Your hometown team the Pittsburgh Pirates are in first place on June 11, 2012. That's right I said it first place in the NL Central. But they aren't really in first place they are tied with the Reds, but if you are going to get technical they are currently winning the head to head match-up tie breaker so I guess you can put their name above the Reds. Everyone around town is really excited about their team right now, people were even watching the Sunday Night Baseball match-up last night with great interest hoping the Tigers could come back and defeat the Reds which they did end up doing. But what some people are forgetting is that it is only June 11 and the Pirates still have over 100 games left to play before being in first place even matters for anything.
I have mixed feelings about the current situation the Pirates find themselves in at the Top of the NL Central. Obviously I am happy the Pirates are winning games at a faster rate then anyone else in their same division but on the other hand I just think that it is a little to early to throw a party for being in first place. Last year on June 11 the Pirates were 5.5 games out of first place and one game under .500. So this clearly shows that the Pirates are in a better situation then they were last year on this date, but they improved last year as well getting all the way up to six games over .500. The Pirates came to a point last year on July 25 that resembles this situation very similarly. The Pirates were six games over .500 at tied for first place with the St. Louis Cardinals who would eventually go on to win the world series. The Milwaukee Brewers were trailing just behind as well being .5 games off of the pace and would eventually go on to win the NL wild card.
What I am trying to get out of the scenario above is that the Pirates were in this same situation over a month later into the season last year and they did not even come close to a winning season let alone a playoff berth, like many people in Pittsburgh are predicting. All I am saying is that we have to be careful about how excited we get. Let me tell you I am one of the biggest Pirate fans you will ever meet and I am just trying to be careful because I know the pain you experience when you build your hopes so high and then they come crashing down right back on you.
But on the other hand the people in Pittsburgh are stoked about their team right now and that's just an awesome thing to see. For that reason I think the irrelevant title of being in first place in the middle of June is very relevant. Whenever you can get a whole city rallying around a sports team especially one who hasn't won in 19 years its a very special thing and that's what we are seeing right now. Right now we are seeing a city being passionate about a baseball team a sight that we saw last year in July but never really got the real feeling we all wanted, we only got a little taste. If the Pirates are still in this situation on July 25 like they were last year the feeling around this city is going to be unreal, which seems to only be a feeling you get in the fall when the Steelers return to Heinz field. But the difference this year is that we have the CHANCE to have this same feeling on the baseball field. I think that's all the people in the city of Pittsburgh want at this point is a CHANCE and this year that CHANCE is better than ever.
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