Look, I know we all love a good story and this year’s Pittsburgh Pirates are certainly that since after years and years of penny pinching and trading away talent for nothing, but c’mon this is not a team the entire nation should be rallying over and here is why:

Pittsburgh Major Sports Championships in Last 20 years:

• Penguins – 3
• Steelers – 2

Total Championships for Pittsburgh’s 3 major sports teams (baseball, hockey, football) = 16

That’s right, I’m not rooting for the Pirates soley because Pittsburgh fans are spoiled with the success of their other teams and need to have this one loser of a team stay a loser just so they can experience some of what the rest of America feels on a regular basis (especially this Washington DC sports fan).  Bitter much?  YOU BET I AM!

This is not rooting for some loveable loser of a team for a city that hasn’t won anything. No, this is rooting for a loser of a team that used to be a winner of a team like 40 years ago and that resides in a city of other consistent sports champions. The Penguins and the Steelers both won championships in the same year in 2008 for crying out loud. This is not a city we can or should all rally behind, America should be as bitter towards them as we are New York and Boston.

Why isn’t everyone rooting this hard for the Milwaukee Brewers? This is a baseball team that has never won a World Series. That is an underdog team you we should be getting behind right there. The last real championship this city has celebrated was in 1971 when the Bucks won the NBA championship, that is, unless you count the Packers as a Milwaukee team, which means they last celebrated a championship last year.

That Packers’ Super Bowl win definitely hurts their case, but only just a little bit.  The fact alone that the Brewers have never won anything, ever, is reason enough that the Brewers should be the underdog team that everyone should be rooting for this season and NOT the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Both cities are blue collar, both cities have awesome ballparks their teams play in, both cities have excellent beer options to choose from but one city is a bit more deserving of America’s fandom than the other. I say, root for Milwaukee this MLB season if you have to choose one underdog loser of a team to root for, not the Pirates! America loves an underdog and the Brewers are the real underdog here.

That above caption seems to constitute reporting for most major sports news outlets’ NFL coverage these days. To that, I say, “C’mon people, give it a rest.” This is all akin to being that annoying commenter who always has to chime in with “FIRST” and has nothing else to say. No one likes it and you are contributing nothing to the conversation. You are just filling up empty space with more empty space.

Granted, its partially the sports fan’s fault. These guys have made their living reporting rumors and guesses that they get from their sources inside the NFL and most people eat up that sort of “news”, but this is getting ridiculous. Its not even news anymore. Its “newsish”. You have sources, they say its close to ending, we get it, let us know when it is actually over.

Guess what, I have sources too, my sources say the NFL lockout will continue until it they lift the lockout. We will all pretty much know at the same exact time when the lockout actually ends.  Being first will not matter one bit. No career will be made by announcing the lockout is over first. A press conference will be called and Adam Schefter, Chris Mortensen, Jay Glazer, Mike Florio and a thousand other mouthbreathers will tweet and write up a 4 line blog post as fast as they possibly can just so they can be first.

I’m just sick of seeing John Clayton or Schefter on TV telling me random dates of when the lockout will end and then laying out a schedule of events if what they are saying happens. Suddenly all NFL reporters are Nostradamus. This is not reporting. This is guessing. Newsish.

Look, just give it a break. We all know the owners and the players are close to a deal thanks, in some part, to your somewhat accurate reporting. I say somewhat because most these reporters have been saying the lockout was close to ending for the better part of a month now and reality has finally caught up to their guesses and rumor spreading. Congrats guys. Way to keep up those journalistic standards.

But really, cut this shit out please. Just tell us the facts and stop your guessing.

Planned Parenthood nightmare and Maury Povich guest-finalist Antonio Cromartie’s day job is as a member of the New York Jets, a lofty team of hungry veterans and hungrier hippos coaches.

