John Blanchette: Pride of Pittsburgh

SEATTLE – The Face of the Franchise is a knitted brow, teetering toward a grimace.

Jason Bay is getting the business from baseball at the moment. He has but seven hits in his last 56 at-bats, the dreaded buck-and-a-quarter. He has just swung through a 97 mph Felix Hernandez fastball for both strike and out number three, and as Bay makes his way back to the dugout his eyes are locked on the Safeco Field sod inches in front of his spikes.

It is no time to be either symbol or spokesman, but somewhere in the fine print of his $18.25 million contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates those roles are assumed, if not exactly spelled out.

“Sometimes,” his father, Dave, related, “it’s like he says: ‘I understand my obligations, but when I’m 0 for 4 with three punchouts, talk to somebody else. I’ve got nothing for you.’ “

Not so.

He has determination – two singles would snap him out of this funk, though the Pirates would be shut out for the second night in a row.

And he has a sense of duty. When a busload from his hometown of Trail, British Columbia, rolled into town this week, Bay couldn’t have signed more autographs or posed for more cell phone snapshots if he’d brought the Stanley Cup with him to Safeco Field. He is Trail’s connection to the big leagues – just as he is Gonzaga’s connection, and North Idaho College’s, where the game isn’t even played anymore. He is the long shot’s connection.

And back in Pittsburgh, he’s simply the connection to hope. He’s their All-Star.

Fourteen years the Pirates have gone without a winning season, and it’s Jason Bay’s picture the club has put on the side of a city bus to drive those blues away and make the ballclub relevant again.

This is a burden that was never handed to the legends of this lost-ago-proud franchise – Clemente or Stargell or Mazeroski or Wagner.

And it’s an odd distinction to consider hereabouts. The Gonzaga community tracks its turned-pro basketball heroes – Adam and Ronny and Dan – with a charming obsessiveness. But as the current athletic alum who is the most accomplished professionally, only soccer’s Brian Ching can rival Bay – and he is nowhere near as wedded to a city’s need.

He is twice an All-Star – a starter last year – and was the 2004 National League Rookie of the Year. In only three full major league seasons and the sliver of another, he hit 97 home runs – or 32 more than the Pirates’ last notable young slugger, kid by the name of Bonds, had in the same context.

Not that anyone needs to make those comparisons, least of all Bay, who struggles to come to grips with his status as an established star.

“I still feel like that other player sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I walk out and think it’s my first or second year in the big leagues. The first couple years you’re so worried – or I was anyway – about proving to myself that I belonged here. Because everyone says getting here is the easy part, that it’s sticking around that’s hard.

“But that little hump is over with, I think. Baseball is always about yourself and the team, but now it’s not so much about myself – I can do this. Now it’s more about the team.”

Of course, the Pirates have wrestled with failure so long that it’s a question whether ownership even grasps that concept. The doubt is whether they’ll ever budge from their small-market excuse – a $38 million payroll, fourth lowest in baseball, and the fifth-youngest team. It’s a snipe legitimized somewhat by division rival Milwaukee, which is demonstrating what might be accomplished with a few more million.

Bay, however, has invested the early prime of his career – his contract runs through 2009 – in the belief that there is a plan and a purpose.

“We’re a young team and you can’t expedite experience,” he said. “But you see a difference. Before, we had certain players and spots where you knew you needed to upgrade – that this was a one-year stopgap guy. When you look now, there isn’t one position on the field or in the starting pitching where we have a glaring need.

“We have the guys it takes to win. But we’re still really young.”

That can be argued. What can’t be is how remarkable it is that Bay is unequivocally one of those guys.

It isn’t just the remoteness of his tiny Canadian hometown, or that fact that first NIC and then Gonzaga were the only schools who invited his talents. Or going in the 22nd round of the draft, which as his father said “doesn’t give you a lot of chances to fail.” Or getting traded three times in the minor leagues – which many players would take as a see-you-later.

“The path I took to get here certainly wasn’t a straight line or ideal,” he said. “There are times I wish I was just another guy from L.A. and not a story. But that’s not me. Where I came from has a lot to do with how I got here.”

Now the issue is where the Pirates are going. But they’ve already put their best face forward.