Every year about this time, Pirates fans become as giddy as Al Gore at a globalwarming conference.

Every year about this time, optimism shines on the Bucs like the sun in Bradenton, Fla.

And what is the optimism for?

The possibility of a winning record.

Yes, it has come to that for Buccos fans — the dream of losing a mere 80 games is enough to get all warm and fuzzy inside.

It has been 14 years since a Pittsburgh baseball team has won more games than it has lost.

In 1992 ...

• Barry Bonds had no idea what flaxseed oil was.

• The Alabama football team was 13-0.

• Everyone was too sexy for their shirt.

• Macaulay Culkin was home alone again and not in rehab.

A lot of things have changed since then. Back then, cell phones were the size of small watermelons. Now they are the size of Tic Tacs.

Most Americans had no idea what the Internet was, and Zach Duke was 9.

Yet, every year, people think this will be the year fortunes will change.

Why should this year be any different?

There's an adage: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 14 times, shame on me — or something like that.

The Pirates are in the fooling business. Every offseason, they talk up a young, growing pitching staff, they laud their young position players who are primed to burst into prominence, and they promise better days ahead.

Then the season starts and the Bucs are eliminated from contention by Memorial Day.

Remember, this is a team that signed Joe Randa to play third base and kept the National League batting champ on the bench for two months because they felt he couldn't play every day.

It's that kind of error in judgment that keeps the Bucs losing more than 80 games every season.

Yet David Littlefield keeps his job.

When things go badly, what does the organization blame? The economics of the game.

Boo hoo! We can't afford to keep up with the large market teams. Woe is us! We don't have the coffers to pay free agents.

If small market teams are at such a disadvantage, then how did the Twins win the AL Central last season? How do the A's restock and win every season? How do the Indians rebuild and win 90 games two years ago and enter this season as one of the favorites for at least a wild-card spot?

They do it by being smart and not promising better days ahead. They deliver.

Sure. Go ahead. Feel optimistic that Brad Eldred is going to keep gobbling up fastballs like he wolfs down food on the postgame spread.

But come May, when he's not even hitting half his weight (that would still be a .140 average) and strikes out more than Erkel at a singles bar, remember this:

The last time the Pirates had a winning season, gasoline was $1.20 per gallon.