With the book closed on the topsy-turvy 2006 Pirates, perhaps no chapter summarized their tale better than that of Chris Duffy.

Take the awful start, when he batted .194 through mid-May.

Then, the month when he was out of baseball, which the Pirates might as well have been.

And, of course, the way he bounced back dramatically in the second half.

Duffy did start out 3 for 32 upon his Aug. 1 return, but that became a .315 average -- 58 for 184 -- from Aug. 11 onward, including eight doubles, two triples, two home runs and 14 RBIs. Most relevant, given his spot atop the order, he raised his on-base percentage from .223 to .317, scored 32 runs and stole 19 of 20 bases.

He finished with a .255 average and stole 26 of 27 bases. His 96.7 percent success rate in steals was best in Major League Baseball, just ahead of the Seattle Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki, who stole 45 of 47 for 95.7 percent.

The Pirates were 23-9 when he scored a run, 11-1 when he scored twice.

Weird year, no?

"Yeah, no question about that," Duffy said with a playful laugh. "But you know what? When I knew I was ready to come back and play, I felt that I could be the player that I once was. For me, this isn't much of a surprise, but I can say that I'm really happy with the way I've been able to produce and help the team win some games."

This past winter, manager Jim Tracy and his staff urged Duffy to keep the ball on the ground, altering his long-standing approach at the plate. Duffy, at the time, blamed that tinkering for his poor start.

His view now is that he simply went back to what worked for him in the minors.

"For me, it was just a matter of feeling comfortable," Duffy said. "If you're trying to hit balls on the ground, at this level, you're going to hit balls in the air. That's like telling yourself, 'I don't want to strike out this at-bat.' You're going to strike out. The natural path of my swing doesn't hit many fly balls. I hit the ball on the line."

Attendance numbers

The total attendance of 1,861,549 ended up the fifth-largest mark in the Pirates' 120 years, with an average of 23,269. That included six sellouts.

Two footnotes: The average -- over 80 dates -- still was fourth lowest in Major League Baseball. Also, it is possible that there were more than four years with greater attendance, as crowds were measured by turnstile count until 1993 and have been based on tickets sold since.

"We had a pretty good turnout all year," starter Zach Duke said. "I think the batting race had a lot to do with that down the stretch. We're just very thankful for it. Hopefully, we'll keep putting a good product out there. When we get around to doing what we expect to do, it's going to be very, very fun to show up here every day."

Buried treasure

During the postgame ceremony to honor Freddy Sanchez, general manager Dave Littlefield was booed by the crowd of 25,004, a season-ending gathering that usually is thick with season-ticket holders. The Pirates have not topped 75 victories in Littlefield's five full seasons on the job.

The Pirates never broached extensions with any player eligible for arbitration this winter, including Sanchez.

Outfielder Andrew McCutchen, honored before the game as the Pirates' minor-league player of the year, is playing four days a week in the Florida Instructional League until mid-October, mostly to work on base-stealing. He was 23 for 31 this past season. "It's something they think I can improve," McCutchen said.

Matt Capps' 84th appearance left him one shy of the major-league record for rookies, set by Arizona's Oscar Villareal in 2003.

Only 181 days until someone -- Ian Snell, maybe -- makes the Pirates' first pitch of 2007 in Houston.