Today's Silver Pirates Lining

The Pittsburgh Pirates news has curdled into the usual, late-summer morass of pathetic on-field incompetence and nobody caring anymore how many games they lose this year. But news comes this afternoon that Rinku Singh, one of the two Indian pitchers signed into the system last year as a publicity-friendly crapshoot, has been promoted from the rookie league affiliate up to the short-season single-A club. Obviously the chances of one day reaching the big league for any given player in the low minors is pretty low, let alone for one who never played baseball prior to signing a contract, but I continue to find it impossible not to root for the guys and I'm happy for Singh that he's merited this step (I can't think of a reason he would be promoted for mere publicity). The Million Dollar Arm Blog seems to have slowed quite a bit in its updates but we can see there some photos of Singh and Dinesh Patel meeting President Obama, Kal Penn, and other notables in Washington, D.C. this spring; shaking Obama's hand is probably more than most of the Pirates franchise's young pitchers can claim. Although perhaps Colton Cain or Zack von Rosenberg or someone, after making the major-league roster, will receive a medal of honor for anchoring the millenium's first non-losing Pirates team from President Huckabee or whatever other horrifying person will have been elected to lead the nation by 2014. But see, already the silver lining has begun to gray over.