Pecyna: Pirates’ appeal, memories to finally be grounded in winning

Celebrating 82 wins and a long-awaited above-average season isn’t easy.

When the Pittsburgh Pirates notched this monumental victory Monday in Arlington, Texas, over the Texas Rangers, I didn’t know what to do with myself: Scream in sheer joy? Rub my eyes in disbelief?

Shortly after Andrew McCutchen, the face of the Pirates franchise, held his arms out beside him and gazed up in reverence of the 1-0 win, my phone lit up.

It was a text from my older brother, who entrenched my love for baseball and the Pirates over the past 20 years. His message was pithy and consisted of two simple words that Pirate fans had waited for two decades to say: “It’s over!!!!!!”

A few more messages came flooding in a group text between my brother, my two sisters, our parents and I. Someone mentioned that this season of tangible success and progress still hasn’t set in — and it hasn’t.

So, although 82 is just an arbitrary number to some, it’s a watershed moment for Pirate fans that calls for some rumination on the period left behind.

For the past decade or so, I remember how fans and critics endlessly griped that the Pirates were losing 90, sometimes 100 games, but were still giving away bobbleheads, blasting Zambelli fireworks and drawing in crowds with other promotional gimmicks.

Yet the Pirates never garnered enough attention to lure more than 25,000 fans per game after PNC Park’s inaugural season in 2001. Even in June 2007, when beleaguered general manager David Littlefield was nearing the end of his abominable tenure and after he had selected college reliever Daniel Moskos with the fourth overall pick in that summer’s draft, fans staged a walkout.

They bought tickets, walked in the gates, picked up their replica bobbleheads and left just a few innings later. I remember being on vacation at the beach when this happened and watching the news to witness the exodus of people sporting green shirts that read “Irate Fans.”

And yet I’m willing to wager that those fans went home and placed their promotional bobbleheads on a mantle.

This wasn’t anything groundbreaking. I had watched people flee the stadium, giveaway in hand, in the decade’s worth of games I attended as a season-ticket holder with my family.

The desk in my bedroom is adorned with bobbleheads that have accumulated over the years, a relic of faux heroes, many of whom didn’t deserve to be immortalized with a spring-loaded porcelain head.

There’s the Jason Bay 2005 All-Star edition, in which he sports the orange National League jersey with a Canadian flag because the theme for the Home Run Derby was a global set. Bay, of course, responded by not launching a single homer in the derby.

The bobblehead is half-price on eBay now, listed at a reasonable $7.49.

There’s the trio of bouncing domes on players who were somehow touted as the team’s future: Ryan Doumit, Chris Duffy and Zach Duke. To a kid who had been blinded by a lifetime of lending support and fandom to replacement-level players, they appeared to be saviors for a while.

When I moved, those bobbleheads remained at my family’s house. The only one that made the trip to my apartment in Pittsburgh was Andrew McCutchen.

 Draping my walls are canvas photos — one of the team’s best giveaways — of the exact opposite of what I saw: winning, titles, the bliss of Bill Mazeroski running the bases with his helmet lifted high above his head after a World Series-clinching homer, the acrobatics of Steve Blass sprawled out in midair with his battery mate, Manny Sanguillen, after winning the 1971 championship.

Underneath those iconic images is a hardcover book, “Tales from the Pittsburgh Pirates Dugout” by John McCollister, and a copy of Sports Illustrated that features McCutchen sliding safely into home on the cover.

I have no Steelers or Penguins memorabilia. I’ve seen those teams win enough to know the thrill of celebrating their success.

But I’ve never experienced that feeling with the Pirates or with baseball, the team and sport I’m most infatuated with.

The most exciting part about this season is, in fact, that it hasn’t sunk in. I’m just as enthralled to watch these grown men, coached by men in their fifties and sixties — who proudly don the same clothes worn by children playing tee-ball — play a made-up game today as I was when Jeff Reboulet and Michael Restovich roamed PNC’s grass in Bucco gear.

That this 82-win aura hasn’t coursed through my blood is a sign that this isn’t all that can be achieved in the future. There’s more on the horizon — more canvas photos and bobbleheads to eternally capture something finally worth remembering.