The Countdown To 17
The above is a leaked image of the Pirates locker room celebration t-shirts the buccos will be wearing after they lose just 13 more games. The Pirates suffered their 69th loss of the season today, a 17-2 loss to the Cubs. Charlie “Saltman” Morton proved our past prognostications to be true as he did indeed rub 10 runs worth of salt in Pirates fans wounds in the first inning of today’s game. We figured today would be a good day to begin the count down to the Pirates 17th consecutive losing season. For the remainder of the season the Bonds threat level will replaced with the count down to 17 widget.
13 loses
Forgive Barry
It has been 2 years since Barry Bonds hit career home run 756 becoming the all time home run leader on August 7, 2007. Even as the number of players implicated for using steroids grows almost daily, most fans in Pittsburgh and across the country still hold a unparalleled grudge against Bonds. The August 10 issued of Sports Illustrated has an article by Chris Ballard that is written like as a fictitious (at least I don’t think it is real) letter from the ostracized home king.
“So how are you going to treat Papi now? Will you boo him and throw syringes on the field like you did to me? Are you going to sic Pedro Gomez on him?”
“While we’re at it, just what price has Manny paid? Let’s see: a 50-game suspension and then … what? More love from you guys.”
USA Today ran an article asking Is this the day to forgive Bonds? The answer to this question especially for Pirate Fans is yes! Fans forgiving Bonds is the first step of breaking the cycle of begrudging between Bonds and the Pirates. So please join us in forgiving Barry. We know it may be hard but do but it must be done if the curse is ever going to be broken. Do your part as a Bucco fan to help break the curse with this Curse of Bonds exclusive t-shirt.
The shirts are available here for only $15.99. One dollar from the price of each shirt will be donated to a yet to be established charity to help break the Curse of Bonds on the Pirates. There is no better way to help yourself and other Pirate fans remember to forgive Barry that by wearing this shirt.
One final thing I wanted to mention this article about Pirates trades.
Ohlendorf Super Genius
Well I was all prepared to post about how I was hoping Ross OhlenDwarf would be like one of the short hairy warriors from Lord of the Rings.
But then I read this.
A Princeton graduate with a major in operations research and financial engineering, Ohlendorf looked at the Draft from 1989-93 to determine the value of the top 100 picks based on a return on the investment made by the team that drafted each player.
That return wasn’t dependent solely on what was spent on signing bonus; salary also played a part. The Pirates right-hander tracked the progress of each player for a 12-year period, using the sabermetric Win Shares to determine each player’s value. Return on the investment was largely figured out by looking at that player’s contribution before reaching free agency compared with his salary over that period. Ohlendorf compared salaries for both the players in the study and free agents for those years. Even with some in the study never making the big leagues, Ohlendorf found that the players in his study brought twice the return of investment based on his criteria.
WHAT? Turns out the Pirates have a Super Genius amongst them capable of saving the world. But can he break the curse?
I will honest and say I read that entire article linked above and have no clue what Ross is talking about. But here is a quote that I think applies to breaking The Curse of Bonds.
“You could guess, but you couldn’t tell for sure because you don’t know how future salary markets would be,” Ohlendorf explained. “If free-agent salaries go up, the future will be more valuable. If it goes down, it’ll be less valuable because you can sign free agents for less. If you assume it’ll stay about the same, you can try to estimate it.
“The best way to estimate would be over the first three years, he’d have to perform about the same as a free-agent contract for three years at whatever his signing bonus is. That’d be the starting point, the easy way to look at it, but it wouldn’t be real precise.”
Beat my old team, or I’ll beat you.
The primary intention of this blog is to bring the Curse of Bonds to the public’s attention so somehow it can be broken. That being said we feel we recently hit 2 out of the park. That is one less than the Pirates Andrew McCutchen hit last night and 760 less than Barry Bonds hit in his entire career but none the less we feel it is an accomplishment. First you can now get to my blog at wordpress.com using www.curseofbonds.com I put the same content there as here at MLB blogs. Second we are very excited to announce that the Curse of Barry Bonds now has its own Wikipedia article.
Amongst all the trades of this past week we missed a huge Bonds-Pirates story. Bonds was in attendance when the Giants and Buccos faced off this past Monday.
“Beat my old team, or I’ll beat you.”
Lincecum led the Giants to a 4-2 victory pitching a complete came and striking out 15 Pirates.
When asked about it later Lincecum said with a grin
“I think he was joking,”
This is no joking matter when it comes to the curse if you still needed proof that the curse is real look no further.
Trade ‘em All Tour Continues
The Pirates franchise essentially completed pressing the reset button today with the trades of Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez.
