Long ago, before the deadball era began, a player in the Greek leagues combined the size of Brad Eldred with the tenacity of Jason Kendall. You could not take Sisyphus out of the lineup.
The gods, you see, had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly roll a boulder to the top of a mountain, where it would promptly roll back down again.
Albert "Hit 'Em Where There's Nothingness" Camus, a five-tool player in the Existentialists League, explained that the gods believed "with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor." Camus nonetheless saw dignity in that period when Sisyphus walked back down the mountain to get the big rock and start again.
"I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step,'' Camus wrote, "toward the torment of which he will never know the end."
I see a Pirates fan. Sisyphus "knows the whole extent of his wretched condition" as "the futile laborer of the underworld" but "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."
Thus when a young Boston Red Sox fan in the office professed bafflement at the very concept of Pirates fandom after 12 losing seasons and counting, I reminded her that her team had but a single world championship since 1918, while the Pirates had four. The Cubs and White Sox have not won a World Series since 1917 and 1908, respectively.
The Astros have never made it to the World Series in 43 years of trying. That doesn't stop any of their fans from getting behind the boulder each spring.
So it is for all you Sisyphuses (or would that be Sisyphi?) out there that I offer these morsels of hope. I'm not suggesting you bet a bobblehead on a winning season, but if one finally arrives, it won't be because of who's playing this year. It will be because of who's not.
1. The Pirates no longer play in baseball's toughest division. The Pirates went 15-37 against the Cardinals, Cubs and Astros last season and 57-52 against everyone else. Over the winter, the Astros lost Carlos Beltran and Jeff Kent and their aging core got older.
The Cubs lost Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou and Matt Clement. The Cardinals lost Edgar Renteria.
2. I have previously pointed out the Pirates would not be saddled this year with the collective 562 plate appearances of Randall Simon, Chris Stynes and Abraham Nunez.
I might have kept going. Tony Alvarez, J.J. Davis, J.R. House, Carlos Rivera and Jose Bautista came to the plate another 154 times and produced a .243 on-base average and .248 slugging average, more woeful than even the traumatic trio.
In all, these exiled eight "batters'' represented one of every 8.5 plate appearances on baseball's youngest team. The over-young and overdone batted .209 with a .263 OBA and .288 SLG, hitting a home run every 94 AB.
The rest of the Pirates, including pitchers, batted .267 with a .328 OBA and .416 SLG in a league that goes .263/.329/.423. These Pirates hit a home run nearly three times as often as the exiles, or one every 36 AB.
While it's true every team would benefit from an exercise such as this, it's hard to imagine another team removing a cyst that large.
Replacing those stiffs with even standard-issue scrubs should be good for more than 30 runs.
3. The pitching staff is deeper. Let's say Oliver Perez and Kip Wells pitch better than most and the other three starters get reasonably close to a 4.30 ERA. That was the league average last season, and would represent huge improvement for the back of the rotation.
There may yet be a bright future or three among Ryan Vogelsong, Nelson Figueroa, John Van Benschoten, Ian Snell and Frank Brooks, but last year they averaged less than five innings per game in 36 combined starts.
They gave up 135 runs in 170.3 innings for a collective ERA of 7.13.
It takes such extraordinary ineptitude for Pirates fans to miss Jimmy Anderson, Ron Villone and Joe Beimel, who would combine for an ERA on the high side of 5.00 in days of yore. If these five "pitchers'' had turned in an ERA of even 6.00 last season, they would have saved 21 runs. A 5.00 would have saved 40 runs.
That's the hidden vigorish the Pirates have: Fewer Stiffs.
Last year's team ERA was 4.29, just under league average, even with incompetents and understudies starting better than a fifth of the games.
The Pirates scored 680 runs last year and gave up 744.
Kick Pirates runs up to 710 and knock opponents back to 704 and this team will be a winner.
Am I delusional? Perhaps. But I figure with perfect parity, a team should win the World Series once every 30 years. It won't be until 2009 that this boulder gets heavy.
First Published: March 29, 2005, 5:00 a.m.
