Former Pirates Law, Friend know what it's like to endure long string of losing

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Ah, spring, the season of reawakening and reverie and renewal, the sunnier days of promise and potential and possibility. And for the hopelessly optimistic, an oxymoron if ever there was one, it's time for the Pirates.

Las Vegas oddsmakers rate the ballclub, burdened with the baggage of 12 consecutive losing seasons, as a 200-to-1 shot to win it all with the over/under on wins at 72. In short, the oddsmakers give them a snowball's chance in a blast furnace.

Losing is a risk taken by any competitor. But in this day and age, being branded a loser is the worst possible social put-down.

Lose a game and it hurts -- and can it be 12 years since Francisco Cabrerra plunged a dagger into Pittsburgh's baseball hearts? Lose a string of games and it becomes a rut. Lose for a dozen years and the rut deepens into a grave.

The 119-year-old Pirates franchise has never before suffered such a run of futility.

This slide has encompassed two ownership groups, two ballparks, three general managers, three managers, any number of rebuilding plans and a revolving door of players. They haven't even managed a winning record at home at PNC Park, which opened under the promise of a renaissance the day Willie Stargell died.

As in all things baseball, the past serves as a reference point. A half-century ago, the Rickey dinks -- named after general manager Branch Rickey -- lost more games than they won each year for nine consecutive seasons between 1949 and 1957.

That woeful era included a run of three consecutive 100-loss seasons, starting in 1952. That team lost 112 times in 154 games and is listed as the sixth-worst team of all-time, according to the computer rankings of Harry Hollingsworth, a sports statistician from Akron, Ohio.

Of that 1952 edition, manager Billy Meyer once said: "You clowns can go on 'What's My Line' in full uniform and stump the panel."

One member of that cast was catcher Joe Garagiola, who launched a second career as a broadcaster and TV personality who found comic relief in losing in the mold of Brutus Thornapple, Charlie Brown and Rodney Dangerfield.

"We gave the fans their money's worth. They always saw the bottom of the ninth," Garagiola said.

"We'd be a couple of runs behind before they finished playing the National Anthem. ... Opposing pitchers would get into fistfights over who was going to start against us. ... People would get up to leave after Ralph Kiner's last at-bat and walk across the field -- while we were still on it."

Bad-dud-bing.

"I look back and laugh about it now, but those were tough times," said Garagiola. "But the thing about it was, we never thought of ourselves as being in a rut. We thought we were going to win every game."

Indeed. From that Great Depression came a core of players that turned it around. Twelve years after that losing streak began, the Pirates won their first pennant in 33 years and first World Series in 35 years by beating the Yankees in 1960.

Pitchers Vernon Law and Bob Friend endured that era and later won rings. The experience of Pirates pain, they say, served them when they achieved Pirates glory.

"It was a good thing I was a young man," Law said. "I was able to grin and bear it. Experience is a great teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward."

Friend can remember Rickey telling them after the 1952 fiasco that there was World Series potential sitting in the clubhouse, and the players believed him.

"Nobody wants to lose," Friend said. "Losing can settle in. It's a dangerous thing. We'd go into another town and they'd be saying, 'Here come the cellar dwellers.' Then when you win, you want to hold on to that feeling as long as you can. When you win, you can't wait to get to the ballpark."

In the current rubble is the glimmer of hope that today's Pirates are a mostly young team that is supposed to be together for a while. The core is composed of shortstop Jack Wilson, rookie of the year Jason Bay and pitcher Oliver Perez.

"This is the kind of stuff you build around," Friend said. "If they can hold on to what they've got and add some pieces."

But there's the rub.

Suppose the Pirates had a lineup of, say, Tony Womack, Jason Kendall, Brian Giles, Barry Bonds, Aramis Ramiez, Reggie Sanders, Craig Wilson and Jack Wilson along with a rotation of Jason Schmidt, Jon Lieber, Kip Wells, Kris Benson and Josh Fogg. Except such an array of talent costs $86 million in today's contracts and doesn't include a bench or a bullpen.

"Look at the guys the Pirates have had," Law said. "That's what's discouraging. That's what free agency does. There's no continuity. It just kills a team. Guys go where they can get the most money. These low market clubs, there's no way they can compete. The Yankees and the Red Sox can go out and get anybody they want. Baseball's got to do something.

"It's tough for fans. You expect to be able to see your team compete and win. It's a game of hope. You just hope they can straighten this mess out."

Back in the day, even a stumbling franchise could shed itself of unproductive players, assemble a core of young talent and take its lumps in the rebuilding cycle. Today, it takes an owner with deep pockets to pay the freight.

"It's not a cycle anymore. It comes down to money," said Chuck Tanner, a scout and eternal optimist who managed the 1979 Pirates, the last edition to win a World Series. "If you don't have money, you can't [compete]."

There's not a bread-winner out there who has been reared on the principles that life isn't fair and tough times don't last but tough people do.

But even tough guy Tony Soprano needs some time on the couch. And for solace, there's the counsel of sports psychologist Dr. Richard Lustberg of Long Island.

"If there's no sun on the horizon, people can feel hopeless and helpless," Lustberg said. "Fans relate to losing through their own losses. It's a good object lesson in life. Not everyone is successful. Who can't relate to disappointments, mistakes, not having enough money, or staying in a relationship that may not be ideal but it's the one we have? Criticizing others allows us to feel better about ourselves, and who among us can't criticize management?"

But halfway through the litany of what ails baseball in Pittsburgh, Lustberg said, "Stop!"

The reality was depressing him.

"Don't you just love spring training stories?" Lustberg said. "Baseball allows you to recall your own childhood. Smell the grass and you're a kid again. There's nothing like it. It makes me feel like I'm in center field, and there's no place safer in my life than center field. What could be bad?"