PITTSBURGH - Two alleged victims of baseball's economic imbalance opened the 2005 season April 4 at PNC Park.

And while the Milwaukee Brewers got the better of the Pirates - outscoring them 19-4 while sweeping a two-game series - the question remains: Will either organization ever get the better of baseball?

"It will happen and sooner than people think," Brewers third base coach Rich Donnelly said. "I know this sounds crazy, but in a couple of years, the Brewers and Pirates will be battling each other for the top of this (National League Central) division.

"Like I said - I know it sounds crazy."

Indeed it does. The Pirates and Brewers both have endured 12 consecutive losing seasons - the longest active streak of futility in baseball - and are threatening to break the major league record of 16 straight losing campaigns.

Frustrating? Not in Donnelly's eyes, and he was coaching in Pittsburgh when the Pirates won their division titles in the early 1990s. He was still here when the Bucs watched stars like Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla and Doug Drabek leave town for financially greener pastures.

"It'd be frustrating if it wasn't done before," Donnelly said. "But Minnesota's done it. Oakland's done it. Florida's done it twice, actually.

"The Marlins are an expansion team that's already gone from bottom to top two times."

Donnelly was a coach with the Marlins when the team dismantled its 1997 world championship team the following off-season.

"People were laughing at us, criticizing us," he said. "But in all of those trades, we acquired prospects and built up the farm system - the very farm system that the Marlins won it all with in 2003."

Pirates CEO Kevin McClatchy goes along with the theory that a quality farm system is crucial in creating a contending team with a small budget.

While the Marlins were winning the World Series in 1997, McClatchy said the Pirates were lost "in a false sense of security."

"Baseball America said we had the best farm system in baseball, had the best prospects and we won a bunch of awards that way," McClatchy said. "The truth was, we didn't have great prospects back then.

"Slowly, our system's been coming along. But we have no margin for error. That's the problem."

Milwaukee's payroll jumped from $27 million to $42 million this year. The Brewers were last in all of baseball in team batting average and home runs a year ago.

Since trading closer Danny Kolb to Atlanta in the off-season, Milwaukee entered 2005 without a single career major league save anywhere on its pitching staff.

"It did no good having a closer when we could never get the lead," Donnelly said.

The Pirates' 2005 payroll stands at $38 million. The New York Yankees' payroll is at $199 million.

Not much can be done until baseball's current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2006 season.

"Obviously, the economic landscape still isn't right," McClatchy said. "Part of my job after next year will be to get heavily involved with other owners and get it fixed. I'll do whatever I have to do."

Including leading a crusade worth losing an entire season, such as the National Hockey League owners have done?

"I would hope we wouldn't come to that," McClatchy said. "But never say never."

"It remains to be seen whether hockey will survive what they've done," Donnelly said. "But if they do, guaranteed neither side will ever miss part of a season again.

"Baseball's already learned that lesson."

Meanwhile, the Pirates are enjoying the equivalent of 9,000 full season tickets being sold - a 20 percent increase over last year - along with an 11 percent increase in single game advance sales.

"People think that's because of the All-Star Game coming here in 2006," McClatchy said. "But if you look at the 1994 All-Star Game year in Pittsburgh, the big increase in ticket sales did not occur until that same season.

"I think people are genuinely excited about some of the young talent we've assembled, guys like Jack Wilson, Jason Bay, Oliver Perez and Mike Gonzalez. People like watching these guys play.

"We have a foundation now. For the first time in years, we have legitimate prospects at the Class AAA level, guys like (catcher) Ryan Doumit, (center fielder) Chris Duffy and (pitcher) Zach Duke, and more are coming," McClatchy added.

Donnelly said the Pirates and Brewers are going about it the right way.

"You use your farm system in two ways," he said. "Some of your own prospects help you and you use other prospects in trades with other teams to fill holes," he said.

"Barry Bonds, Jose Lind, Jeff King, John Smiley - those were guys who came up in our system and helped us win those division titles. Half of your own guys, half of guys from other teams, you build a winner."

If Pirates fans want hope, look at 1986.

"We were as low as it gets that year," Donnelly recalled. "I mean, we were at rock-bottom.

"Four years later, we won the division."