Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

Don’t shed a tear for resigned Secret Service head Kim Cheatle. The Woke crowd will find her another Diversity, Equity and Inclusion position.

It actually is DEI (DIE as some critics call it) that was on trial here as much as Cheatle.

The Secret Service, you might have read, is in the midst of a 30 by 30 push, as in 30 percent of recruits to be female by the year 2030.

What better punctuation to that effort than to have a woman running it all?

I have no problem with that on the face of it. Being a traditionalist, I’m married to a woman. I have three granddaughters. I don’t think limits should be placed on their abilities to succeed due to them being females.

But here’s where I differ from the Woke crowd. I also don’t want to see women, or various other protected groups in the Woke ideology, ramrodded into positions for which they are not qualified just because it fills imagined quotas.

That brings us back to Cheatle, who went from protecting displays of Cheetos and two-liter soda bottles for PepsiCo, to ostensibly protecting prominent politicians and their families for the Secret Service.

Cheatle might have been great with snacks and beverages, but has been less than great at her most recent job.

In the wake of the near-assassinaton of Donald Trump, Cheatle went into hiding, emerging for a brief TV interview a day later to admit the buck stopped with her regarding the failure in Butler, Pa. It’s the second part Cheatle missed, that being that she should resign since the organization she headed had failed so miserably.

But Cheatle, perhaps expecting all the never-wrong Woke types would ride to her rescue, tried to hang on despite mounting examples of misinformation.

Her explanations were wild, including the rooftop from the which the sniper struck was too sloped to risk agents atop it. This flew in the face of video of snipers at the same event on a roof that seemed to have more of a slope.

I’m bad at working on heights, but looking at that roof used by the assassin — it was low and slightly sloped — I’m certain I’d have no problem functioning on it. One elderly member of Congress stood atop the roof just the other day mocking Cheatle’s explanation.

Cheatle and her operatives tried to pass the buck to local law enforcement.

They denied, then had to admit, that the Trump effort had requested greater Secret Service resources but had been refused.

Cheatle tried more stonewalling before Congress Monday, having no answers to obvious questions and prompting bipartisan outrage, including calls from both Republicans and Democrats that she resign.

Now that Clueless Joe Biden is on his way out, taking the power behind the throne from DR. JILL BIDEN !!!! (a huge Cheatle supporter by the way) Cheatle finally saw the light.

Maybe those same Democrat puppeteers who made Biden an offer to get out that he couldn’t refuse, did the same with Cheatle.

They might have said, your management style is questionable and your inability to answer basic questions about failures is a concern, but what bothers us the most is you will be linked to fellow Democrats and hurt us in the election this fall.

It is not overly cynical to theorize that Cheatle got the nudge to fall on her sword for reasons of cleaning up yet another political mess for the Democrats.

But, regardless of the why, what is important here is that the correct result was achieved — she’s gone.

Now we await with bated breath what sort of Woke replacement will be offered up to succeed Cheatle.

The party that screams from the rooftops about preserving Democracy just pulled a coup d’etat on a sitting president.

That same president, who had won the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for a second term, fell victim to a concerted assault from high-profile party members, a mutiny by donors and God knows what sort of threats offered up to him behind the scenes.

Clueless Joe Biden succumbed to the pressure Sunday, announcing he is dropping out of the race and endorsing his cackling hyena vice president, Kamala Harris, as his replacement atop the ticket.

The immediate question is if Biden is unable, for reasons of mental and physical frailty, to continue a run for re-election, should he not resign from the office of president immediately?

Does Harris, who was stapled to the Biden ticket the last time as a token woman of color, long on ticking boxes in the identity politics game but short on accomplishments, really have the stuff to be president?

Where were all these concerned Democrats the past three years or so, when it was clear Biden was not sharp mentally?

Do they really expect us to believe they just realized it when he presented yet another bumbling public performance in his debate with Donald Trump?

No, only when poll after poll indicated Biden was dead in the water, did the Democrats look to switch horses in the race.

