On Saturday, I was looking back through some of my files of the Butler Road Race results from the past few years and stumbled upon a little tidbit of information about the Pittsburgh Pirates.

There’s good reason why this year’s team has brought so much joy and excitement to Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas this year.

With Monday’s off day, Pittsburgh held a winning record entering the last Monday of June with a 39-38 record.

Last year’s record on Monday following the Butler Road Race — feel free to sit down here — 25-50.

That’s not a misprint. The team was 25 games below .500 at this time a year ago, 16Z\x games behind the Cincinnati Reds (42-34).

At this point, baseball fans were already gearing up for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training at St. Vincent College — heck, a month earlier, they probably were already getting ready and the Pirates were buried on Page 2.

Fast forward to this year and things are looking a whole lot different.

The NFL owners have locked out the players and this year’s season is in limbo until the two sides can work things out.

It seems if things are not hammered out by July 4, everything on the upcoming schedule — training camp, exhibition games, regular -season games, will be altered.

July 4 is also the bookmark in Major League Baseball that you’re either in a pennant race or you’re not.

After taking two of three games from the Boston Red Sox this past weekend, the Pirates showed, at least for the time being, they are holding their ground.

As it has been showed the past few years, the National League Central is a somewhat weak division.

Each year, you expect the Cardinals to run away with the title, but they don’t. The Pirates are four games out of first place behind Milwaukee. They are tied with Cincinnati for third place and one game behind the Cardinals.

I’m not going to go into specifics about the lack of offense and how the pitching would be able to sustain its great start, but I’m not worried about that.

I’m enjoying this now. I actually care what the Pirates are doing and am enjoying the buzz around the city.

It’s long been overdue. as a defense mechanism, I temper my enthusiasm, but I’m hopefully optimistic.

It’s better than the 22 games below .500 in 2001, and 25 in 2006. The Pirates have only been this close to .500 two times since 2000 (34-40 in 2005 and 35-40 in 2009), but those teams didn’t have a drive and enthusiasm this team has.

The building blocks were not there like this year and the minor-league system is better stocked with talent now than.

With anything you build, you need a strong foundation. A winning record in late June isn’t a complete turnaround, but it’s a great start.

Sam Tallarico is a writer for the Butler Eagle.