Yeah and it's driving me nuts

So the Pirates traded Jason Bay to the Red Sox (basically).  They're getting some young guys that they hope will get better.  The odds are that none of them will be as good as Jason Bay, but maybe a couple of them will be ok.  If one of the four players is as good as him, that'd be a really good thing.

They're trading one player that is really good now for a possible player that might be good in the future.  That's what they do.  They develop players and then trade them once they get good.  Occasionally they'll keep enough of the good players that they'll be a good team, but generally they sell them off when they're really good.

I was at the 1979 NLCS and saw the Pittsburgh Pirates beat up the Cincinnati Reds on their way to the World Serie title.  I also saw the 1990 Pittsburgh Pirates get beat up by the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS (when they had a young, future Red Sox pitcher by the name of Tim Wakefield....who incidentally beat the Reds in game one of the series...so you could argue that the Reds didn't really go wire to wire, but that's not my point)  My point is that I've followed the Pirates for a long, long time.  I'm a fan - not in the sense that I'm fanatical, but in the popular sense of the word...I sort of follow them.

I like the Pirates and I guess I'm ok with the big rich teams always winning.  The owners of the bigger teams tend to spend the most money and have the best teams.  They take the biggest risks (financially) when they buy the teams and they ought to reap the rewards.  They also get the most grief when their teams with the huge payrolls don't do well.

Because the big rich teams tend to win the most, it's that much bigger of a story when a small market teams wins one.  It's that much more exciting to have the Hoosiers win the big game against the much bigger team in the state championships.  That's one of the great things about sports.  I love upsets.  This systems allows for the possibilities of the little guy beating up the big guy for the title.

I'm only saying this because, as a Pirates fan, I feel like I have a little credibility to stick up for the big guys.  I have nothing to gain as a fan. 

Goodbye Jason Bay.  Goodbye Barry Bonds.  Goodbye Dave Parker.  Goodbye Tim Wakefield.
(by the way - the title is the punch line to my favorite Pirate joke - Pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel attached to his midsection...)