Being a lifelong Pittsburgher and dedicated hell-or-high water Pirates fan, I understand a thing or two about the agony of perpetual losing. That being said, even I feel bad for the residents of the state of Washington.

2008 has been an absolutely terrible year for them. Their hopes were high in the winter, when Kevin Durant was surprising everybody as the newest Seattle Supersonic, and the team flirted with the idea of the playoffs well after they should have been belly-up.

Then the Seahawks had a strong offseason of drafting and free agent signing, bringing in the likes of Julius Jones, Justin Forsett and John Carlson to piece together a potentially potent offense to compliment their defense.

Lastly, the Mariners had added the dominant Eric Bedard to a team that had won 88 games the previous season.

Then, of course, the wheels started falling off. First, the Sonics management fell apart, and the team now resides in Oklahoma City. I'm sure all of the avid basketball fans now appreciate a team that has not only moved, but moved so far away they'll need the expensive cable package just to catch a majority of their games.

Then those same citizens spent the summer watching the Mariners lose 101 games. Their star pitching acquisition couldn't stay healthy, and even if he could they had a half-dozen other multimillionaires apparently competing to see who could be the biggest financial vacuum.

The great state tried to keep its head up, but even football season has been unkind to the residents of the far Pacific Northwest.

Currently, the TV viewing and event attending options consist of:

• A Seahawks team that is 1-5. Their franchise quarterback is hurt, as are some starting defenders, with no truly easy games anywhere in sight.
• A University of Washington squad that is 0-6 heading into games against Notre Dame and USC. Their one truly great player and small glimmer of hope, QB Jake Locker, was injured several weeks ago and won't be back this year.
• Lastly, there's the Washington State team I talked about yesterday, who has been repeatedly whipped to a 1-7 record and can't seem to find anything that works.

All of that is, of course, compounded by the fact that the closest NHL team is across the border in Vancover. Now there's no NBA franchise to at least give the fans something different to agonize over. (Unless they want to make the three-hour trip down I-5 to watch the Sonics' former rival, the Trail Blazers.) All the great state of Washington can do is sit around and wait for Washington State basketball, which is no great victory.