In an effort to avoid the inevitable obsession about fantasy football that the bye week puts upon me, I went out to the final Pirates game of the year. (Let's face it, if I didn't I'd actually have been hanging onto the notion that Neil Rackers is now the most important part of my team, which is alternately a cry for help or the sound of a seal breaking.) Part of the charm of the last home game is Prize day, when items that failed to sell in the regular season were given away. I didn't get anything, but I have to note some of the more intriguing things offered.

A Pirate themed ATV.
The paintings made by all the players as their opening intro cards.
A free buffet at Cici's Pizza
A Danbury Mint model of Forbes Field
A signed bat by pitcher and impending contract albatross Mark Redman.
And best of all, a game used bat by reliever John Grabow. This one amused me because I think, as a situational lefty, he couldn't have had more than 5 at-bats. (Checking... Oh, sweet, he's had 1 at bat in three years!)

While this was fine comedy in and of itself, and the pierogie race featured the return of the long-exiled Potato Pete, who proposed to Jalapeno Hanna, disrupting her race to defeat the obviously juiced-up Sauerkraut Saul, the standout comedy feature of the game was Did You Know... I've been critical of Did You Know... and its many iterations in the past, mostly in the cases when I felt it should have been titled Did You Care?, but for the game yesterday, it was knowing, brilliant self-parody. I neither knew, nor cared to know any of the following:

Craig Wilson never misses an episode of Survivor (This explains the DL this year.)
Tike Redman is planning a trip to Jamaica in December.
Jose Bautista plans on doing nothing during the first week of October. (About right there, Jose, though you did get a hit, screwing up your plans.)
Michael Restovich is a big fan of the Minnesota Vikings.
Rob Mackowiak is thinking about getting a German shepherd puppy. ("thinking" about it?)
Jack Wilson plans on going trick or treating with his son[Darth Vader] and his daughter[a sheep] (Okay, Pittsburghers, if you see Darth Vader, a sheep, and somebody who looks like Jack Wilson, don't be alarmed.)

and finally, the best one by far. The one that was so good they did it when he was a defensive substitute rather than risk that he might not bat:

J. J. Furmaniak will be refereeing high school basketball games in Chicago.

Pirates 2006 -- Because you want to know if he got the puppy.