I've long had a love-hate relationship with the Pirates. On one hand, I love the strategy and the methodical, drawn-out process that is baseball. It's different than almost any other sport, and while I love to see people throw themselves into other people in games like football or hockey, baseball is rewarding for different, and in some ways, at least, more fulfilling reasons. On the other hand, the Pirates have been grossly mismanaged for much of the last quarter century, causing me to clench my fists and curse the heavens at many of the boneheaded moves the team has made in years past.
I was 11 years old in 1992, and I remember vividly the playoff loss in Atlanta. It's almost as if the game and subsequent 20-year fallout have been festering inside of me as some kind of sports demon that has only been fed as the team spiraled out of control with every Derek Bell signing, every Aramis Ramirez trade, every 20-0 loss to the Brewers.
The team's recent run of near-success, and specifically the 2013 Wild Card win against the Reds, was something of an exorcism for me. It took away some of the sting of the last two decades of futility, and I found myself watching the game with interest that had been bottled up for too long a time. I managed to get tickets to the NLDS loss to St. Louis that year, and 2014's 8-0 Wild Card drubbing vs. the Giants, and then the 4-0 embarrassment against the Cubs in the 2015 Wild Card game (my friend also almost got into a fight with some guy's dad), so my string of seeing the Pirates lose is, apparently, still going strong.
At the time, the Pirates had what they called a "postseason ticket opportunity", which is basically just a drawing for the chance to purchase playoff tickets before most others. I didn't expect to be chosen, but I was still a little crestfallen when I received the following bad news e-mail back in '13. It does, however, give us the opportunity to view one of these outside of the classroom, in a real life situation. Check it out! You can click on the image to enlarge it.
The letter does most of what a good rejection letter is supposed to do, and it follows the basic formula that we discussed in class. The letter opens with an expression of gratitude before getting to the news itself. It expresses empathy, uses the passive voice and, perhaps most importantly, it lists an alternative. Rather that just being out of luck, the letter expressly (it's in bold, even) lets me know that I've still got a chance to purchase tickets on Saturday, albeit with a million other suckers who are in the same position. It ends with another expression of thanks. The e-mail is short, to the point and positive. You could do worse than use this as an example when you're writing your own bad news letters.
In 1992, there were exactly two best-of-seven rounds in the playoffs: the league championship series and the World Series. Now Wild Card participants have to beat three teams just to make it to the World Series, which seems a little bit unfair. When it comes to the Pirates, part of me is just happy that the team broke that absurd .500 barrier. But after three winning seasons and 98 wins in 2015, and then regressing again and trading away Cole, McCutchen and other decent players, I feel like we're all just in for more of the same. I guess the Penguins have a dynasty-caliber roster and the Steelers have six Super Bowls to their credit, but the Pirates will forever be that missing piece of the puzzle for me.
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