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Lost Pirates recharting their course

By Howard Bryant
ESPN.com

Monday, September 7, 2009

PITTSBURGH -- It is not the one thing, they all say. It's not the bad trade that set the franchise back 20 years, or the guy they were supposed to draft but didn't, or the curious and fatal departure from Latin America, or the players that management held on to past their primes, or the crop of young talent that really wasn't that good in the first place. It's not the ruthlessly uneven economic system that guarantees even a return to the very top would be a short one. And it's not just the flip ...

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