Emotional Writing, The 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates

Two Thousand and Eleven. What a year.

These past 365 days have been quite a roller coaster ride. Personally, I would probably say that this year has the best year of my young life. I turned 21, I got through two more semesters of college, I actually worked somewhat hard to accomplish something in the sport of tennis (the President's Athletic Conference tennis scene is quite a doozy), I saw my blog following more than quadruple in size, I had an incredible experience doing Pirates talk for TribLIVE Radio, I met a ton of new people, and I almost went the whole year without writing a horrible sentence where I use the word "I" ten times, as I just did now.

While I can honestly sit here and say that the Pittsburgh Pirates aren't the biggest part of my life, they certainly played a huge part in the last 12 months of my life.

Last year at this time, the Pirates were going through another incredibly uninteresting offseason after a horrible 105 loss season, and nobody seemed the least bit concerned with their upcoming season. The Steelers and Penguins were dominating Pittsburgh, and nobody gave the Pirates a chance to do anything stimulating in 2011. The Pirates were a team full of unproven players patched together with a couple mediocre veterans and some players in the middle of there careers that really had no business being in the major leagues.

However, spring training came and went, and the season started. The Pirates didn't start great, but they kept their heads above water and caught fire in June and the beginning of July and were right in the hunt at the all-star break. Pittsburgh was jumping. The Pirates were setting all kinds of records in PNC Park attendance, and people were genuinely interested in baseball for the first time in nearly two decades. Andrew McCutchen continued to establish himself as a budding superstar, Charlie Morton clawed his way out of the grave, and Joel Hanrahan was the best first-half reliever in the National League.

The second half of the season reared its ugly head and the Pirates were out of contention in just a few horrible weeks. The buzz died down and the Pirates finished up their 19th straight losing season.

However, things seem different because of the first half the team put together. They have enough young talent to make people believe that the competency wasn't just a fluke. The division has gotten weaker, new rules are in place, and the Pirates have as strong a farm system as they have had in quite some time.

If you just look at the surface, 2011 was just another losing season for the Pirates. But if you look deeper, it was a very encouraging year. They got Pittsburgh interested in baseball again, they kept adding to the farm system, and everything that they couldn't control seemed to go their way. Turning around a franchise that has been as pitiful as the Pittsburgh Pirates was never going to be easy, so you can't discount the importance of slow and steady improvement. The Pirates certainly did improve in 2011, and that's something to be happy about.

For me, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a big hand in making this a fantastic year. I am one year closer to being done with school and having to fend for myself, and the interest the team generated helped me get closer to where I want to be. Much like the Pirates chances of actually winning something, the odds are stacked against me, being a young guy trying to break into the sports writing/reporting field, but for some reason I feel good about my future.

And hey, even if the Pirates never win, and even if I never get a job in the field I want, at the end of the day, the game isn't going anywhere and we still have the raw enjoyment of baseball in front of us. And if I never get the job I hope for, I will still have many other things to be thankful for.

Here's to you 2011, you've been great, but that doesn't stop me from hoping 2012 is even better.