Y’all know that I like to use Youtubes here, so I’m going to show how it’s pretty much a decent barometer to the levels of awesomeness, and significance of the local sports teams.
Let me preface by saying that each team is supported wildly by the Pittsburgh fans…but recent happenings add a hint of either bitterness or, well…mania.
My buddy Pat wrote at Fanhouse yesterday that the Pirates are historically bad. There’s not much that points toward 2009 being a successful season in terms of wins and losses, but the foundation is being laid. I’m a relatively young guy, but I was telling my dad a few days ago that there aren’t that many kids growing up in the City of Champions today that understand how great of a team the Pirates were. I’m fortunate enough to remember what it felt like for the Buccos to contend for a pennant, but was young enough in 1992 that the loss to the Braves made a huge impression on me.
Which is what brought me to Youtube. I clicked around to see if anything sweet had been uploaded recently. Altogether, there was nothing really interesting pertaining to the local teams. I searched for the Penguins. I searched for everything Steelers. But I didn’t look for anything about the Pirates. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I have such low standards with anything regarding the Buccos that I don’t even expect there to be funny or interesting videos about the team/players/organization/fans in any capacity.
So I tried to see if anything was out there. My Youtube search for the most recent videos about “pittsburgh pirates” is seen in the picture at the top of this post. Click it to make it bigger. There’s some random camping video, something about Clemente, a Pittsburgh hockey video and some guy mumbling over a Pirates logo. Nothing’s been uploaded in 3 days, and the latest that actually pertains to the Pirates (Clemente) is 5 days old. In Internet time, that’s forever.
Now here’s my search for recent “pittsburgh penguins” videos…done at the same time. My screenshot can only get the newest 4, but almost the entire page was uploaded in the past day. Sure, not all of ’em were totally true to the subject, but there were game highlights, fan videos, interviews…the works. As a blogger who highlights different videos, this is what I need.
I didn’t include my search of the Steelers. Since we just won the Super Bowl and are arguably one of the most recognizable franchises, everybody puts “steelers” into random videos in the hopes of scoring a few extra views. It takes a lot to sift through the crap to find something you like.
Of course, the Penguins are mid-season while Pirates season hasn’t started…and the recent levels of success of both teams must also factor into the discrepancy. But there’s nothing with the Pirates. There’s no Crosby and Malkin putting up numbers while chasing individual and team honors. There’s no Hines Ward or Big Ben contending in the playoffs every year. The Pirates aren’t compelling enough to win a few games…so forget expecting any Internet-savvy fan to upload anything remotely cool.
But as I said above, it’s not like the fans aren’t there. Dejan’s PBC blog gets more comments than Empty Netters and Blog ‘N’ Gold combined. People just think that there aren’t any Pirates fans out there when we’re probably just as numerous as Pens and Steelers fans, but we’re just too exhausted from the repeated losing.
Which showed that the most interesting thing found on Youtube was the fact that there was nothing to be found on Youtube.
In essence, a simple Youtube search summed up the level of fan excitement as well as the social statuses of the local teams. And I was just trying to find a corny video to make me laugh.
