A Big Drought; the Pirates were good once?

Your parents can talk all they want about how things were like during their teenage years (which perhaps may seem like millennium ago). Some of the things they say we can't really grasp either; teens today whether 19 or 13 have never went through full fledged war involving the U.S. (not including the War on Terror), and how many of us think we knew who Frank Sinatra was when we were five (especially you 1993 babies)? Sports is something most teens, especially those competitive boys, have trouble realizing how much change they've went through. The challenge flag in football is actually brand new, replays in baseball are emerging, golf clubs didn't need to be manufactured with triple-thick super-charged titanium to be able to strike the ball down the fairway. The Cubs have in fact won a World Series (but that really was millennium ago), the Baltimore Ravens were not always Ravens or in Baltimore, and athletes actually behaved 20 years ago (a recent TE for the Patriots is an example of athletes today). Hockey players didn't have helmets (neither did football players, and helmets still don't seem to help, but that's another story), and their goalies wear what we refer to as "Jason masks." And yes, probably the most unbelievable of all, especially to me as a Pittsburgh resident; the Pittsburgh Pirates were once legitimate contenders for a World Series. That's when kids go, "Huh?" (although the Pirates at this point are the first to win 50 games this year, sporting the best record in Major League Baseball). Sports is something that is constantly evolving whether it be the players who play, the teams who compete, the rules that guide, or the executives that, well, execute judgment on all these topics. Nothing will stay constant in sports, except the basics of course. We'll always know you have to hit to score runs (unless you're Barry Bonds who could acquire walks and HBPs in his sleep), there will always be cheaters or those who will try to cheat, and NASCAR drivers will be making left turns for eternity. If any of these change, please don't be afraid to call me on it, but I'd rather you wouldn't because then you'd just be a know it all. Sports is something to explore, to become educated it in as if it were a science or even better, a history. Sports is the greatest history topic of all because its rate of change is faster than any other subject. It grabs the attention of its scholars, even those just perusing its heroic and almost magical stories of comebacks, heart, and grit. Sports is romantic, and I'm in love with its vastly growing history, and even its future.