HARRISBURG

As a long-suffering Pirates fan, I figured I'd heard all the taunts and insults about the team's poor play, its record-setting 17 losing seasons, management's maddening habit of trading players as soon as they get good (come back, Jason Bay!) and my questionable intelligence for continuing to care about the team.

But a 5-year-old boy -- yes, a lad of a mere 5 years -- let me know I can still be driven to new depths of humiliation.

His dad is a guy I know from church and we were talking before the service last Sunday. With his young son beside him, the dad says, "Tom, you're from Pittsburgh. Does that mean you're a Pirates fan?''

I say, "Oh ... yes ... unfortunately. People say I'm crazy to root for a team run by people who seem to be clueless. I'm totally sick of all the losing, but I guess I'm still a fan.''

I'm sure he wasn't trying to be mean, but then the dad says, "Then you and my son Billy might not get along. He's a Phillies fan. Billy, tell him what you say about the Pirates.''

Without missing a beat, the kid pipes up, "The Phillies rule, the Pirates drool.''

Trash-talk from a kindergartener -- can it get any worse? I broke out laughing, because it was funny the way he said it, but, as they say, the truth hurts.

I'm already trembling at the thought of the flak this kid will give me this spring and summer, with another baseball season starting soon. (There isn't any way to call it off, is there?) I'm guessing the Buccos will be out of the pennant race by Memorial Day, or the All Star Game at the latest.

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I admit that I don't have it quite as bad as you folks still living in Pittsburgh. Here in the Midstate, as they call it, we're four hours (driving) from Pittsburgh, but only 90 minutes from Philly. So I do have Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and other Phillies to take my mind off the Pirates' annual woes.

And things aren't too bad when your Plan B team has been in the World Series two years in a row and won one of them. (Damn Yankees!)

Nevertheless, I won't apologize to anyone for throwing beanballs at the Pirates. I've earned the right.

Our family moved to Mt. Lebanon way back in 1951 and my dad took me to many games at Forbes Field. (It's probably just a faulty memory, but it seems as though we were always sitting behind one of those big vertical steel posts. And those traffic jams on Oakland streets were awful.)

After 20 years away at college, the Air Force and a stint at a newspaper in Connecticut, when I returned to the Burgh in 1985 I enjoyed taking my son and daughter to Pirates' games. We'd even collect players' autographs along the first-base line.

But I wish I could forget one painful game in 1985, one of the many bad seasons the Pirates have had, when we watched "Joggin' George Hendrick'' totally misplay a fly ball to right field and give Mookie Wilson of the Mets a gift triple. I remember the embarrassment of the baseball drug trials held in Pittsburgh that year, too.

I also, of course, recall the all-too-brief golden era of the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the last time the Pirates actually won more games than they lost. But then there was Barry Bonds' bad throw from left field that let Sid Bream of the Atlanta Braves score the winning run in the 1992 National League playoffs and keep the Pirates out of the World Series.

You can perhaps sense my baseball-related anguish.

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Rooting for the Bucs hasn't been all bad news. After all, the Pirates have won three World Series in my lifetime: 1960, 1971 and 1979. I can vividly remember running down the hallway in ninth grade at Jefferson Junior High in Mt. Lebo, screaming and waving my arms to celebrate the Pirates' wild upset win in 1960 over the hated pin-stripers from the Bronx.

I didn't see much of the 1971 series because I was in the Air Force in South Dakota. But 1979 I remember fondly, with Willie Stargell and "We Are Family," even though I was in Connecticut. But that was more than 30 years ago -- let's have some fresh material to rave about.

These days, when I have the courage to mention Pirates baseball from as far back as 1979, people look at me and smile sympathetically, as if I'm some old-timer who's losing his mind.

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So, how do I come to grips with the harsh reality that the Pirates will soon be taking the field for another 162 games?

Well, I know one thing for sure -- I won't be driving back to the Burgh for games at PNC Park, as lovely a facility for baseball as it is.

Whether any of you folks want to spend your hard-earned money on Pirates' tickets, that's up to you. But as long as people keep faithfully buying tickets to see an inferior product, there's no reason for Pirates' management to improve it. Apparently, they're making money each year by winning only 70 games or so, and you know what they say -- if it ain't broken economically, why fix it?

I wish the Pirates would take Mario Lemieux up on his interest in buying the team.

As far as seeing live baseball this summer, I'll go to the Double-A Harrisburg Senators here. And if I come out to Pittsburgh, I'll head down Route 19 with my brother and sister (who still live in Mt. Lebo) to see the Washington Wild Things.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.