Pittsburgh Pirates Strengths: Everyone on this team is young and a work in progress. 2B Neil Walker, 3B Pedro Alvarez, and OF Garrett Jones all have shown promise, but as long as they are playing in Pittsburgh, they won’t get much recognition. The addition of 1B Lyle Overbay will give the offense a much-needed boost.
Weaknesses: Pitching. They had a team ERA of 5.00 and lost 105 games last season. Need I say more?
Analysis: Hang on Pittsburgh fans, you are in for another long season. It probably won’t be as bad as last year, but you can expect another bottom-of-the-barrel performance. You have to give them credit for trying.
See? Even baseball fans are getting football fever. What we have is the Washington Nationals’ presidential mascots and the tradition of racing food item mascots from Pittsburgh. Normally, you’d expect a band of history’s finest would be able to best food from Pennsylvania, but when they are in the form of oversized mascot costumes, all bets are off — especially when larger-than-life pierogies are making flying tackles that knock Teddy Roosevelt on his behind.
That’s a little much for a mascot race, no? The newly-discovered (to me, anyway) Let Teddy Win blog, a site dedicated to the very subject of presidential mascot races and the Washington Nationals, has much, much more.
In other news, has there ever been a more appropriately named blog to cover such a topic? H/t to The700Level for introducing me to Let Teddy Win.
So who had the better weekend? The Lakers or the Penguins? An unexpected Game 7 win over the team that beat you last year or the league’s best player silencing whatever “you can’t win without Shaq” critics there were? If I had to make a call, I’d say the Penguins and their Stanley Cup victory was probably more satisfying, seeing how it wasn’t really expected. The Lakers, on the other hand, expected a championship, especially after going up 3-1.
Pittsburgh Pirates
