Pittsburgh Fans

I’ve only ever been to one NFL game.  In 2006, the Pittsburgh Steelers came to the Bay area to play the Oakland Raiders.  In Pittsburgh, the Steelers are a religion, and the disciples follow the team plane wherever it travels.  My friend Jeremy Jones got 8 of his friends from Pittsburgh, including his dad, to fly out for a few nights of drinking and the game.  It might be my last Steelers game though, as they lost to a Raiders teams that ended up winning two games that year.  A win at Oakland would have put the Steelers in the playoffs that year.

While everyone in Pittsburgh is a Steelers fan, it takes another level of dedication to follow the Pittsburgh Pirates.  This major league baseball franchise hasn’t won more than half their games since 1992.  With the lowest payroll in baseball, they spend about one sixth the money of the top spenders.  But Jeremy Jones follows every move the team makes.  Recently, he told me he thinks the Pirates will break 500 next year, a claim he’s made before.  But for now, he’s stuck following the worst team in the Power Rank.  A month ago, he sent me a haiku:

I hate powerrank
biggest gap equals Pirates
as true as it is

Not much as changed since; it takes awhile to scroll down to the Pirates.  Jeremy Jones, you’re a true fan.  When the Pirates win the World Series, you have the right to celebrate in whatever manner you see fit.