To repeat, they did it in banana republic fashion. They undermined Biden, using their lapdog media as surrogates. They pushed him behind the scenes to get out and when the stubborn man refused, they made sure their urgings went public.

It must have been interesting in the Biden household of late, when wife DR. JILL BIDEN !!!! could be expected to have been screaming at doddering Joe to stay in the race and maintain her Marie Antoinette experience as the power behind the throne.

Failed Biden son Hunter could have been expected to be right there with his step mommy, knowing that if Joe goes, so do those questionable advisory jobs. And who is there to stand between Hunter and the cell door?

This, arguably, is the most sensible decision Clueless Joe has made in some time.

Democrat partisans, who election after election show themselves to be mindless cult followers voting for any candidate with a D associated with their name on the ballot, will fall in line behind Harris or whomever.

But the whole thing is amusing, particularly as evidenced by happenings in my ‘hood.

A Biden-Harris campaign sign showed up on a lawn up the block maybe two weeks back, and had disappeared by last week. Were they inside feverishly trying to white-out Biden knowing this was coming?

Meanwhile, at the other end of the block, a bevy of campaign signs, including some for Biden-Harris, had sprung up recently, front lawn and rear fence. As I write this at 2:48 p.m. Sunday, that Biden-Harris sign remains.

Maybe they have yet to hear the word.

There will be many procedural and legal hurdles for the Democrats to overcome as they shunt Biden unceremoniously to the sidelines. But make no mistake, any and all objections will be overcome.

When you go to the polls to vote this November, have a come-to-Jesus moment and recognize the Democratic Party for what it is, a cynical operation with no moral compass, just an insatiable urge to maintain power and exercise it indiscriminately against enemies, real or imagined.

The democratic hyenas are coming hard for Clueless Joe Biden, with a seemingly endless barrage of leaks detailing party leaders advising Joe that he must go.

I might have a measure of respect for these political opportunists if they were saying that Joe isn’t up to the job and so should resign. But, no, they merely are concerned he can’t win this fall’s election.

Give them credit for unintended candor. By highlighting the mounting odds Biden can’t win this election, even with their proven vote enhancement techniques as their reasons, they are all but confessing that they knew this was a hollow husk of a man even as they ran him for president the first time and didn’t really care.

Biden was useful in pulling together a party of raging demagogues and he really wasn’t going to be running things in the final analysis. That would be left to the behind-the-scenes puppeteers of Obama and company.

If this charade could have continued into a second term, so be it. But Biden, who won the first time by hiding in his bunker, has been forced into the public eye by his office. Time after time, Biden came up short in displaying cognitive function, not to mention the ability to sit on a bike, climb steps or walk across a stage without plummeting to the ground.

The seemingly endless succession of mental and physical pratfalls were explained away by Biden’s Democratic allies and the sympathetic lapdog media.

Then the Biden regime made a major mistake and allowed him onstage for a live televised debate with Donald Trump. There stood Biden, without prescreened questions, an earpiece to feed him answers, or a teleprompter to read, stripped naked for the world to see his dysfunction.

Fallout from that debate debacle has continued, even mounting as Biden since has butchered facts such as introducing Zelenskyy as Putin, or referring to Trump as his vice president.

All of this would have been fine had the polls not indicated Biden was oozing toward a loss, perhaps even of landslide proportions as reported by usually sympathetic CNN.

I’m not stunned and by way of proof I offer the following, from my 8-22-21 blog posting when Biden was being allowed to make a public fool of himself trying to explain the botched Afghanistan pullout

Here is what I wrote then: When the time is right, Biden’s handlers will leak some damning story to the media, or provide video of him sitting under his desk sucking his thumb, or reveal some Hunter Biden baggage that can’t be explained away.

Or maybe it will be something else, like Biden taking himself out of the picture, citing physical and/or mental problems. But if Biden doesn’t take advantage of that possible out, make no mistake he is being walked to the gallows and one or more of his former allies have their hands on the lever that will open the trapdoor.

