Will the Pittsburgh Pirates own the worst losing streak in the world?
Given that professional sports haven’t existed for much more than about two centuries, it’s entirely possible that the Pirates may just have the record. The first pro baseball teams emerged in the 1850s. Basketball was first played in the 1890s and the first pro teams were founded in the 1920s. Much before the nineteenth century, society wasn’t really affluent enough to support such a frivolous activity. Seriously, the idea that several thousand people could make their living (literally) chasing balls around would have been completely preposterous as recently as the eighteenth century. Sports have been an amateur pastime for most of recorded history. All of that by way of saying that if reporters are saying that the Pirates are the worst professional team in history, they’re probably right. We’ve got records of just abou