March 9, 1776 philosopher Adam Smith published his seminal work on classic economic theory entitled “Wealth of Nations,” which went on to influence our nation’s very first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, in turn, is largely responsible for our entire economy, including the bundling of the states’ debts in order to issue bonds to create investors out of our young nation’s citizens in order to fund the growth of our military to protect our nation.

It’s now increasingly likely that Cromartie has not only read this classic American work, but that he has taken its timeless lessons to heart. For you see, dear reader, Cromartie prefers to leverage his abilities against all bidders and invite all NFL owners to compete for his services, maximizing his value as a laborer.

Hum the national anthem for me, ESPN:

“I’m not giving anybody a hometown discount,” Cromartie said during an interview with Sirius XM Radio. “I’m definitely going to see what the organization says and also let them know I want to go out and test the market and see where my value is.”

We’ve been critical of athletes who have encouraged socialism on this website in the past. But this is America, and we are all free to have differing views, even if they are wrong, and dangerous to our country. So if you disagree, perhaps you and your Communist friends (cough) Herschel Walker (cough) would like to go hit a Fidel Castro rally while me and my capitalist friends go make it rain in the club (throw change until we’ve kicked out).

Living in Washington, D.C. has given your humble correspondent a newfound appreciation for his hometown football team’s ineptitude. Redskins czar Daniel Snyder has done a tremendous job of cultivating media support for his policies as Redskins owner, and now he has refocused his attention on the stadium.

Lon Rosenberg, the vice president of operations at FedEx Field, said in a radio interview Wednesday that the approximately 10,000 removed upper deck seats had been offered to fans on the team’s season ticket waiting list, and that “these are seats that they were not wanting to buy.”

In a telephone interview Thursday, Rosenberg described the removed seats as “the least desirable seats in the stadium,” but added that the decision to remove the seats “has nothing to do with ticket sales.”

“It’s about making a more fan-friendly experience on game days,” he said. “There will be less traffic, shorter lines and and again, enable us to better serve our fans.”

Rosenberg estimated that the capacity of FedEx Field for the 2011 season will be around 82,000 — down from 91,704, which had made it the second-largest capacity in the NFL.

Is our awful on-field product driving away fans? Oh no, we’re just trying to enhance the experience for the fans that do bother to watch McNabb throw into triple-coverage or see Landry get burned deep for the second time in a game against the Eagles.

There have been large numbers of empty seats at FedEx Field during many home games in recent seasons. The Redskins finished last or tied for last in the NFC East four of the past five years and have not hosted a playoff game since 1999.

Did I mention that the team is the 4th most valuable team in professional sports?

Snyder made his money as a marketing guru so I offer the following slogan for the Redskins 2012 season:
“Redskins football, making other teams look competent since 2000!”

Since the NFL lockout began we, the NFL fanbase, have been consumed with stories of players stepping up to hold players only workouts. Drew Brees, Tony Romo, Matt Cassel, Colt McCoy, and Matt Sanchez have all organized workouts. With busty Bengals’ QB Carson Palmer is organizing workouts too, just that they are with his personal trainer, and his cell phone turned off.

But the NFL offseason for bloggers is traditionally dominated by the other ways that players step up. Oh sure, we’ve had a field day with the James Harrison interview recently, and perhaps we all chuckled a bit by Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones’ latest misunderstanding, but where is a good old fashioned domestic assault to report when you need it? Enter Bengals’ runningback and free agent-if-the-season-ever-starts-again:

Bring joy to my empty existence, Profootballtalk.com:

Benson has been arrested and jailed in Travis County, Texas. He’s charged with assault causing bodily injury to a family member.

Even still, it’s good to see other Bengals players are taking time to get their fans exciting about another horrendous season. Ownership is doing their part too, FRONT PAGE ON THE WSJ! Oh, and out of journalistic fairness, I will also link the Bengals’ rebuttal. My girlfriend loves Harry Potter, but I just don’t like to read fiction. Unless it’s Penthouse Forum.