Life as a Bucco Fan

No matter what happens tonight, I'm going to enjoy something I haven't had the pleasure of doing in a long time, watch my Pittsburgh Pirates compete in a playoff game.  This blog will read like so many others you've read the past few months, yinzers thrilled for .500, then a winning season, and now this, playoffs!  While all of us were impacted differently by the unfortunate events of October 14th, 1992, I argue that those of us born in the early 80s took it the hardest.

My friends and I were 11 years old in 1992.  We were old enough to know and love baseball.  We knew the back of our favorite players' baseball cards better than we knew our phone numbers.  We could tell you batting averages, ERAs, and confidently fill out the scorecard that came in our game day program. We knew what pride meant, especially in The City of Champions.  But we were also young.  We weren't yet jaded by speculation of steroid use, or betting on the game.  We didn't know what kind of income pro athletes earned as our parents scrounged together the money to take us to dollar-dog night.  We had no idea that there were issues in the locker room.  These guys were just our baseball heroes.

I was born a Bucco fan.  My earliest photos are of me wearing a Pirate onesie.  I can't remember much being on our television growing up other than baseball.  Though my family is from Pittsburgh, I was technically born outside of Lexington, Kentucky.  Though it killed my mom to be away from home, she always said she could tolerate the tv in that part of the world because we got TBS, so she could see the Bucs when they played the Braves, we were close enough to Cincy to get the feed when they played the Reds, as well as any nationally televised games.

We moved back to Pittsburgh when I was 6 and my mom went to work for a wonderful woman named Maria, who happened to have Pirate season tickets.  Knowing my newly working and single mother didn't have endless fun money laying around, she would give up her seats nearly every Sunday so my mom could take me to the ballgame.  Her seats, by the way, were 9 rows back from first base!  And so my love affair with the Pirates began.  I had started playing baseball when I was 7, but wasn't good enough for the infield and bored out of mind in the outfield.  I complained to my grandfather (the biggest of Bucco fans).  He had a suggestion, do what he had done, become a catcher.  As he said, "You'll get to play every inning and be where the action is."  And so for the next ten years, I played catcher. Spanky LaValliere became my favorite player and 12 became my number.  I've worn number 12 in every sport I've ever played since.  I also started collecting autographs.  We would come to the ballpark early for batting practice and I used my tiny t-ball glove to start collecting signatures.  At present, there is only one notable 1991 & 1992 player missing from that glove...Andy Van Slyke.  The circumstances involving that are a different blog post, however.

My 9th birthday party was held at Three Rivers Stadium during a Pirate game.  That year I had determined that Van Slyke was my new favorite player.  No offense to Spanky, but AVS was slightly better looking.  My mom's friend Maria bought me my first, real sports jersey, #18.  I slept in it that night and so many others.  My mom once accidentally ironed the polyester sleeve, causing a part of it to burn, leading to the biggest fashion meltdown I can remember ever having.  The attachment to that jersey is unreal.

Then came the 1992 playoffs.  I won't rehash what happened, as we all already know.  But as Sid was called safe, I ran upstairs, tore off the Van Slyke jersey and cried myself to sleep.  Again, we were old enough to understand, but far too young to keep our emotions in check.  I believe I also vowed to never watch another Pirate game again.  The next year would bring a disappointing end to what I still contend is the best Penguins roster on record.  And by the time the Steelers lost to the Cowboys in 1995, we understood sports were a series of ebbs and flows.  Sadly, the Bucs never came back up, we just kept on "rebuilding."

I stuck with them though.  I used my job in Student Activities at Point Park University to purchase opening day tickets every year, even when I had to beg students to attend.  My friend Nate and I sat through all 9 innings in 2004 or 2005(?) when it was freezing rain.  I attended 7 straight opening days, praying for the Pirates to just be .500.  I once took verbal abuse from a 8 year-old in old Yankee Stadium while wearing my Sanchez jersey.  As he shouted, "The Pirates are losers!" I had no retort, we were.  We'd been losing for longer than this kid had been alive...twice as long actually.  I joined the Lady Bucs Club, which was an attempt to pair wine tasting with baseball to generate ticket sales.  I proudly sported my "Go Freddy Go" sign in the freezing cold (with many other excited fans) as Freddy Sanchez's run at the batting title brought one of the few bright spots of the past 20 years.

But I never stopped believing that we would someday be rebuilt.

And so here we are, with a playoff game this evening.  Someone asked where I would be watching the game.  I responded, "On my couch, wine in hand, Van Slyke jersey on (yes, it still fits), with a box of Kleenex nearby, for happy tears...and the endless replays of 1992 they are sure to show."

LET'S GO BUCS!  Raise It.