Hunting Wabbits (One Sixty-Two: Day 102)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred-Two: James McDonald, Pittsburgh Pirates

When we brought our dog home five months ago, we named her Daisy. A more fitting name would have been Elmer Fudd.

Throughout this summer – both at our own house and at my parents’ home – there has been an abundance of rabbits in the backyard. Daisy, like most dogs, is fascinated by any animal smaller than her. But as a golden retriever, she is trained to carry dead birds to her owners. Today, during a walk, she lifted up a dead bird with her mouth and turned to me. “No!” I said sharply, and she dropped the bird gently to the ground.

But as for rabbits, well, I honestly think Daisy is either secretly afraid of them or rather sympathetic toward them. I say this because her percentage of “wabbit” kills is in line with that of Mr. Fudd.

When she sees the rabbit, her eyes open wide and her muscles grow taut. She takes a quick first step toward the bunny, appears to have a shot at the animal and then – for reasons she cannot explain to me – Daisy hesitates. Her stutter-step gives the rabbit just enough time to dart through a hole in the fence and into safety. Daisy arrives a second too late, every time, and spends the next 15 minutes staring intently through the fence at the one that got away.

“You’ll get ‘em next time, Daisy,” we say to her. She’s the Brooklyn Dodgers of rabbit-hunters: Always falling short, only to hope that she’ll be a step faster the next time.

Of course, the Dodgers did have 1955. There was a year when the hope was rewarded with a championship. Daisy may have her day, too. For the rabbits’ sake, I certainly hope not. I was never one to root for Elmer Fudd over Bugs Bunny.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have felt like a bunch of Elmer Fudds and Brooklyn Dodgers over the past two decades, with the main difference being that Fudd and the Dodgers actually came close to attaining success. As I wrote in a blog post last fall (http://thepitchbaseballlife.blogspot.com/2009/09/beauty-and-bucs.html), and as Sports Illustrated’s L. Jon Wertheim wrote a few weeks ago, there is a huge disparity between the majestic beauty of the Pirates’ home stadium and the gross ugliness of the baseball that has been played in that park. The Pirates’ struggles predate the 2001 opening of PNC Park by nearly a decade, as they now hold the longest losing streak in the history of major North American team sports. A game in this stadium, with its backdrop of rivers, bridges and skylines, is worth every penny. Unfortunately, this year’s Pirates will become the 18th straight Pittsburgh team to finish with a sub-.500 record.

As usual, the Pirates traded away veterans at this year’s trading deadline. But unlike years past, when Pittsburgh was criticized for accepting mediocre prospects for their veteran players, the Pirates picked up a couple of talented youngsters when they dealt their closer, Octavio Dotel, to the Los Angeles Dodgers. One of those prospects, pitcher James McDonald, will start for the Pirates this week. Pittsburgh also managed to send a few veterans past their prime to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for a very serviceable catcher, Chris Snyder.

Add this to the small group of superb young players on the Pirates’ team – Andrew McCutchen, Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker – and there is at least something there. The Pirates are not going to start winning division titles next year. But the team claims it is working hard to spend its money wisely, trying to build a contender despite its small-market status. If this is true, then there might just be a year in this next decade when the people of Pittsburgh finally get to follow a pennant race. With the rabbit in sight, the boys in black and gold will try to do what my dog cannot – make a full sprint toward their goal, with no acceptance of failure this time. It’s got to happen someday. Next year can’t last forever.