First thanks to Carl for the pinch-hit. It's nice to get a different perspective on the, err, Sox.

The Pirates will dock their ship in Boston after a Yankee knocked them down a peg. In yesterday's loss, the Bucs happened to catch Randy Johnson on his best day. There is simply no way anyone was going to touch Johnson's slider.

The Pirates' Oliver Perez, who struck out 239 last year, doesn't quite have his stuff. Last year Perez had 21 quality starts, this year three. He's already walked 43 batters, five yesterday. You just can't do that against the Yankees.

Josh Fogg will pitch for Pittsburgh tonight. He has struggled versus American League teams, giving up 11 hits to Tampa Bay and eight when he faced the Orioles. He's got to tighten it up for a chance against the Sox.

The Red Sox winners of their last four, will start Wade Miller. I give the nod to Miller, since he's faced this team before. He went 2-2 against the Pirates in 2003. He figured them out last year with seven strong innings of shutout baseball.

The Republican writes about the last time the Pirates played in Boston. The newspaper had to go back 102 years for this interesting tid-bit.

Pirate fan I'm not, but I do have a few of their baseball cards, including Hall of Famer Willie Stargell and All Star Dave Parker. And there was a time, back in 1979 when disco lingered, that I supported them for a brief moment in history.

The song, "We Are Family," pulled me towards this fun-loving group. Well, that and Stargell, who seemed bigger than life. His smile sure was.

Being older and wiser, teammates called Stargell "Pops." Father-like indeed. Whenever catching him on the television, you'd see him aiding a fellow player, offering advice or calming-down the pitcher. "Pops" he was.

He didn't lead the league in any offensive stat - only having 32 HRs (league leader: Dave Kingman, 48) and 82 RBIs (league leader: Dave Winfeld, 118) - yet won the MVP. He must have gotten style points.

His biggest hits came in the postseason. In the NLCS he had two home runs and six RBIS; the World Series he smashed three home runs and drove in seven.

My support for the Pirates didn't go unnoticed at the schoolyard. One of my good friends at the time had a cousin who played for the Baltimore Orioles. Sean's cousin was a very special southpaw named Mike Flanagan.

In 1979, no one could touch Flanagan. He won the Cy Young Award handily after accumulating 23 wins with an ERA of 3.08. He also pitched an astounding 265+ innings and struckout 190.

Needless to say my relationship with Sean was strained during the World Series, while I supported "The Family." After the Pirates won the World Series, he didn't talk to me for two week. Regardless, at 11, it was pretty cool to be friends with the cousin of Mike Flanagan.

Read the Baseball Almanac's summary of the 1979 World Series.

In hindsight, I should have stayed in closer to touch with Sean after grade school and never should have put on the black hat. How was I to know that Flanagan would end up Baltimore's Vice President of Baseball Operations? Learn more about Mike Flanagan at Baseball Library.

Reader comments: The Boston Herald reports there appears to be a lack of inter-rest. What are your feelings toward interleague play?

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