Cruds alert!

 Wait, where are you all going?

"You say 'cruds', we hit the road. Because NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID PIRATES," you're saying now.

Yeah, but ... this is kind of an interesting little tidbit. And I'll keep it short.

"Nothing is interesting about your stupid Pirates. But, OK, just this once. IF you keep it short like you promise."

I promise.

See, yesterday my Cruds lost to the Reds, which means they're now 3 1/2 games out of next-to-last in the NL Central. This means they're virtually a lock to again finish in the cellar -- aka, their ancestral home -- yet again.

Also, yesterday's loss ensured 2024 would be another losing season for the Cruds. They're once more guaranteed to finish under .500, which is notable for this reason: It will be their 28th losing season in the last 32.

Twenty-eight seasons out of 32! I defy anyone to match that for sustained, even generational, Cruddiness.

It takes real determination to fail like this again and again and again, or maybe just mule-headed incompetence. Losers for all but five of the last 32 summers? Man, you have to want to be Cruddy to achieve that.  You have to taste it. You have to be utterly committed to trading your handful of studs for "prospects", and to filling your roster, year after year, with journeymen, gurney-men and guys whose baseball cards always wind up in the spokes of some kid's bicycle. 

Guys like Elmer Dessens and Kevin Polcovich and Steve Bieser. Guys like Brian Meadows and Humberto Cota and Tony Alvarez.

Guys you never heard of. Guys nobody ever heard of.

And so, raise a glass of flat, warm Carling Black Label to the Cruds. Because three decades of mind-numbing, mind-boggling losing is worth at least that, if not much else.