UnNews:Pittsburgh Pirates forfeit season

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UnNews

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Sunday, December 22, 2024, 06:20:59 (UTC)

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2 March 2011

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania -- In a surprise move, the front office of the Pittsburgh Pirates announced today that they were going to forfeit their entire 2011 season.

"Sometimes, it just isn't worth playing," manager Clint Hurdle said.

After finishing the 2010 season with a 57-105 record - their 18th consecutive losing season, which is a record - and without making any competent moves in the offseason, Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, along with the rest of Pittsburgh's administrators, deduced that there was nothing to look forward to in 2011 and decided that their best option was to simply sit it out.

"Our team is terrible again this year, and we thought that it would just be demoralizing to keep losing. We have a lot of rookies on this team - a lot of promise - and we decided it wouldn't be a good move to make them hate their lives just yet," Huntington stated.

With a lineup whose 3-4-5 hitters all have under 3 years of Major League experience and whose staff ace went 1-11 last year, the prospects of the Pirates winning even 40 games this year seems impossible, let alone breaking .500. Furthermore, considering how many Pirates jumped ship at last year's trading deadline and during the offseason, skipping what is sure to be an even worse year in 2011 may have averted some serious damage to the franchise.

"[Neil] Walker and [Pedro] Alvarez are solid players, and will be great in a few years," Hurdle predicts, "and we can't afford to lose them, which is sure to happen if we have another 2010... If we do [lose them], this team is going to blow harder than a cheap hooker for decades to come."

The Pirates players themselves seem to be okay with the decision.

Alvarez, the starting third baseman and cleanup hitter, who's played in all of 95 Major League games, said through an interpreter, "I agree with management on this one. When I was told I was hitting 4th, I was shocked; I've never hit higher than 7th in a lineup. If I'm the team's big run producer, we won't be winning very many games."

"It's not like we're going to sit around and do nothing all year," a complete unknown named James McDonald, one of the Pirates top starting pitchers, said. "We'll be playing against some of Pennsylvania's top AAU and college club teams; they'll keep us on our toes."

McDonald's assumption that they'd be playing at that level, however, may not be entirely true. UnNews has learned that the Greater Philadelphia Men's Senior Baseball League, a wooden bat "beer league," recently accepted a new team to their standings called the "Pie Rats," listing a "Clinton Vault" as their manager and "Walk O'Neill" and "Donald McJames" as among their players. The "Pie Rats" are currently being predicted to finish third in a field that now consists of five teams.

Sources

This article features first-hand journalism by an UnNews correspondent.