I know that many of you consider me to be the most pessimistic guy on this board, and I’ll admit, I do get down, and I sometimes don’t say the smartest things, but this stretch has been hard on all of us. The past week has been rough, hell, it hasn’t been rough, it has been downright brutal. Demoralizing. Heartbreaking. Depressing. Its gotten to the point that when the clock hits 7 p.m. at night, I start to second guess myself on why I am about to make a 3-hour commitment to what might end up in disappointment. Two weeks ago, my day moved egregiously slow, I’d get out of class at 1:30 and go to work until 4:30, and then I would get home at around 5:00, and just wait, wait to watch my Buccos continue to amaze me, and it was a worthwhile three hours. Now, that feeling is gone, I still want to believe this team can break the .500 barrier, but I just don’t know, and that is depressing. Yet, I am still going to watch every night, until the bitter end, people call me crazy, but do you know what I tell them? This is what I see signed up for.

            This is what we signed up for. I personally cannot relate to some of you, I’m not a bandwagon fan, but I’m only 21, and on top of that, this is only my third full season as a Pirates fan.  I joined the Buccos nation when we were terrible, people thought I was nuts, and it was because of a strange family relationship, but I fell in love with this team and started supporting them like I’d been rooting for them for fifteen years. I watched every game, and as I watched every game I had five tabs open on my computer—The box scores for State College, West Virginia, Bradenton, Altoona, Indianapolis, I was quickly a full-blown fanatic. I knew full well as I dived deeper into the realms of Pirates fan hood that I was going to face heartbreak, defeat, embarrassment, but I also knew that if I was going to be a Buccos fan, this is what I signed up for.

            So as we’ve watched this epic collapse with our team, I’ve gotten a lot of flack from my friends, many of which I was gloating to a week ago about our success, and you better believe they’re throwing it right back. I’m sure a lot of you are getting the same thing, whether you live outside of Pittsburgh like me, or have to deal with bandwagon natives back in Pittsburgh, I’m sure we are all getting it for being fans of this franchise. And sometimes we are going to question it, I really questioned it tonight, but when you ever get to that point, just remember: This is what we signed up for. And you know what? One day, we are going to really break through, not a quick flash in the pan like this season, but we will really breakthrough. We will break the losing streak, and it’s going to be awesome. Maybe it will happen this year, maybe not, but when it does, we will all be thrilled. Then we will win the NL Central, and its not going to be awesome, its going to be downright amazing, honestly, as we hit this low point, what really keeps me going with my Pirates fan hood is just thinking about how incredible its going to feel when things really start to happen for us. Just imagining what I am going to feel like when we win the division, what the Pirates nation will feel like. When that does happen, we are going to revel in the moment and say—This is what we signed up for.

As always--go Pirates!