they inevitably fell out of contention for the year.
In a city that boasts one of the all-time great NFL franchises and a hockey team built around one of the game’s great young players, this was unacceptable.
I don’t blame the Pirates fan base of being sceptical of this latest build, but this time it appears things are different.
It has been a four-year march back to respectability and with budding young stars like Andrew McCutchen, Jeff Karstens and Kevin Correia, the build appears to be legitimate.
CFL fans can also look to the Edmonton Eskimos and Winnipeg Blue Bombers as long suffering franchises that are on an early-season resurgence.
And it was just two seasons ago that the Arizona Cardinals — arguably the worst-run franchise in the history of the NFL — came within a whisker of winning the Super Bowl.
Try and find an Oilers fan who is not excited about the potential of the team and the hope that players like Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins provide.
These aren’t just underdogs, these teams are the bottom feeders of their respective leagues.
It’s these stories that breathe hope into a fan base and allows every team to believe that this is their year.
In a world as screwed up as ours, this is why I love sports.
It’s all about hope.
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com
Twitter.com/Ridingthepine03