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Wow.

Onward ...

Q: Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.

Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"

Dr. Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.

Dr. Venkman: Exactly.

Dr. Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.

Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes ...

Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.

Dr. Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together ... the Pirates sweeping the first three games of the year and being three games over .500 ... mass hysteria!

Brad Bender of Philadelphia

KOVACEVIC: If you get that "Ghost Busters" song stuck in my head for the duration of this three-hour flight I am about to take, you are banned forever.

Q: Amazing. I'm scoreboard watching in this pennant race in game three of the season.

Dave Drazga of Dallas

KOVACEVIC: Yeah, caught myself doing the same thing. In the 10-minute waiting period between the end of the game and the opening of the clubhouse, I caught myself looking up at a monitor in a Minute Maid corridor that was airing the Brewers game.

Just shook my head and went back to thinking about work.

Q: Dejan, am I crazy, or are the Pirates actually a good baseball team this year? I feel stupid just for asking. Please provide a reality check.

Philip Laughlin of Penn Hills

KOVACEVIC: You know, Philip, my first thought in terms of a reality check is this: The Pirates just swept the Astros in Houston without Freddy Sanchez in the lineup and with Adam LaRoche in a complete fog. The reality-check factor in that is that the offense should be better.

That said, the pitching was better than some might have expected, particularly the bullpen. I wrote here last week that the Pirates were nervous about their relievers as they entered the season, particularly about their ability to throw strikes.

Dude ... 11 innings ... one run ... zero walks.

What did you ask again?

Q: Dejan, is it me or does every guy on this team just seem completely laid-back and loose? Not a worry in the world. I know Jason Bay has always been like this, but I never really noticed it until I attended the game Tuesday night. We heard it about LaRoche. But I noticed it with Duffy, X, Paulino and Bautista, too. I've seen it in Castillo but always assumed it was laziness. And Jack is so carefree.

It's like a quiet confidence. Where did it come from? And am I making too much of this?

Ryan Chrissis of Lake Charles, La.

KOVACEVIC: You could not have written a better promo plug for the main piece today, Ryan, up to and including your use of the term "quiet confidence" as spoken exactly by Jim Tracy.

Q: Dejan, I know your stance on the likelihood of the Pirates having their first winning season in 15 years. Now, I'd like to know your opinion of making a winning season a stated goal.

Again in your Sunday article on Adam LaRoche, the Pirates bristle at the idea of proclaiming a season of 82 wins as a goal. Rather, they must put forward the idea that the ultimate goal is a championship and nothing less than that will satisfy.

For some reason, a .500 season has been equated to mediocrity, but I would argue that, in baseball, it is significantly more than that. Pirates fans are certainly impatient, but they are also realistic. We understand that you crawl before you walk.

Bill Slusser of Cranberry

KOVACEVIC: I long have trumpeted the idea of citing a numerical goal for the Pirates, to the extent that I once wrote here suggesting that management have the No. 82 inscribed somewhere in the clubhouse.

If the Pirates want to shoot higher than that, hey, go nuts.

My larger point was that this has been a team that, for years now, has been without a verbally declared goal of any kind. That gave them nothing in common with more successful franchises, to put it kindly.

Thing No. 27 that makes Pittsburgh great: Its long-dormant baseball fan base, the one that used to chant for its team while walking down the spiral ramps of Three Rivers.

Until the home opener Monday, Paul Meyer has the team in Cincinnati ...