82

9 September - Pirates 1 Rangers 0 - Landmark game. The landmark game.

The craziest part about this game might be that even if it weren't win #82, it would still be one of the best wins of the year.

Young upstart Gerrit Cole out duels AL Cy Young Award contender with the best start of his young career. Byrd and Alvarez hit back to back 2 out doubles in the 7th and give the pen all they would need. Cole strikes out 9.

That right there, alone, is a fantastic game. Edge of your seat, exciting baseball.

And with the winning run at the plate. Mark Melancon induces a soft ground ball to Pittsburgh-native Neil Walker. Ending 20 years of misery.

One of the most poetic wins I have ever witnessed in my entire life.

I don't have a story of long hardship like many Buc fans do. But I do have a story about learning to appreciate baseball. The cruel, cruel game that baseball is, and what it's like to be on the losing end.

I was spoiled as a young baseball fan. As a young Yankee fan, I was disappointed if my team didn't win the world series. In the late 2000s, I started to wonder how long it would take to see the Yankees win another one.

To my mirth, the Yankees won in 2009. The first World Series of my adult life.

There I sat, in my dorm room in Pittsburgh, totally fulfilled. This was what I was waiting for all my teen years.

The next season, I was still a Yankee fan of course. But rooting for them that year didn't have the same appeal to me. I had achieved my goal already in my mind.

Then I looked to the Pirates. My second favorite team, and the team that got me into National League baseball a couple years earlier. Not because they were good. But because they were fun, new, and interesting to me. They were terrible. Nobody liked them. I liked them.

So on opening day 2010, I took my Pirate fandom to the next level. I would be a Bucco fan 1st and a Yankee fan 2nd (don't tell my dad). I started to learn about the farm system, starting with prospect Pedro Alvarez, and I immersed myself in the Pirate lifestyle. I got a pirate team poster that year and hung it over my bed.

Later that month, the Pirates sent me a message: "You've made a huge mistake."

The Pirates lost 20-0 to the Brewers that day. Their record was 7-8.

They would have 105 losses that year.

Even still, the wins I did get to see were sweet. Hard fought, low scoring affairs. Games immersed with intense strategy and late inning heroics. These were the kinds of games that kept me coming back and wanting more.

I also wanted to see the Pirates win a game in person. That happened for the first time in May 2011. A game against the Astros. It was hat day. I went with my friends. We all wore our hats.

2011 gave me hope and then took it away. 2012 gave me more hope, and then took it away harshly.

2013 isn't over yet. But if the Pirates can win 82 games, if the one constant result in all my years of baseball fandom (est. 1995) no longer holds, then anything can happen.

Being a Pirate fan has given me such an interesting perspective on baseball and life, I owe them the world.

And though I don't share the lineage and therefore the elation that many Pirate fans feel tonight, I do feel wistful and happy because of the journey that Pirate fandom has taken me through.

History was made tonight, boys. And the best is yet to come.

I'm so excited for Pirate postseason baseball I think my head might fall off. Being a die-hard baseball fan has done this to me, and it feels amazing.