Know Thine Enemy '09: The Pittsburgh Pirates

Reasons we should loot and pillage the Pirates with superior swordsmanship and the occasional swinging via long arm on to their dugout.

1. Where do you get off? I would call the Pirates ownership criminally inept--but that would be an insult to criminally inept people. The bungling, blundering, bufoon-ish cabal that runs the Pirates has spent 14 years running off every talented player in the city, and demanding that the city build them a new stadium to contend. Only once the new stadium was built the Pirates sucked only marginally less than they had before. 
   

(Meanwhile it took the Twins 6 years of contention to get a new stadium) The imbecillic ignorami which have systematically alienated the good people of Pittsburgh for over a decade must be dealt with, and I say we're just the team to bludgeon them senselessly until we bring about regime change. *62 Loathing Points*

2. Title Town They won the Super Bowl, they just won the Stanley Cup, if they win the World Series too they'd be like Boston--only far less arrogantly academic. *17 Loathing Points*

Reasons we should best the Pirates through adroit witticisms rather than brute force

1. Ownership? You know, millionaire owners are not affected by our wrath nearly as much as serious fans are. And Pittsburgh is full of serious fans. They deserve something better than total annihilation. *-14 Loathing Points*
2. PNC/Pittsburgh I've been there. It's awesome, particularly when fans stick it out through the rain to watch an extra inning walk off home run. *-8 Loathing Points*
3. Sid F#$@!%G Bream?!?!? I became a baseball fan when the Twins won the Series in '91. I became a baseball fanatic when the Pirates lost the NLCS in '92. Everyone else loved the Braves, I loved the Pirates--just to be different. They made it to Game 7 and they had it won. Until a back-up catcher, hit a bleeding single to left center and the slowest man in the history of baseball plodded home from second ahead of a sweep tag that I have sworn for the last 17 years GOT HIM OUT!!! The Twins taught me to love Baseball, The Pirates taught me it won't always love you back. *-49 Loathing Points*
4. Honus Wagner--Baseball's original badass. A trash talking, hard-core German shortstop with power and speed whose reanimated corpse we would gladly hire in a heartbeat. He gets little press but he was every bit as amazing and revolutionary as Ruth and Cobb, and for that we give Pittsburgh mad props. *-15 Loathing Points*

Final Loathe-o-Meter Rating: -7 Loathing Points

I can't believe I'm saying this...but the Pittsburgh Pirates are our Friend. (Or at least a frenemy)

Punishment: In a Peanuts from Heaven First--the Pittsburgh Pirates must merely lose...nothing else. (We'll even buy them a beer afterwards)