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It would be unfair to leave Denver without a richly deserved kind word.

It is clean without being dull, eccentric without being weird, modern while blending beautifully with historic structures, and the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains is without parallel.

Several sections of the central area are inviting, including the lower downtown district that rolls along Blake Street by the ballpark. (Imagine the lower portion of the Strip by the Convention Center multiplied by three.) There also is some of the most dynamic urban housing you will find anywhere in the country.

But the part that stands out for me is 16th Street, where I always make a point to stay. It is several blocks long, and only these hybrid buses -- no charge to ride -- roll up and down these thin lanes. Otherwise, it is very much a pedestrian thoroughfare, replete with fountains, artists, live music, homeless chess tournaments and all kinds of other eye candy. Most of the shops are standard suburban mall fare -- hence, the name 16th Street Mall -- so that kind of dumbs it down a little. But the concept is tremendous.

Reminds me of that Mr. Rogers trolley idea the late Mayor O'Connor had for our Forbes Avenue, a vehicle that would roll back and forth from Grant Street to Market Square, part of a lure that would attract visitors to shops in the corridor.

To baseball ...

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Q: So, uh, is it too early to pencil in Nate McLouth's name to the center field and leadoff job for 2008? He seems to be capable of doing everything we wanted Chris Duffy to do and couldn't, plus he adds a little pop. He is 10 for 10 in stolen bases, has 10 home runs, 17 doubles and an OPS that, had he been qualified, would be ninth-best in the majors among center fielders.

He's now got more homers in the majors than a guy we are looking toward for power, Ryan Doumit, and he's done it in fewer career at-bats.

This has been truly remarkable, and it is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dark losing season.

Vaughn Schultz of Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh

KOVACEVIC: Here is something neat that someone who shall remain unnamed shared with me regarding McLouth yesterday ... Let us assume his numbers can be extrapolated, which, of course, is never a same assumption. Just because McLouth has achieved his home runs and steals in fewer than 250 at-bats does not mean he would double them with 500 or more at-bats. Pitchers see more of him, more weaknesses are found, more left-handers are faced, fatigue is more of a factor ... one could go on and on.

Anyway, let us assume ...

If McLouth were to join the 20-20 club of home runs and steals, he would join what is becoming a diminishing number in the game. Over the past three years, among players at all positions, only Alex Rodriguez, Mike Cameron, Bobby Abreu, Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran have averaged 20-20 seasons or better.

There is this, too: Power is rare at center field. McLouth's 10 home runs rank him ninth in the majors at that position, 53rd among all outfielders.

He has been quite good defensively, too.

And he is a bright, fundamentally-sound, team-first kind of player. And, hey, did anyone mention that he is left-handed? (More on that concept in your Sunday paper.)

Now, before anyone loses their mind here, it is worth reminding that, although McLouth is batting .284 as a starter, his overall average is .256. That does not simply get erased. It should also come up that his career average -- which comes over 610 at-bats -- is .246.

Much remains to be proven.

But it would appear to be beyond dispute that he has shown enough to deserve a longer look. And he probably will get it. In addition to his fine performance of late, the Pirates' long-declared center fielder of the future, Andrew McCutchen, is brand new to Class AAA, and it might be deemed better for him to spend most or all of 2008 there, especially after a down-and-up 2007 in which he encountered a rough patch for the first time in his baseball life.

This much is certain: McLouth's recent play creates the kind of problem the Pirates should love to have.

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Q: I, too, wanted to write in to say how inspired I was by the Bryan Diana story. And I must admit, while watching Wednesday night's 11-2 win, I thought of him, his brother and other diehards who must have made the trip. I'm 22 years old, and what I consider my first full season as a Pirates fan was 1992. I've stuck around for everything since. What really concerns me is that, almost every time I go to the ballpark (and I've been to five or six games this year), I never run into diehards my age.

My question is this: Are we running into a situation where we'll be seeing a significant generation gap with our diehard fans? The creepy mustache guy in the commercials says the Pirates Generation is "anywhere from 2 to 92," but I fear we're losing those who have grown up in a world where the Pirates are never in contention.

Eric Little of Belmont, W.Va.

KOVACEVIC: We have four months left in the calendar year, but I hereby nominate "creepy mustache guy" as the single best line by anybody in the Q&A for 2007.

Congratulations to you and yours, my friend.

Anyway, Eric, my answer is that the Pirates are not running into the situation you describe. They already have smashed into that wall at 100 mph.

