Laurels & lances: Pride and disappointment

Laurel: To an urge to help. It will take a while for Florida to recover from Hurricane Ian. The storm that slammed into the Fort Myers and Cape Coral areas at Category 4 strength last week is projected to be the most deadly and costly hurricane in decades. It was strong enough that even after raging through the Sunshine State, it was still a Category 1 storm when it made landfall again in South Carolina.

Red Cross volunteers and emergency medical service personnel from Southwestern Pennsylvania are responding to the needs in Florida. Murrysville Medic One, Rostraver West Newton Emergency Services and Fayette EMS traveled south as part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency national response team.

They showed up with people. They showed up with ambulances. But more than anything, they showed up with a desire to do what they do here — help people who have been devastated by the unexpected and the unstoppable.

This is when people are at their best. They are stepping forward to do what needs to be done, without question or reservation. In the face of tragedy, they are a reason for pride.

Lance: To what we knew was coming. The Pittsburgh Pirates season ended Wednesday with a win over the Cardinals, who are in first place in the National League Central and probably just didn’t care enough to try.

Unfortunately, it was the cherry on the top of a gigantic consolation prize sundae for yet another losing season.

Perhaps you don’t realize exactly how many of those there have been. With the statue of Willie Stargell at PNC Park and a bridge named after Roberto Clemente, the team’s glory days are cemented around the city. But a look at the resigned faces of fans — and all those empty seats in the park — says people do know the score.

For the record, the Bucs have had just four winning seasons in the last 20 years. Not four good seasons, the kind that inspire hope of pennants and trophies. Nope, four seasons in which the team managed to win more than it lost. In the 20 years before that, it was just five seasons. Forty years and just nine seasons that didn’t break hearts.

The team is unquestionably at its lowest ebb as far as the numbers go, with back-to-back seasons hitting 100 losses or more. Let’s be honest, it might have been three if the 2020 season weren’t truncated by the pandemic.