Judging by the attendance this year at PNC Park, Pittsburghers aren’t aware just how close the… Judging by the attendance this year at PNC Park, Pittsburghers aren’t aware just how close the Pittsburgh Pirates are to history.

Pittsburgh is averaging 18,485 fans per game this year, which is third worst in the majors and worst in the National League. At the all-star break, the Pirates are 38-50 — last in the mediocre NL Central — and 11 games out of the Wild Card.

Yet, PNC Park only fills up roughly 48 percent at each home game.

It’s despicable.

The Pirates are a little more than halfway done with the season and on pace for their 17th consecutive losing season. They would be the first team in any professional sport to go so long without finishing .500 or better. At 16 losing seasons in a row, the Pirates are tied with the 1933-48 Philadelphia Phillies.

Now, most don’t want to cheer for a bad team — that’s perfectly understandable. But this is beyond a bad team.

The 1962 New York Mets, widely regarded as the worst team ever, finished the year 40-120. That’s a bad team. Quickly switching over to the NFL, last year’s Detroit Lions went 0-16. That’s a bad team.

Those were just single seasons, though. Any franchise can have a bad season or two.

But the current run of the Pirates is an unprecedented streak of ineptitude we might see again.

The Pirates can still play well in the second half of the season and finish 81-81 or better. But really, why would anyone want them to do that?

They’ll need to play some of the franchise’s best baseball in years just to get to 81 wins, and even if they do that, they probably won’t make the playoffs. To get into the playoff race, the Pirates would have to go on the type of hot streak reserved for sports movies.

Even if the fans don’t want to give up hope, it seems like the Pirates already did.

They traded Nate McLouth, arguably their best player, in early June to the Atlanta Braves, and there are

rumors they are going to trade Freddy Sanchez, another of their top players.

So now it’s up to the people of Pittsburgh to get out there and cheer on every Matt Capps blown save or Andy LaRoche strikeout with runners on base. Make PNC a party for patheticness, a festival of futility.

It’s the negative atmosphere surrounding the Pirates that caused Ian Snell to ask for a demotion to the minor leagues. And in his first start in the minors, he struck out 17 batters, including 13 in a row. In case you’re curious, the major league record for consecutive strikeouts is 10, by Tom Seaver.

There are plenty of decent franchises that have nothing to show for it, but there can be only one franchise with the most consecutive losing seasons.

If, nay, when the Pirates lose that 82nd game this year, they won’t get a trophy or parade, even though that’s not a bad idea.

Instead, they’ll get a record, and one that another franchise will almost have to try to break.