For a decade and a half, the Pittsburgh Pirates have been one of the worst teams in professional sports. While lots of finger pointing and laughing has been spent on small-market jokes, the Pirates’ unprecedented run of futility has gone largely unnoticed and unmocked, even as the Chicago Cubs - among others - used the Pirates as their own private farm system.

(PNG at PNC.)

That seemed to change last week when the Pittsburgh Pirates dealt their only legitimate All-Star, Nate McLouth, to the Atlanta Braves this week for a handful of prospects. The Pirates were maybe sorta kinda starting to look like a real Major League Baseball team for the first time in years, and McLouth was seen as the team’s backbone and leader. Sensing a growing public relations disaster, Pittsburgh general manager Neal Huntington “penned” a letter to his team’s few remaining fans. Turns out, Huntington’s as good at PR as he is at putting together winning baseball teams.

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The wait is finally over. Our favorite Indian pitching hopefuls, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel — who we have followed throughout their journey to America — have been signed to a minor league contract by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Makes sense. Nothing else works for the Bucs, so why not trot out a couple of guys who didn’t know what Denny’s was until two weeks ago?

(The guy in the middle is probably getting signed by the Mariners)

But not so fast. The news of the signings came from YAHOO! JAPAN, and was written in, you know, Japanese. So it’s not entirely clear if they have actually signed on the dotted lines. The Pirates have not announced anything official, and Pirates GM Neal Huntington is being a bit elusive about what exactly is going on. Either the deal isn’t done, or the Bucs are wary of becoming a punchline for signing the dynamic duo.

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