The Black (and Gold) Spot: Things that make me crazy

Me being Vlad. Things = crazy being Jonah Keri’s “The failure dynasties” article.

I shouldn’t get so upset about this kind of stuff, but I still do, years after the fact. Whenever a national writer doesn’t care enough about the Pirates to get the story right, it’s a microcosm for every time the team has been ignored or slighted by the national media. Every undeserving outfielder who went to an All-Star game while Brian Giles watched the at home. Every time that ESPN didn’t bother to show highlights of the game during SportsCenter, so we could get another five minutes of Yankees-Red Sox fluffery. Every sub-literate message board trade proposal where the Yankees give us three utility infielders and a broken bat for Ian Snell. The worst part about it is that Keri was, of all things, an Expos fan. If anyone should understand how irritating it is to be marginalized and ignored, it should be him.

I guess we can take solace in the fact that we saw the young Kendall playing when he was in all his plate-blocking, base-stealing, line-drive-to-the-gap glory. If some writer wants to retroactively try and cut that memory down to convince himself that he was right not to pay attention, then screw him. He’ll never know what he missed.