There is a great generational divide between the majority of fans who take the Pirates seriously and those who treat them as ... well, a joke. Compare the way Pittsburgh's 30-and-unders discuss or follow the Pirates to how they are with the other two teams in town, and it is not close.

Some in the Pirates' front office are under the impression that, because they walk about PNC Park and see young people, that equates passionate fan interest. But those who have sat near those people and observe those people know it is not the case.

There is much work to be done in that regard, but the first step of the formula is a pretty simple one.

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Q: Dejan, I was at the game in Denver Tuesday night, in town for a convention here. Tony Armas is terrible. No control. Nothing.

Assuming an Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny, Paul Maholm, Matt Morris rotation to start next year, who do you see as No. 5?

Art Cantrell of Cranberry

KOVACEVIC: Zach Duke is going to get every opportunity to show, one, that his 2007 was an aberration due to his elbow and, two, that his 2005 was not an aberration. And, given how that 2005 went, that seems like something any team would want to pursue.

But that is not to suggest that the Pirates -- whoever is running the baseball operations after this season -- will not want to pursue additional pitching. One great fallacy that was exposed this year was the idea that the Pirates had all kinds of starting depth, when, in fact, that depth was including three pitchers in Indianapolis coming back from major arm surgeries. Bringing in another starter can help not only in pushing the current group, but also as insurance for injury.

Armas is a moot point. In fact, judging from Jim Tracy's rather candid response to my question the other night about why Armas is still in there, I get the impression he already would have been a moot point by now if someone else -- notably Shane Youman -- had stepped up.

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Q: Dejan - I recently watched the "Pittsburgh A to Z" program that WQED is running. Because I've recently moved back to Pittsburgh from New York, I don't know when the program debuted, but it seems that most of the footage was recorded post-2001. As an avid reader of the Q&A, particularly the "Things about Pittsburgh" segments from the road, I wanted to make sure you had seen it.

What I'm wondering is, how many cities similar in size to Pittsburgh run programs like this? I know Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City and other cities have storied histories, but how many have public television stations that run such self-celebratory programs? I doubt many.

That the city's inhabitants (including myself) possess a tremendous amount of pride in living here is obvious. What I'm also curious about is the source of that pride. Insecurity complex? Xenophobia? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Andrew Barnes of Strip District, Pittsburgh

KOVACEVIC: I do not know if any of the other cities you cited have a Rick Sebak, but they would be lucky if they did. He is the one who wrote and produced the fairly recent feature you mention there, as well as a ton of others. And, because WQED was the anchor for PBS in a lot of ways, those documentaries get shown nationally quite a bit. More than once, I have come across one in a hotel room on the road.

(If you ever see the one about the neighborhoods that was made three years ago and see this clumsy-looking guy pushing a stroller on a river trail, wearing sweat pants that do not extend below the ankles ... well, that is someone else. But the little girl riding the tricycle during the closing credits, I am proud to say, is a direct descendant.)

Anyway, the short answer to your second question ...

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Thing No. 53 that makes Pittsburgh great: We are a terribly insecure people.

We always want to know what everyone thinks of, and we always are surprised when they like us, they really like us.

A history buff might suggest that has to do with our polluted industrial past. After all, who could brag about a place that was immersed in darkness in mid-afternoon?

Someone else might say that the mass exodus of jobs in the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the greatest in American history, contributed. After all, how happy could anyone be with a place that was being virtually abandoned?

Whatever it is, it most surely applies.

Eve Picker, a loft developer in the Downtown and Strip areas, hails from New Zealand. Way before it became cool -- or profitable -- she was buying up vacant buildings and converting them into residential properties. And, as I recall from the one conversation I ever had with her, she was doing so with a sense of bemusement that so few people here seemed to appreciate what he had or, potentially, could have. As she put it, it took an outsider to come in and show us. There is a lot of that going on.

The Uruguayan guy who designed the convention center was inspired by the flow of the Three Sisters bridges, a view he glimpsed from driving atop the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Might someone here have noticed that?

The travel writers around the country who come here and glow about the place point out things in a way some of us never could see or, in some cases, never have taken the time to see.

It is a somewhat endearing trait, in a way, that we care what others think about us. But it also illustrates plainly that we do not think enough of ourselves.

Visiting San Francisco last week and now here in Denver, these are two places where you can ask anybody about these cities, and they will do everything but sing and dance in describing them.

We need to do more of that. No rose-colored glasses are needed, either.

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Until Monday, when we will chat from back home. The Q&A will be away until Thursday, as Paul Meyer will document the Tuesday doubleheader with the Reds, and I will be filtering through the Qs and resuming the regular coverage the following day ...