All that’s left to be determined is the timing.

OK, so that’s what I wrote then. Admittedly, I was early and in investing the saying is being early is being wrong.

But I stand by what I’ve written. It’s unfolding as I was confident it would.

Biden has cemented his place as one of the worst, least-effective presidents in U.S. history.

Now, the very same Democrats who have their hands all over the lie of Biden’s election, are scrambling to find another stooge to use as cover for their operations. Most suspect that will be Kamala Harris, the walking embodiment of the Peter principle.

Will Americans be smart enough to see through this and refuse to buy into another Democratic con job? I’m not optimistic that they will, but I’m hoping I’m wrong.

Political expediency of the moment has promoted bipartisan talk of turning down the thermostat on political rhetoric. Expect this to be a short-lived phenomenon.

Joe Biden, who ran for the presidency on promises of uniting the nation, kept showing up on TV in the wake of the Donald Trump assassination attempt, blaming/chastising those responsible for inflamed rhetoric. He could have just looked in the mirror and scolded himself while shaving, presuming he’s still trusted with sharp objects.

In a rare televised address from the Oval Office Sunday night, Biden expanded on the theme, a talk sprinkled with his customary gaffes.

Perhaps they were Freudian slips when Biden referred to Trump as the “former” Trump. Later, Biden twice deplored violence and said political issues must be decided at the “battle box.”

Biden speaking of a figurative thermostat brought back of memories of then-president Jimmy Carter donning a cardigan sweater for a televised address in 1974 to implore the citizens to turn down their heating thermostats to 65 degrees to deal with an energy crisis. That didn’t really work, either.

Mostly Biden tried to say the right things. But what he didn’t say was telling. Biden could have admitted that he and his re-election campaign, with the aid of too many prominent Democrats and left-wing media lapdogs, have been at the forefront of vilifying Trump as Hitler, a threat to democracy, a convicted criminal, a rapist, a liar and other assorted hyperbolic terms. Just the other day Biden had screamed for donors/supporters to put Trump in the “bullseye.”

Biden might have said something like this Sunday night: “In the past I have been guilty of rhetorical excesses, as has my campaign. I can’t speak for all others, but I hereby promise to refrain in the future from such over-the-top accusations and I further promise that anyone in my re-election effort will be fired if they do not follow my directive.

Instead, Biden spoke in vague, general terms Sunday without naming names, including his own. It typified the inability to lead that has been Biden’s calling card in public office.

While a seeming majority, on both sides of the political spectrum, seemed to realize this was a time for reserved comment, a notable segment could not contain themselves.

Potential Trump VP candidate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, took to social media after the shooting to blame inflamed rhetoric from Biden and his surrogates for prompting the assassination attempt. It was too soon for that.

But what Vance said pales in comparison with the ravings of a now ex-staffer of Bennie Thompson, a Democrat Congressman from Mississippi.

Said staffer rushed to social media and lamented the Trump shooter’s poor aim and suggested shooting lessons for future assassins. She had more to say, including asking if it was all staged and victim shaming Trump by suggesting he brought it upon himself with his “hate speech.”

Wonder if she thinks rape victims “asked for it” by dressing provocatively?

According to no less a source than leftist CNN, rival left-wing cable news channel MSNBC opted not to air its Morning Joe show Monday morning. Unnamed sources cited by CNN said the network was afraid of what “inappropriate” comments might be aired.

So, MSNBC has hosts and guests of a major show it cannot trust to exercise common sense? Makes you wonder why the show is aired at all.

There are reports that the Republican National Convention, which runs this week in Milwaukee, will be a kinder, gentler thing, led by Trump toning down his acceptance speech.

It would be the smart thing for him and Republicans, considering they now hold the moral high ground.

But I’m sure there will be regressions in coming weeks, by Republicans and desperate Democrats, the latter of whom see this election slipping into the reaches where even dramatic “help” in generating and counting votes won’t be able to change the outcome.

