Pirate Previews

So I've read a lot of previews, analyses, blogs, articles and other compositions about our Pittsburgh Pirates and their hopes for 2008 and what I've been able to deduce is that people are taking two different approaches to the '08 Bucs: either they aren't worth the time to write about or people go in depth and get creative about their chances and why they haven't won since 1992 and won't in 2008. Either way, the final result all the pundits come to is that the '08 Bucs will be just like every other team since '92 - losers.

Some offer help for Pirate fans, even listing 10 positive things about being a Bucco fan; some struggle for anything to say at all.

There is a 'starting 9' for the Bucs and there are position and role analyses.

A few think voodoo is working its magic on the Bucs: one fears voodoo is cursing the Bucs like it has the Cubs and Red Sox, another thinks it is keeping them from being the worst team in baseball.

One even records a video and thinks the Bucs will get of so close to that hallowed .500. Another has them just short as well. But WHYGAVS has already played out the season and knows .500 isn't all the Bucs will achieve. Or wait, maybe WHYGAVS was slapped back to reality.

And one feels a lot like me and has trouble even bothering with the Bucs right now.

But the Bucs are the Bucs and nothing wold be finer than a World Series parade through downtown. I know it won't happen in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or .... sometime soon. But progress is first measured in baby steps so sure as PNC Park is the finest yard in the land, I'll be following the Bucs in 2008, bleeding for them just I have for every year since 1975, which is as far back as I can remember.

So my prediction? How about improvement but not .500. How about 72-90 and maybe a finish ahead of the Astros in the NL Central.