Let baseball fans in other cities amuse themselves with silly arguments about whether Mickey Mantle was better than Joe DiMaggio or Stan Musial topped Albert Pujols.

Here in Pittsburgh, Pirates fans do verbal battle over who was worse, Cam Bonifay or Dave Littlefield. Littlefield's dismissal as the Pirates' general manager last week was the result of going 442-581 since taking over for Bonifay in July 2001.

Any day now, that should take the Pirates' losing streak to 15 seasons, as Bonifay had gone 543-681 between 1993 and his axing. Bonifay had the superior winning percentage in a couple of hundred more games, but Littlefield was the better horse in this slow race because he's leaving his successor with a clearer path. There is no toxic waste dump of bad contracts to clean up.

Littlefield failed to use the Pirates' high draft picks to build a strong system, but those mistakes can be alleviated with a few strong drafts. That task pales to what Littlefield faced six years ago. Bob Smizik put it best in July 2001 when he wrote the Pirates needed David Copperfield, not Littlefield, because somebody had to make four horrendous contracts disappear.

Ranking them has become a parlor game. Neil DeMause of Baseball Prospectus set out in January to judge "the most craptacular" Pirates contracts, and Bonifay's choices ran away with the booby prize.

Start with Derek "Operation Shutdown" Bell. He has been called the perfect Pirate because he stole a lot of money and then escaped on his boat. Bell was paid $9 million to be essentially worthless. Not even Littlefield's signing of over-the-hill Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa before the 2007 season for a combined $10.7 million was as bad, according to DeMause. And Bonifay made three deals even worse.

Kevin Young's four-year contract for $24 million gave the Pirates about a $1.2 million value in return, according to a Baseball Prospectus formula that converts on-field performance into a dollar value. Pat Meares' four-year deal for $15 million returned $2.4 million. The worst contract of all went to the best player, Jason Kendall, worth an estimated $31.9 million during his six-year contract. Trouble was he signed for $60 million.

Put those contracts together and Bonifay was responsible for $72.7 million in overpayments, most of that on the books when Littlefield took over.

Littlefield had to eat the first three contracts, but was able to trade Kendall after his last good season, in 2004, to the Oakland A's. The Pirates had to pay only $5.5 million of the $34 million Kendall still had due, and Kendall has been one of baseball's worst-hitting regulars since, batting .273 but slugging only a Nunezesque .326, with four home runs in more than 1,500 AB.

None of that excuses the Pirates' recent futility. The fact that there is debate on the Bonifay/Littlefield question is the reason both men were fired. It can't be coincidence that owner Bob Nutting canned Littlefield the day after Bryan Bullington and John Van Benschoten were shelled in St. Louis. Bullington was Littlefield's first draft pick in 2002 and Van Benschoten was Bonifay's choice in 2001.

Players selected after Bullington in that 2002 first round include B.J. Upton, Prince Fielder and Jeff Francoeur. In 2001, Bonifay might have taken Aaron Heilman or David Wright.

Of course, all those guys might have gotten hurt had they been signed by the Pirates.

The current Pirates team is younger, better and less costly than the 2001 team that went 62-100 but that, too, is damning with faint praise. It's ironic that one of Littlefield's final acts was to sign Matt Morris, 32, as his $9.5 million salary could be an albatross for the new GM in 2008.

But Littlefield felt the need to pay heavily to get league-average innings, at best, every fifth day, despite the Pirates' pitching-heavy draft strategy.

In a recent Internet chat, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus wrote that the Pirates' general manager job "is the one everyone wants" because there is "hands-off ownership, [an] easy division, arguably the best ballpark in baseball and a hungry fan base. You put a winner there, and you're a hero."

Put a winner anywhere and you're a hero. Put one in Pittsburgh and you'll be a legend.