Tim Benz: Jim Leyland lamented broken hearts of Pirates fans. I'd welcome one again just to know mine was still beating

During his Hall of Fame induction speech Sunday, Jim Leyland perfectly encapsulated the memories left by the Pittsburgh Pirates teams he managed in the early 1990s.

“I never felt like ‘manager and fans’ in Pittsburgh,” Leyland said. “It felt more like ‘manager and friends.’ I know we made you happy, and I know we broke your heart, but I always felt that we were in it together.”

Indeed. Right down to the image of an ashen-faced Andy Van Slyke staring into the void after the Braves won 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series.

It was the third NLCS loss in a row for Leyland’s Pirates. It was also the dawn of 20 straight years of losing baseball.

That was something Van Slyke seemed to realize as he sat in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium’s center field at that moment, along with the immediate pain of losing the series. It was also something any Pirates fan symbiotically felt watching on television back home in Pittsburgh.

To Leyland’s point, we had all enjoyed the thrills of three straight successful pennant races and the agony of three consecutive attempts to reach the franchise’s first World Series since 1979. Clearly, Leyland hasn’t gotten over it yet, nor will the fanbase until the club actually gets back to the Fall Classic again.

That feels more and more unlikely with every passing season.

But I couldn’t get beyond what Leyland said about the broken hearts. All I can say to that is, “Please, Pirates, break my heart again. At least I’ll know that I’m alive.”

There was a little of that in 2013-15, but nothing like ‘90-92. That ‘13 club won the famous “Blackout Game” against the Cincinnati Reds and forced the St. Louis Cardinals to a Game 5 in the divisional round but never even returned to the NLCS. Plus, the newness of it all for that generation of fans was such a whirlwind that it was tough to qualify the eventual elimination in St. Louis as “heartbreak.”

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Those next two wild-card games in ‘14 and ‘15 felt over as soon as they started. They were more anticlimactic than they were soul-crushing.

I roll my eyes when I hear the names Jake Arrieta and Madison Bumgarner. When I hear Francisco Cabrera and Sid Bream, I break out in hives.

Strangely, the Pirates fan that’s still inside me would kill to feel that heartbreak again. I’d rather endure the pain of coming up just short than the abject numb malaise of chasing .500 as an accomplishment.

Underscoring what Leyland said, I’d rather share sympathy pains with a group of players that falls off the mountain right before the peak as opposed to being left with a group of onlookers at base camp.

That’s why I want to see Bob Nutting open the purse strings and spend at the deadline to help this team get into October. That’s why I want to see Ben Cherington make moves that emphasize an effort to win today instead of worrying about tomorrow. That’s why I want to see Derek Shelton fill out lineup cards that are catered to winning the nine innings played that day as opposed to constantly worrying about what the collective workload will be in late September.

Get to late September and break my heart then. Don’t worry about my resting pulse rate now.

“A little boy or girl getting their first autograph and scurrying back to the stands to show mom and dad their latest treasure. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s you. That’s baseball,” Leyland said at the end of his speech.

Yeah. And for the next five years or so, the autograph on that ball for that little kid in Pittsburgh might be from Paul Skenes. I suppose that could still be the case in 2031 or ‘32. But he’ll be signing the ball while wearing a Dodgers, Yankees or Red Sox uniform.

I want to see that guy have every chance possible to do to an opposing team what Arrieta, Bumgarner, Michael Wacha, John Smoltz and Steve Avery did to the Pirates. So try to make it happen this year.

If it doesn’t work out, fine. Failure to succeed is easier to live with than a failure to try. Fans can live with that. They have done so here with the Pirates since 1992.

Basically, that’s what Leyland was getting at. Any fanbase can follow a team. But not every team can convince a fanbase to live and die with them.

Leyland’s Pirates of the ‘90s did that. I think every baseball fan in Pittsburgh could deal with a little bit of heartbreak again if at least it meant we could still feel our pulses after Labor Day once more.