Comparison: Football and Baseball in Pittsburgh

Pictured: Yinzer Nation Preparing for "Drive for 45"

This week Yinzer Nation is going into ultra-hyper-uber-drive for the "Drive for 45". Our area of the country is nothing but football focused as the Super Bowl is around the corner. As such, and seemingly anytime a professional team makes playoff success, the question is raised as to why the Pirates cannot do it. Most arguments are made by, well idiots, that have no understanding of history, nor the way that baseball works versus football. The two sports are different animals all together in many ways and the Pirates have a history that many do not understand.

I bring this up as comedian Bill Maher took to his HBO show to compare and contrast the Steelers and Pirates. In Maher's view the sharing of wealth allows for the Steelers and Packers to compete. In addition the writers of the book, Scorecasting weighed in with NPR on the subject as well. They concluded that the concentration of wealth, along with the season length and playoff format make the difference. A similar view was espoused by Dayn Perry for Fangraphs.

Starting with the Pirates history we can easily recap. Big stars leave for bigger money. Poor drafting. Poor financial management. Poor field management. Poor performance. Poor players. And yes even bad luck. Essentially the only things that went right in the past two decades were the building of PNC Park and the hosting of two All-Star games. Everything else is poor management and bad luck on scales of which have never been seen before in sports.

In reality, the problem is not just money. The NFL's "Any Given Sunday" mentality is due to the fact that they play only 16 games. In such a small sample size there are too many incidents where a random occurrence, injuries for example, can affect greatly the outcome of the season. Add to that the one and done nature of the playoffs and you get a Seattle, the only losing team to make the playoffs, hosting a playoff game and winning it.

Baseball has a much longer season. leading to the better teams, whether purchased or developed, winning more often. The playoffs are longer and tend to weed out the small sample size as best can be done in a playoff format.

While this week provides good fodder for many to poke fun at the Pirates' plight, they are doing so in a misguided way. Yes the Pirates have been a disaster on the field, which is the main reason they have not made the playoffs, but to say that the Steelers and Pirates compete in leagues that are apples to apples the same is far off base. The small sample sizes of the NFL allow for anything to happen, while baseball is a slower more nuanced fight to the finish.