High-temperature political rhetoric is not dead, but merely taking a short summer vacation.

A tip of the hat is in order to a former employer of mine – not the Johnstown Daily Bugle, but the Tribune-Review – for coming up with background on Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old Bethel Park man authorities have identified as the shooter of Donald Trump Saturday.

In a story by Ryan Deto that you can find by going to triblive.com, Crooks is identified as a registered Republican, which I’d read in other stories posted elsewhere. Seemed odd to me.

But Deto has much more. The Republican bit seems to be for show, sort of like those widely used snapshots you see of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald posing beforehand with a newspaper and the gun that ostensibly was used to assassinate Kennedy.

Deto balances the disgruntled Republican narrative by reporting that as a 17-year-old Crooks, despite being too young to vote, was donating to a leftist group that seeks to increase Democratic voter turnout. According to the story, that donation was made the very day Joe Biden was sworn into office.

This is quite the contradiction from a registered Republican.

Deto goes on to note the stereotypical observations from those who knew Crooks – quiet kid, never thought he’d do something like this.

Near the end of the story, Deto reports that both parents are social workers, the mother a registered Democrat and the father a Libertarian.

This is the sort of specific background I’ve read nowhere else and I commend Deto for committing an act of journalism and answering questions being asked by many.

The phone rang just after 6:30 p.m. Saturday. It was a call from my brother wondering if I was watching TV.

I was, but merely some simplistic pap on the History Channel to kill time waiting for a baseball broadcast to start.

“I think they just shot Trump,” he said.

And so began a surreal evening.

I immediately switched to Fox News Channel coverage, being treated to the sort of scramble to cover live, unscripted events that makes even the network pros look all too human.

Yes, Trump had been shot at a campaign event in Butler. No, it didn’t look to be life-threatening.

Hours later, several thoughts had congealed in this admittedly partisan brain.

1. As I anticipated, social media reaction was the sick stew one expects with some posters saying Trump had staged the whole thing. Yes, his campaign is going so well, and Joe Biden is imploding at such a rapid rate, the natural thing would be to stage a false flag assassination attempt that is inches from success just to take the spotlight off imploding Joe.

2. Even before Trump’s son posted similar thoughts on social media, I told my wife and son Trump is one tough SOB. Shortly after having his ear seemingly creased by a rifle bullet, Trump was pumping his fist to the crowd as he was ushered off the stage and yelling for them to fight. The crowd began an impromptu chant of “U-S-A.” An iconic photo, shot from a low angle, showed Trump, surrounded by Secret Service agents, blood streaked on his ear and right cheek, pumping his fist against the backdrop of a giant American Flag suspended over him by two cranes. It was akin to the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo from World War II.

3. In recent days and weeks I have watched several cable television shows regarding assassinations, ranging from Lincoln, to John and Robert Kennedy. It struck me that this attempt raises a lot of familiar questions. Some witnesses insisted there were two or more shooters from different directions. The supposed sole shooter, now dead, somehow was able to position himself on a nearby roof despite Secret Service anti-snipers deployed on nearby roofs to prevent such. And the BBC had an interview with a guy who insisted he saw the man before the shooting started, tried to alert authorities, and was ignored.

4. It made me gag a bit to have statements pour in from prominent politicians on the far left, the very same ones who label Trump as a latter-day Hitler, a threat to democracy, a Putin puppet, a rapist and more, saying how shocked they are and how their sympathies are with Trump. We have yet to learn who the shooter was (not enough time has passed to sanitize any political footprint) but it’s safe to postulate it was a crazed leftist, arguably inflamed by the over-the-top rhetoric that passes for political disagreement these days.

5. Trump is one very lucky human being. My son picked up on it immediately. After a few hours, it was noted continually on the Fox coverage, that had Trump not turned his head slightly before the shot, looking first at a large overhead screen and then away, we’d likely be lamenting a successful assassination.

