Last Saturday I sat in an Eat-n-Park and read all the papers while Rowdietta slurped down mac-n-cheese. I read a column by someone (can't remember who, can't find it online) that said if you are going to lose, lose big time. The argument ran that there's no more shame in losing 100 games than there is losing 81.
This is not true in baseball, especially for the Pirates. Winning 81 is far better than 80 is far better than 79 is far better than 78 is much, much, much better than 61. Every stinking win counts right now.
Winning teams start winning before anyone expects it. A team must court winning every day if they expect winning to come and stay with them for any extended period of time. Even a blind squirrel will find a nut now and then. Even rotten teams will string together winning streaks or win dramatic games against high-quality opponents over the course of a season. Streaks and individual dramatic wins signal nothing about the improvement of a team that goes beyond the fact that the team won another game. Only by pressing always - and through all moods; the pressing can't be the kind that turns into monotonous depression or single-mindedness - will the team be ready for winning as quickly as possible.
In other sports, the draft can offer some compensation for losing a lot. Not in baseball. Tanking on purpose to greatly overpay Matt Bush is no way to rebuild a franchise.
For the Pirates to build a new dynasty, they have to find, develop, and acquire better and - most important - winning ballplayers. Then they have to increase their attendance to increase revenue to the point where, if they have the wisdom, they can recognize and retain their best players. I'm not going to get into what the team's profit margin ought to be or how much more the team could probably afford to spend on payroll. All I know is the team is not selling out every game and they could be selling out every game and they will sell out every game when they win and win and win and win some more.
The only way this happens here is winning. You have to win at home so fans leave thinking, "How soon can I get back to the ballpark?" Manny's pork sandwiches can sustain us through occassional losing. Only winning keeps baseball at the front of the fans' mind. And, just as important, a team also has to win on the road so they can roll into town with a head of steam. Fans generally decide to attend games and then plan their attendance a few days in advance. Winning on the road gets the fans excited and creates some anticipation for the next homestand.
No one expects the Pirates to win every game, but you can only go to (or watch, or listen to, or read about) so many lost games before you start thinking about the Steelers or fishing or Spider-man or the girls of Maxim or whatever it is that usurps the place of baseball in that small handful of diversions your average hard-working fan can afford.
So win, win, win. Every win is huge, and all wins are equally important and dramatic and necessary in the long run.
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