Where in the world are Pirates fans?

[11thGrade]

I'm in Israel.

I moved here 36+ years ago but my blood still runs black and gold. My Dad (just turned 90) still lives in Squirrel Hill.

I'm wearing a Pirates cap as I post.

I wake up every morning & check the overnight scores on my phone (MLB or Tribune Review apps) & watch the highlights over breakfast a bit later (Israel is 7 hours ahead of EDT).

You can take the boy out of the 'burgh (that was easy, I got on a plane) but you can never, ever take the 'burgh out of the boy.

Why "11thGrade"? 'Cause I was in 11th grade, at Taylor Allderdice, the last time the Bucs were in the World Series. (I just turned 60.)

Hope springs eternal!

Dick Roraback, who used to cover sports from Paris for the defunct International Herald Tribune wrote this around 100 years ago (you can guess at the date by the names of the stadiums & players he mentions):

Away on this side of the ocean
When the chestnuts are hinting of green
And the first of the café commandos
Are moving outside for a fine
And the sound of spring beats a bolero
As Paree sheds her coat and her hat
The sound that is missed more than any
Is the sound of the crack of a bat.

There's an animal kind of a feeling
There's a stirring down at Vincennes Zoo
And the kid down the hall's getting restless
Taking stairs like a young kangaroo
Now the dandy is walking his poodle
And the concierge sunning her cat
But the heart's with the Cubs and the Tigers
And the sound of the crack of a bat.

In the park on the corner run schoolboys
With a couple of cartons for props
Kicking goals á la Fontaine or Kopa
While a little guy chickies for cops
"Goal for us," "No it's not," "You're a liar,"
Then the classical shrieks of a spat
But it's not like a rhubarb at home plate
Or the sound of the crack of a bat.

Here the stadia thrill to the scrumdowns
And the soccer fans flock to the games
And the chic punt the nags out at Longchamp
Where the women are dames and not dames
But it's different at Forbes and at Griffith
The homes of the Buc and the Nat
Where the hotdog and peanut share laurels
With the sound of the crack of a bat.

No, a Yank can't describe to a Frenchman
The rasp of an umpire's call
The continuing charms of statistics
Changing hist'ry with each strike and ball
Nor the self-conscious jog of the slugger
Rounding third with the tip of his hat
Nor the half-smothered grace of a hook slide
Nor the sound of the crack of a bat.

Now, the golfer is buffing his niblick
And the tennis buff's tightening his strings
And the fisherman's flexing his flyrod
Like a thousand and one other springs
Oh, the sports on both sides of the ocean
Have a great deal in common, at that
But the thing that's not here
At this time of the year
Is the sound of the crack of a bat.

So, where are all the expat Pirates fans here?

11thGrade