6. It was pathetically naive to suggest, as guest after guest, or successive media representatives did, that this event would prompt a ratcheting down of that heated political rhetoric.

7. Wonder if the Secret Service now will grant Robert F. Kennedy’s request for protection as a third-party candidate for president?

8. Wonder if the head of the Secret Service now will approve requested upgrades for manpower to protect Trump, which previously have been denied?

9. Let’s hope there is some transparency regarding the investigations into this incident.

I’m happy that Trump escaped this assassination attempt. I am sad that innocent rally attendees were either killed or injured seriously.

It now is time to answer a lot of questions about how this could happen.

The Republican National Convention begins next week in Milwaukee and the Democrats are tipping their election gameplan in advance.

They are resurrecting allegations of a Donald Trump-Vladimir Putin connection, conveniently forgetting the revelation that their first use of this canard was the result of the Hillary Clinton campaign paying a former British intelligence figure for information that turned out to be false and that even he had told them needed to be confirmed before being released publicly.

The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were fined for hiding this funding by federal election regulators, as reported on CNN.com March 30, 2022.

And remember all those “intelligence” types who went public in national advertising that labeled Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and all its references to the “Big Guy” as Russian disinformation?

Remember the New York Post’s reporting regarding that laptop’s damning contents being censored on social media and elsewhere?

Remember the subsequent admission of Hunter’s legal team that it was, indeed, his laptop?

Lies about Trump being in Putin’s pocket should be a non-starter, but too many on the left checked their brains at the door and so will lap it all up – again.

To realize how much this is being pounded into the mush brain of Clueless Joe Biden, in public remarks just this week he referred to Ukraine’s Zelenskyy as “President Putin” and somehow conflated cackling hen Kamala Harris and Trump, referring to “Vice President Trump.”

The left also is trying to paint Trump as a latter-day Hitler, and is importing busloads of (paid?) protestors to Milwaukee to give some colorful anti-Trump crowd shots for the Lamestream media reporting.

Trump will be painted as draconian on abortion rights, that being reluctant to allow babies to be offed up to and immediately following birth.

As an aside, even now rumors are circulating of the desperate Biden campaign working on a so-called ‘October surprise’ to sway the election in last-minute fashion. Think of the release five days ahead of the 2000 election that George W. Bush had a drunk driving conviction – in 1976!

I’m watching the mounting hysteria over bird flu. It’s worth noting the Colorado governor, a Democrat, declared a disaster emergency regarding an outbreak there. Already, reports are being circulated of crossover to cows and to humans.

Will the left be able to elevate this to national, facemask-wearing, vote-by-mail levels as per COVID-19 in time for the November presidential election? It’s worth considering.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have a convention to give the nomination formally to Trump. And he has a vice president candidate expected to be named early in the going.

Although Tulsi Gabbard figures nowhere on the list of expected choices, or even those favored on the betting sites, I’d love to have Trump pick her as his running mate.

Some Republicans have a problem with Gabbard being a former Democrat. I would remind them that arguably the greatest Conservative president of all time, Ronald Reagan, also was a Democrat before in 1962 deciding that he’d had enough of the party’s leftward lurch. As Reagan famously quipped “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

Gabbard dropped her affiliation with the Democratic Party in 2022, citing the party’s Woke, anti-white stances, its war-mongering and hostility to traditional values such as religious faith and spiritualism.

What Gabbard would bring to a Trump ticket is the relatively youthful vitality (43 years of age) of a woman who is non-white (Samoan heritage) with military experience and who can speak in public without falling back on Kamala-like forced laughter to cover awkward moments.

She would be a virtually perfect complement to Trump, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to get the chance.

While we wait, turn up the volume on your air-conditioning, the better to avoid hearing the libtards chanting Russia, Russia, Russia, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

By George, I think they’ve go it. That’s the two Georges who came out of the political closet in recent days to dump on Clueless Joe Biden.

