Pittsburgh Pirates Can Get Sweet Revenge on Atlanta Braves for NL Wild Card

In the movie The Best of Times, Robin Williams plays a guy who made a critical mistake that lost a high-school football game and has haunted him the rest of his life. He is remembered in the town as "The Guy who Dropped the Ball."

After that loss, the town goes into a severe funk. Years later, he conspires along with his former quarterback, played by Kurt Russell, to replay the game, redeem himself and inspire the town.

The film has some laughs, as it is written by Ron Shelton, who also wrote Bull Durham and White Men Can't Jump. He clearly has some sports comedy chops.

What does this have to do with the Pittsburgh Pirates?

The Pirates are Robin Williams' character. They have been the sad sack who is only identified with a single, heartbreaking loss.

They are the team that lost the Francisco Cabrera game.

They have not had a winning season since then. Any description of the Pirates at the start of the season had to bring up the crushing 1992 National League Championship Series.

Every time the Pirates finished below .500, as they have every year since then, the clip of Francisco Cabrera singling and lead-footed Sid Bream chugging home had to be shown.

Quality players came and went, and the losing continued.

Well now the Pirates are finally having a winning season, and they could not only finally get that monkey off of their backs, but they could also be part of the first one-game wild-card showdown.

And whom would they play?

As of this writing, the one-game playoff to determine the National League Wild Card would be between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Atlanta Braves.

There is something poetic about that. The Pirates can finally shed the stigma of 1992, but who would stand in between the Pirates and postseason glory? Those same Braves.

Like Williams and Russell staging the game, the Pirates would have to slay that final demon.

Then the Pirates can say, "I've got to, got to, got to, got to satisfy!" And let me personally thank anyone who has seen the movie and got that reference.