On Breaking .500

The joke going around town this week is that now that the Steelers have won the Super Bowl and the Penguins have won the Stanley Cup, the Pirates are going to get their own victory parade this fall when they finish above .500. While the parade part may be a tad facetious, the Pirates have lost just three more games than they’ve won at this point in the season, so the won-loss record part of the equation is still in play. That’s only technically speaking of course. In reality, the Pirates are a shoo-in to set the professional sports record with their seventeenth consecutive losing season. They’ve already traded their best player in Nate McLouth, and don’t possess enough offensive firepower...