We speak of ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos and actor George Clooney.

First, Stephanopoulos, the partisan Democratic hack who now is trusted to be an anchor on a major television network. Understand, in the days when I was a paid journalist, such never would have been allowed.

This George could have spewed opinion, as I did when I became a columnist, but only where clearly denoted as same. This was opposed to, say, me just going out to cover a game, writing about what happened and keeping it down the middle.

Newspapers, and even the electronic media back then, were careful to let you know what was opinion and what was straight news. These days, not so much.

If you think Stephanopoulos is a down-the-middle journalist, you’re are about as delusional as Clueless Joe. Steph went after Biden a bit in their celebrated interview last week only because it was the partisan thing to do, the better to get Biden off the head of the ticket this fall.

In that way, Stephanopoulos was just toeing the party line of Obama and others.

Beginning Tuesday, footage has been airing on social media of Stephanopoulos telling a passerby on a New York City street, who asked if Biden should step down, “I don’t think he can serve four more years.”

Now that this has become a national story, Stephanopoulos has apologized and ABC News rushed to say this was the private opinion of Steph, not the corporate position.

A few thoughts about this before we move on to Clooney.

If Stephanopoulos was willing to say this to what supposedly was a complete stranger and likely being confident it would not be shared widely, we should believe it is the way Steph really feels.

If he feels that way and ABC News says it does not, it speaks to the disingenuous state of television news.

Now let us speak of Clooney, who mistakenly thinks his acting prowess and subsequent fame qualifies him as a king maker. Clooney and his leftist Hollywood pals funnel millions (billions?) of dollars into Democrat campaigns looking to steward this country into a mashup of Stalin and Chairman Mao.

They did it recently for the Clueless One, who needed to be guided offstage by Obama at event’s end, a recurring theme for Biden.

But Clooney has had a change of heart about Biden. Give Clooney credit for saying so in a New York Times OPINION!!!!!!!! piece, not in an aside to a stranger on the street.

Clooney cites what’s been obvious for years to any sentient person, that being Clueless Joe is not up his job, mentally and maybe even physically.

Where have you been, George? As Clooney states in his OPINION piece, Clueless Joe is likely to lose the election this fall and take the Senate Democratic majority with him, while also allowing Republicans to keep or increase their House edge.

Put another way, Clooney gladly would be raising even more money to promote Clueless Joe if only it hadn’t become so painfully obvious to the general public how flawed Biden is during his debate debacle vs. Trump.

That’s the heart of this whole Democratic reboot. They were perfectly comfortable railroading Biden into office, despite obvious mental failings, and propping him up in that office, again despite rising evidence he wasn’t up to the challenge.

Only when they were outed by continuing Clueless Joe failures in public have they had to backtrack and turn against the poor sap.

Remember this when they’re out boosting the person they anoint to replace Biden in the presidential race. These people cannot be trusted to be honest with you unless they’re dragged kicking and screaming to the truth.

On anything.

Ever.

Period.

While the financial world seeks clues from the ongoing Congressional testimony (blather) Tuesday of Fed chief Jay Powell, the subject writ large among the population in general is the ongoing twisting in the wind of one Clueless Joe Biden.

The very same propagandists, apologists, enablers and puppeteers who supported this dry husk of a man in his run for the presidency and subsequent stay in the Oval Office, now seem to have turned on him when his mental decline is made undeniable with each passing day. That pathetic debate performance vs. Donald Trump seems to have been the one non compos mentis act that sealed the Joe Must Go sentiment among many.

These latecomers to reality have zero credibility, nor should they, but they are backtracking feverishly trying to salvage some semblance of relevance. Fortunately for them, a disproportionately large percentage of the population is functioning on a mental level not far above Clueless Joe, and so the whole charade might be forgotten soon.

I imagine that the addled brain of Clueless Joe is stuck in an infinite loop of the song “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” as performed by The Clash.

Here’s a lyrics refresher: “Darling you got to let me know should I stay or should I go?”

