The Pittsburgh Pirates still stink, for 14 years and counting

ESPN.com columnist Gene Wojciechowski writes about the sorry state of the Pittsburgh Pirates and how Pittsburgh is and always will be a Steelers town first. The saddest part of his column isn't in the text, it's the chart next to the column comparing the two teams' records since they each won a championship in 1979. The Pirates had a few good seasons and three division titles from 1990-1992, but since then they've had 13 losing seasons, and they're well on their way to a 14th. It's a damn shame. It doesn't help that the team made some terrible personnel decisions during that time (Pat Meares and Derek Bell come to mind immediately), wasting millions on has-beens and never-weres while trading away promising young players. There are constant rumors that Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, wants to buy the Pirates, but the current owners don't want to sell. I guess they'd rather have a losing team and a money-loser than increase the team's payroll and put together a winner. All Cuban has done with the Mavericks is make them into a perennial playoff team and title contender. I don't see why he couldn't do the same thing with the Pirates.