The Pittsburgh Pirates: a six year history

It was July of 2009, and I was in the kitchen of Villa Ballanca, an Italian restaurant in my hometown of Lower Burrell, PA, washing dishes and sneaking peaks at my LG enV Touch trying to keep up to date on the Pittsburgh Pirates at the MLB trade deadline. The end of July was one of the very few interesting parts of baseball season for a Pittsburgh Pirates’ fan back then. The team was in last place almost by default and we were all only interested in seeing what prospects we might acquire in exchange for what would we could try and convince other teams was major league talent. The previous summer we had traded away one the few standouts that had rolled through Pittsburgh, Jason Bay, in exchange for Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen, and Bryan Morris. All three of those names would spend some time with the Pittsburgh Pirates but none of them had any significant impact, all being released or traded away for nothing. The rebuild was 100% on and the next few Julys would see all-time highs in Internet usage for myself.

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