In this case, “darling” could refer to DR. JILL BIDEN!!!!!!!! whose taste for adoration rivals that of Marie “Let Them Eat Cake” Antoinette. DR. JILL BIDEN, like the first lady spouses of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, loves lurking in the background behind a disabled figurehead and pulling the levers of power as an unelected god.

If hubby Clueless Joe pulls the plug on his bid for re-election, her reign is measured in mere months and that won’t sit well with someone drunk with power.

“Darling” also could refer to troubled son Hunter, the supposed smartest man Clueless Joe knows. Like political opponent Donald Trump, Hunter is a CONVICTED FELON!!! but this is routinely ignored in polite Democratic circles.

This is Hunter, with his share for the “Big Guy” of all deals and various questionable escapades around the world. Hunter needs Clueless Joe to stay in power, if only to keep the money flowing and keep alive the hope of a presidential pardon for Hunter.

Hunter supposedly is sitting in on White House briefings and being leaned on by Clueless Joe to make decisions. Inquiring minds ask, does Hunter have a security clearance?

Another “darling” possibility is Biden daughter Ashley, whose stolen diary reportedly includes tales of showering with the Clueless One as a young girl.

But Clueless Joe is digging in his heels, denying reality as dementia victims are prone to do, and vowing nothing short of an act of God will have him dropping out of this race.

Clueless Joe and his inner circle of darlings fail to understand to what lengths those supporters turned haters will go to get a fresh face at the top of the party ticket.

If I were Clueless Joe, I’d have a member of my Secret Service detail give every ice cream cone a test lick before I took my first taste.

A day after matching the franchise single-game record for homers at 7 and winning easily because of it, the Pirates were held to a mere two runs Saturday in succumbing to the New York Mets.

But cheer up Pirates fans, because in the new, not-so-improved National League, the Pirates are playoff contenders.

Yes, the Pirates’ record was a modest 42-46 and at game’s end Saturday they were mired in third place in the NL Central Division, 9.5 games behind division-leading Milwaukee and four games back of runnerup St. Louis.

On the face of it, this is not exactly inspiring stuff a few weeks ahead of what has come to be referred to as the unofficial end of Pirates season, that being the opening of Steelers preseason camp.

More often that not in recent decades, the Pirates have been all but assured of missing the playoffs yet again by this time of the summer, probably destined again to finish below .500 and the attention of Pittsburgh sports fans rightly turned toward the Steelers and their prospects for the coming season.

But in 2024, a combination of Major League Baseball’s expansion to three wild-card teams for each league in 2022, and a particularly mediocre crop of NL teams this year, the Pirates can be mentioned in playoff conversations without provoking outright laughter.

Those NL wild-card standings as of 7:50-ish p.m. Saturday showed the Pirates sitting fourth in a pack of seven teams within 6 games of the final wild-card spot, currently being held by the Cardinals.

For many, more successful franchises, this would be damning with faint praise akin to the line from the movie Dumb And Dumber where one in a million odds prompted a character to say, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

But for the Pirates it’s enough that yes, there’s a chance, and it’s better than one in a million.

Five of those seven teams, including the Pirates, lost their most recent contests. Only one of them, the San Francisco Giants, are above .500 in their past 10 games, having gone a modest 6-4.

The Pirates aren’t exactly chasing the 1927 Yankees for that final wild-card spot.

But they are chasing a lot of teams and therein lies the most daunting challenge. It’s better to be nine games behind one team, than five or six games behind five or six teams. It’s hard to count on all the teams ahead of the Pirates to go on massive losing streaks, just as it stretches the bounds of reason to expect the Pirates to run off, say, 10 consecutive wins.

The Pirates’ best run of success this season was five straight wins to open the campaign. They have won as many as three in a row only twice since.

The Pirates need to get uncharacteristically hot and the competition has to go stone cold.

I don’t expect the Pirates to make the postseason. I’m just saying there’s a chance.