It was around the end of April 2019 when the thoughts started to creep into my head. The Penguins had been swept out of the playoffs by the New York Islanders, the Pirates beat was about to come open at the Post-Gazette, and I simply couldn’t shake the feeling.
Baseball has always been an obsession and refuge for me. While childhood friends went places and did things, I’d often choose to stay home and either watch the Pirates or hit into a bedsheet I draped from our back deck. Covering baseball was always something I dreamed of doing, but I worried about leaving hockey, where the Penguins were two years removed from hoisting the Stanley Cup.
As I weighed my options that spring, one thought kept rattling around in my brain: Imagine how much fun this could be if the Pirates actually figured it out.
I saw what this place was like the last time the Pirates were any good, and I considered the fertile ground for reporting and writing that a winning baseball team could once again produce. I also thought more about 30-plus years of attachment to a sport that has always held a special place in my heart.
Fast-forward through an organizational house cleaning, a global pandemic, a lockout and full-scale rebuild, and here we are, in the early stages of a season that feels different. Without getting too crazy, it’s the biggest step yet toward what I had originally envisioned, the Pirates improving and putting a reasonably competitive product on the field.
With the home opener finally here, it has caused me to reflect on what many thought, and probably still think, was a crazy move: asking to leave the Penguins beat to cover the Pirates, a franchise that has obviously endured its fair share of issues over the years.
I also don’t second-guess the move for a minute.
For while I’d never sit here and say that the Pirates have transformed themselves into one of the National League’s elite teams, I do think we’re starting to see signs of them operating differently, with parallels one can draw in the seasons that preceded their last playoff push.
My time covering this team has also reinforced what I believed in the days and weeks that followed the end of the 2018-19 hockey season: Pittsburgh is really an incredible baseball town, thirsty for a winner.
When people send angry emails or offer negative feedback on Twitter, I get it. Pirates fans certainly have had reasons to get upset. But that vitriol has hardly been reflected in readership. The popularity of the Pirates, according to our internal metrics, has been a consistent surprise, the passion of baseball fans in Pittsburgh evident.
Which brings us, of course, to the current product, where the Pirates have been doing things differently and are starting to again give fans reasons to get excited, be it Oneil Cruz, the possibility of signing Bryan Reynolds to a six-figure deal, the offseason addition of some solid veterans, or the accumulation of talented prospects in the minor leagues.
The ingredients are there for success. It’s simply a matter of bringing it all together.
But as the Pirates prepare to welcome fans back to PNC Park, my message to you is this: It’s OK to give it a chance. It’s OK to get excited over Cruz, Reynolds, Ke’Bryan Hayes or David Bednar. It’s OK to feel encouraged by the progress Mitch Keller has made or what young pitchers like Roansy Contreras or Luis Ortiz can become.
Those veterans will also play an important role. Andrew McCutchen, obviously. But so much more: Rich Hill with the pitchers, Austin Hedges behind the plate, Carlos Santana with some of the younger Latin guys, and so on.
It won’t all be perfect. It never is. There will be twists and turns along the way, missteps and surprises. The Pirates’ bats will cool, their pitchers will occasionally struggle to throw strikes, and their younger players must adjust to life as everyday major leaguers. It’s OK. It’s part of the process.
The point is that the darkest days should be in the past. Extending Reynolds a year after Hayes would show they’re set on doing business differently.
Player development, meanwhile, has seemingly learned from what the former group did wrong with Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows. Drafting and international talent acquisition has seemingly been better, as well.
The rebuilding of a baseball team can certainly be brutal. MLB also doesn’t do fans any favors with the lack of a salary cap or floor. But it’s not impossible to win the way the Pirates are operating, which is a common response when frustrated fans tell me that it’ll never again happen here.
If the Rays, Guardians, Athletics and others can make it work, why can’t the Pirates? One of our fatal flaws as Pittsburghers is assuming because something happened before, history is bound to repeat. It's not.
So as the Pirates take the field for their home opener, the day where hope always springs eternal and positivity often rules the day, do me a favor: Don’t assume you know how this will end. If the Pirates are operating differently — and they are — this spring really could mark the start of some meaningful change on the North Shore.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: April 7, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: April 7, 2023, 9:54 a.m.