Today is either just a new all time low or truly the start of the beginning of the end of the beginning to end the curse of Barry Bonds. I couldn’t help but think today that Bonds very well might not be the player that has a curse on the Pirates. I am sure Chris Duffy is somewhere jamming pins into a Jim Tracy bobblehead. But Freddy and Jack have both gone on to a better place and they will realize that soon enough. Coming soon the final count down to 17!
Pirates All Un-Traded Team
With the trade deadline coming up this Friday we have compiled what we are calling a Pirates All Un-Traded Team. Basically we have compiled what we feel would be the roster that the Pirates could have if they never traded or failed to sign anyone ever. Many hours were spent by our team of statisticians and clairvoyant experts in compiling this team. Only active players were eligible.
Starting Pitchers
Zach Duke
Óliver Pérez
Tim Wakefield
Paul Maholm
Bronson Arroyo
Bullpen
Matt Capps
John Grabow
Ross Ohlendorf
Jeff Karstens
Sean Burnett
Damaso Marte
Joe Beimel
Catchers
Jason Kendall
Ryan Doumit
Infielders
Garrett Jones
Freddy Sanchez
Jack Wilson
Aramis Ramírez
Craig Wilson
Pokey Reese
Outfielders
Jason Bay
Nate Mclouth
Andrew McCutchen
Barry Bonds
Manager & Coaches
Jim Leyland Manager
Lloyd McClendon Batting Coach
Joe Kerrigan Pitching Coach
Andy Van Slyke First Base Coach
Gene Lamont Third Base Coach
Jeff Jones Bullpen Coach
Rafael Belliard Coach
Tony Beasley Coach
I know Tony Beasley is a bit of a stretch but he is awesome!
By our estimates this team would have a record of 73 – 27 by this point in the season.
One final note Kris Benson’s wife, Anna, would also still be part of the organization, maybe GM.
La Roche College and L Millz
The Trade em all world tour
continued this week as Adam LaRoche was traded to the Boston Red Sox.
Since the deal was made this Wednesday many Pittsburghers are wondering
what will happen to LaRoche College. Yes Andy is still here in
Pittsburgh but according to the Post Gazette the college is on shaky footing“There’s no
danger,” La Roche spokesman Ken Service said. “We’ll be in business for
a long time to come.” “As for faculty, students and staff, there is no
impact on them.
Only time will tell but we hope the best for Andy and La Roche College.
Automaton Transfusion
Last night Garrett Jones single-handedly defeated the San Francisco Giants. Jones hit 2 homers in the Bucs 2-1 win the later being a walk off in the 14th, which he hit into the Allegheny.
In just 12 games with the Pirates Jones has hit 7 home runs, more by far than any of the other current Pirate outfields has hit all season.
Way more than Brandon “Moss Man” Moss who has been a huge disappointment. So is Jones the long awaited answer? Well his name is sort of super hero sounding it definitely sounds like he could have an alter ego. But we are not quite sure if Garrett Jones is an alliteration, we have several linguists working to determine on determining if Jones’ name indicates any super powers. Also we are considering firing out linguistic team because they have been wrong quite often in the past and because of the economics hard times many blogs are experiencing. So where does that leave us with Jones? Well luckily we have some new information, certain things have come to light. Garrett Jones is a zombie killer. According to IMDB Jones played Chris in a Zombie movie called Automaton Transfusion in 2006.
Perhaps the key scene occurs after the young lead Chris (Garret Jones) is forced to kill his father, who had become a zombie. Chris returns to the vehicle where his two friends are waiting for him, and the very fact he arrives alone is enough to tell them all they need to know about what happened. Miller wisely avoids dialogue (anything the characters said would only be overstating the obvious), favoring an uncomfortable silence instead, broken only by the anguished wail that erupts from Chris’s throat when he is no longer able to contain the pain inside. It’s a moment guaranteed to squeeze tears out of even the driest eyes – the sort of achievement seldom found in a graphic horror film.
Not much more you can add to that. Here is the trailer.
Hopefully Jones will be that Automaton Transfusion that the Pirates need.
Naughty Bye Nyjer
Proving once again that Neal Huntington reads this blog Nyjer Morgan, Sean Burnett and Eric Hinske were all traded today. Effectively putting an end to Nyjer – McCutchen connection and Naughty by Nyjer before they truely had a chance to blossom. But breaking up Naughty by Nyjer maybe prove to be benificial both on and off the field because in exchange for Morgan the Pirates recieved Lastings “L-Millz” Milledge.
Milledge (right) picture above, with rapper friend Manny D who he manages and signed to his record label, Soul-Ja Boi Records. L-Millz ran into controversy because of his music while he was with the Mets but we are looking forward to seeing L-Millz and Andrew “McClutchin” McCutchen in the Pirates outfield and beyond!
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