Well, the 1999 season started out terrific but because of several problems including injuries and people like Ulysses being unreliable, we ended up finishing the season 14-21 (includes playoffs). However, in the WBA, we were considered a success. New teams often have trouble adjusting to the high level of play. This was not the case with us however. Unfortunately, I relied heavily on certain pitchers to come through for us and they let us down. Ulysses had promised me he would only pitch with us and he'd be reliable. Well, after a few starts we let him go after finding out that he was pitching on another team also. His arm had nothing left by the time we saw him on the weekends. Feliz injured his arm along with Deron (which led to his leaving the Pirates to play with his hometown Monarchs.) Berto had trouble adjusting to the league in the early part of the season and Manuel didn't pitch well in 1999. The only real bright spot on the 1999 pitching staff was the mid season addition of Lou Baio. He was a gift from above as he gave us much needed stability and gave us our one and only win against the 'A' division when he shut down the Clarkstown Tigers one hot July day. We also had alot of difficulty on defense most of the season. Our inability to hold runners cost us alot as we gave up about 5 stolen bases a game. We also made about 3-4 errors a game. In the end, we played very well in the playoffs. We were able to defeat the Greenburgh Cobras 9-4 to advance to the semi finals of the "b" division. Our season ended at the semi's. We were beaten by the eventual "b" division winners the New City Mariners 6-5. A tremendous finish considering we were an expansion team. We learned so much as a team and I learned so much about what we will have to do to improve on this year. Consider this: We finished a lousy 7 games out of first in the regular season and 1 game from the "b" division championship without working the pitchers as hard as we should have or practicing as much as we should have. To me, this means that when we start to work at it a little harder, we will most definitely be able to finish way higher than we did in year 1. Let's go Pirates in 2000!!!

Janiero Feliz
Todd Walsh
Richard Rodriguez
Jose DeJesus
Modesto Martinez
Anwar Lopez
Berto Lopez
Jorge Lopez
Fernando Betances
Valentine Arvelo
Manuel Martinez
Kevin Lorme
Steve Kletzkin
Lou Baio
Ivan Bonet
Mike Vitiello
Coray Kidd
Edwin Otero
Alex Tavares
Jose Ramos
Tom Verri
Terance Murphy
Adam Kluge

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