Things To Watch for in 2008: The Pittsburgh Pirates Will Make History

Things to watch for in 2008 is, well, FanHouse's attempt to keep track of what's worth keeping your eye on as we roll into the 2008 season, be it good, bad, or ugly.

All across Arizona and Florida this week, pitchers and catchers are reporting to camps and kicking off the 2008 baseball season. They've all got goals in mind for the coming season, but one squad faces a more daunting task than any other. While the Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka worry about defending their crown against the rest of baseball, Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny have to work to topple a much more history: their goal is to keep the Pittsburgh Pirates from being the worst franchise in the history of sports.

From 1933 to 1948, the Philadelphia Phillies lost. They lost so much that they changed their name to the Blue Jays in 1943 out of embarrassment (and changed back to the Phillies in 1945 out of even more embarrassment ... and I'm not kidding). They didn't have a winning season at all in that span and it's a record that's stood for 60 years. It's in serious trouble this year, though, as the Pirates have been losing since 1993 and in an attempt to break their fifteen year losing streak one year short of the record ... are trotting out almost the exact same team that went 68-94 last year.

There were a few teams in the NL last year that made the kind of turnaround the Pirates need to break .500 this year. The Cubs jumped almost 20 wins, but spent almost $300 million to do so. The D'Backs and Rockies both jumped 14 wins, but they both had loads of young talent ready to change the direction of their franchise. The Pirates have neither $300 million, nor loads of young talent. There's very little that's stopping this train at this point. At least Pirate fans get to see some history this year.