Honesty. It's the one thing a fan always wants from a player that a fan seldom gets. Players often speak in cliches, and even when they're not pulling old lines out of the cupboard, they're usually saying something empty, vacant, and meaningless. Think about all the player interviews and quotes you've read over the past several weeks. How many of them told you something interesting? How many of them told you something honest? How many of them told you anything at all?
We celebrate the athletes that speak their minds, but so infrequently do they come around, and so infrequently do they do so, that we're usually left having to do the work ourselves. If we want to know how a player really feels about something, more often than not, we're on our own to figure it out.
Fortunately, the players are not cloaked with an impenetrable armor. You see, you can't hide the truth with your eyes. You can't hide the truth with your face. It is via careful photography that hidden truths may be revealed. And so, using a home-brewed technique, I'd like to take the opportunity to ask the first question that came to mind: cliches aside, did the 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates know that they'd suck?
We'll consult our SB Nation Pirates page, and examine the pictures shot before the season began.
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Oh yeah, Zach Duke knew that they'd suck.
Sean Gallagher didn't know if the Padres would suck, but probably figured the Pirates would suck.
Joel Hanrahan was embarrassed by how badly he knew they would suck.
Jeff Karstens thought they would suck even worse than they've sucked.
Wil Ledezma was bored by how often he thought about how badly they'd suck.
Paul Maholm was so put off by how bad the team sucked that he locked himself inside for three months.
Daniel McCutchen couldn't believe the photographer wanted to take pictures of players on a team that would suck.
James McDonald joked about how much the Pirates would suck with the other guys in the room.
Knowing how bad his team sucked made Evan Meek forlorn.
Ross Ohlendorf didn't know the Pirates would suck, and Ross Ohlendorf went to Princeton, which speaks volumes about the average Princeton student's capacity for critical thought.
Chan Ho Park knew he would suck.
Chris Resop could just tell that he was going to end up on a sucky team before long.
Ryan Doumit figured that wearing makeup might help the team suck a little less.
Chris Snyder was drunk and surly and didn't know anything.
Pedro Alvarez expressed trepidation at the thought of being promoted from a decent AAA team to a sucky big league one.
Ronny Cedeno knew that they'd suck, and that he'd be a big reason why.
JEFF CLEMENT KNEW THAT THEY'D SUCK AND IT JUST MADE HIM SO MAAADDDD
Argenis Diaz knew that they'd suck, but was just happy to meet someone who knew who he was.
Spending so long with sucky teams made Andy LaRoche age by ten years.
Neil Walker knew even teams that suck pay a man a lot of money.
Delwyn Young knew they'd suck so bad he tried to send a distress signal through the camera using wrinkles in his forehead.
Garrett Jones knew that they'd suck, but also that he's really handsome, and, ooh, who cares if you suck with a jaw like the banks of a Norwegian fjord? Garrett Jones' stubble stops growing at an eighth of an inch, and cannot be trimmed.
Andrew McCutchen was terrified by how badly he knew the Pirates would suck.
Lastings Milledge tried to hide his identity so friends wouldn't know he played for a team that so royally sucked.
Jose Tabata was sick so they photoshopped a Pirates hat into his yearbook photo.
