Some of you know, some of you don't - I am a die-hard Pittsburgh Pirates fan. That's baseball, ladies. Our team has been God-awful for 14 consecutive seasons. We ended up well below .500 this season, and though Freddy Sanchez won the Batting Crown, and Ian Snell surprised everyone by not folding like a chair... the Pirates were one of the worst teams yet again. This is nothing new.

I was just a kid when Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke, my yin and yang childhood heroes, led the Pirates to their third consecutive post season failure. I became hooked on unfulfilled expectation. When college ended, and life looked very bleak indeed, a bunch of people I'll likely never know saved me from a dark future.

For the past 6 years or so, I've called the ESPN Pirates Message Board a home away from home. Boobery of all shapes and sizes was enacted on the ruthlessly evil and stupid; chivalry proved a capable defense against those who would have my egg; and, all the while, this warm blanket of familiarity was vistited upon me thousands of times. It was the fraternity house of numbskulls I never had.

But no more. The bastards at ABC have decided in their finite wisdom to once again overhaul the look, the feel, the fabric of our lives... Many of us have abandoned ship and joined the oft-overlooked Pirates section of the Maximum Grilled Steelers site. The gangs all there. I post under the moniker "Dagwood's Blonde Fantasy."

I'm through helping ESPN and their parent company, the dark overlord Satan, sell advertising through my patronage. I am, in fact, a cyber-immigrant. MGS has graciously opened their borders to us wayward freaks.

Gawd bless 'em!