BURNETT'S THE GIFT THAT KEEPS GIVING IN PITTSBURGH

I trailed my toddler son as he barreled toward the playground in my New Jersey town. A group of elementary school kids were hanging out there, arguing about the Yankees lineup, midway through another magical season for the Bronx Bombers. They asked my opinion about a recent lineup change.

“I’m not really a Yankees fan,” I said.

 “Oh,” the neighbor boy who knew me best replied. “Who do you like?”

“The Pirates.”

The kids burst into a fit of laughter, falling over and howling with delight. What kind of sucker would like the Pirates? For their whole lives, the team I grew up in Pittsburgh watching win and contend for World Series had been a joke – perennial losers. Now, those kids are recent college graduates. My toddler is in high school – and the Pirates have still not had a winning season, their 19th straight losing campaigns a record not just in baseball, but in all North American team sports.

It’s a history of loserdom that is hard for Yankees fans to understand. You just don’t know how badly our sports psyches have been beaten down, but you have to try to imagine so you can understand how we feel about A.J. Burnett, your reject who has thrived in black and gold.

I was excited to hear last winter that the Bucs were trading for A.J. Burnett. Then I began to feel ashamed about being excited about Burnett; had my baseball manhood been torn so asunder that I had to get pumped about feeding off these scrappiest of Yankees table scraps? The Yanks were so happy to see Burnett go that they basically gave him away and agreed to pay most of his salary.

When Burnett fractured his orbital bone during a spring training bunting exercise, our most fatalistic visions seemed to have come true; of course the guy would come to the Pirates and fall apart, completing his disintegration. It seemed perfect in its awfulness.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Burnett’s implosion. He returned to action earlier than predicted and almost immediately calmed down and anchored a young pitching staff. As of this writing, he had won 8 straight decisions and the Bucs have not lost one of his starts for months. He’s also become a welcome veteran presence, nailing teammates with shaving cream pies after wins and, crucially, taking young pitcher James McDonald under his wing and helping him transform from a tantalizing, inconsistent thrower with great stuff into a staff ace. I would call McDonald the team’s stopper – but that role clearly belongs to Burnett.

Manager Clint Hurdle’s explanation for Burnett’s turnaround was surprisingly metaphysical: “Everyone wants to be loved.” No doubt my hometown is a gentler place to play sports than my adopted home is. It’s well documented that some athletes just can’t thrive in New York – and no team’s fan base is more demanding and holds higher expectations than the Yankees’.

I never fully understood the venom towards Burnett I heard dripping out of my car radio and right now I could care less just why you all hated the man so much. The Bucs currently have a better record than they have had in 20 years, since the end of the 92 season, the last in Pittsburgh for Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek.

If the magical season continues and this cursed streak comes to an end, Burnett will have earned place in the Bucs pantheon, regardless of how he performs the rest of the year. That he’s doing it on the Yankees dime makes it even sweeter, but really it’s all about stopping the laughter and becoming a real team again. You can’t put a price tag on that.

Alan Paul, author of One Way Out: An Oral History of the Allman Brothers Band and Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing. 
Follow him on Twitter: @AlPaul, or visit http://www.alanpaul.net.



ORDER A BYB SHIRT NOW, DROB WEARS ONE! Also, Please comment, we have DISQUS, it's easier than ever. Let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.