then than it is now. As a nation, Brazil s

CINCINNATI -- The Pittsburgh Pirates have lost seven of 11 and are clinging to slim hopes of securing one of the two National League wild card spots. The Pirates trail by six games for the coveted second spot and have three teams to leapfrog.Injuries have been a common theme. Gerrit Cole was shut down for the season this week. The Pirates have used 54 players this season, eclipsing the franchise record of 52 in 2011.We did set the record, and we gave it some gap, right? manager Clint Hurdle said Wednesday. Im guessing we need to be done. If we need any more, I think weve got another challenge on our hands.The Pirates playoff chase continues Friday when they begin a four-game series against the Reds at Great American Ball Park, where more protective gear might be needed.Over the past four seasons, Reds pitchers have hit 51 batters, including 18 this season, the most by any major league staff against any opponent. Pirates pitchers have hit 45 Reds batters, including nine in 2016, second-most of any staff.And, Pittsburgh doesnt just plunk the Reds.Over the past four seasons, Pirates pitchers lead the major leagues in number of batters hit. Going into their series finale on Wednesday at Philadelphia, the Pirates had hit 295 batters, following by the Reds 264 and White Sox 243.Taking aim on Friday will be right-hander Ryan Vogelsong, whos 5-6 with a 4.81 ERA in 22 career appearances including 12 starts.Vogelsongs last outing against Cincinnati didnt go well. He allowed six earned runs on seven hits and walked three in an 8-0 loss at PNC Park on Sunday.He missed nearly two months after being struck near the left eye by a Jordan Lyles pitch on May 23. He suffered facial fractures but managed to return in early August.Right-hander Robert Stephenson, one of the Reds top pitching prospects, will make his fifth career appearance and third start since he was promoted in September.Stephenson was the first Reds pitcher to win his first two major league starts since Larry Luebbers in 1993.The Pirates come in with some momentum after Andrew McCutchen hit two homers in a 15-2 win at Philadelphia.Cincinnati has gone 30-26 since the All-Star break, including winning five of its last six. But, the Reds do have some injuries with shortstop Zack Cozart missing four games with a sore knee and center fielder Billy Hamilton out indefinitely with a strained left oblique.Its always a high-tension affair when these two NL Central rivals square off, and this seasons series has been evenly played. Pittsburgh has gone 7-8 this season against the Reds including 2/3 at Great American Ball Park.On Saturday, theyll play a day-night doubleheader. The first game beginning at 12:10 p.m. EST will make up the May 10 game which was rained out. The second game will begin at approximately 6:10 p.m. Discount NHL Jerseys . Its the second straight game Bell has scored in extra time for Kelowna, which beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 6-5 on Friday, and he now has four game-winning goals on the season. NHL Jerseys Sale . If ever they start actually putting pictures beside words in the dictionary, the Blue Jays left-handers mug will appear beside “Consistency. https://www.chinanhljerseys.us/ .C. -- Chris Thorburn thinks one of the reasons the Winnipeg Jets have been successful under new coach Paul Maurice is that theyre playing together as a team. Custom NHL Jerseys . It just didnt show when he hit the ice. Berra made 42 saves and Kris Russell scored at 1:32 of overtime, lifting the Calgary Flames to a 3-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night. NHL Jerseys Outlet . -- Ryan Blaney provided more evidence that Penske Racings No. RIO DE JANEIRO -- Go to bed, my grandmother implored. It is late, and these Olympics are very far away.I was 6 years old, a boy in working-class Sao Paulo already obsessed with the Olympics, staying up to watch the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea. Grandmother Lazinha -- we called her Zica -- was right. It was indeed late for a kid. But what she also meant, I understand now, was that no one living in the Brazil of those days was expected to go very far. Nor was my homeland itself.Now the games are here, and with that debut comes a renewed sense of possibility and hope -- a feeling that perhaps Brazil has finally arrived. Yes, there is economic and political turmoil, Zika, crime and the many other blemishes outsiders see. But for us brasileiros, hosting the games itself is like winning gold. As one volunteer, an unemployed engineer, said to me after the opening ceremony: We can do great things here, too.It wasnt always that way.As I watched my first Olympics on TV, Brazil suffered even more than it does now. There was hyperinflation, with everyday items costing up to 600 percent of their worth. After decades of military dictatorship, we had returned to civilian leadership but under an unpopular president we blamed for the economic crisis.A renowned economist referred to us as Belindia, a country where the rich lived like those in prosperous Belgium and the poor like the worst off in India. And yet ... we have always been far more complex, and better, than that.Flash forward to 1992. Im 10. The Olympics were in Barcelona that year and still a personal obsession as I began to dream of a career as a journalist like my uncle. At home in Brazil, my mother was a maid. And a manicurist. And a door-to-door saleswoman. The state school I attended in the South Zone of Sao Paulo was not that bad, but others in the same region were more a territory for gangs than places for learning. Brazil was still stumbling.That year, our Congress impeached President Fernando Collor over a money-for-influence scheme. Protesters then, like now, took to the streets to demand an end to government corruption. Those Olympics in Spain were truly a world away for us. With inflation still high, my mother would run to the supermarket each payday to stock up on supplies for the month, not knowing if the cost of milk might skyrocket the very next day.In those next few years, change did come. Brazil adopted a new currency and an economic plan that brought some stabilization and growth.By the time the Atlanta Games opened in 1996, my family had saved so much that we started a little restaurant near Rio de Janeiro. College, and my dreams of reporting, seemed closer. When Sydney played Olympic host in 2000, I was teaching English and taking a college preparatory course. Two years later, I managed to enter a good private university. Then came Athens in 2004, and the chance at a sports internship that included a special assignment: Helping to cover the Olympics from afar.From 2004 to 2008, Brazil improved so much that we started feeling overconfident. Social programs and a minimum wage policy dragged tens of millions out of poverty. We felt as if we were abbout to become a global player.ddddddddddddAmid a commodities boom, we spent big on flat-screen TVs, cars and expensive vacations. Lost your job? You could get another quickly.Thats what led me to wave goodbye to steady work and pay my own way to Beijing for the Summer Games of 2008. I wasnt even accredited to cover sports, so instead I wrote about protests and Brazilian spectators as a freelancer. All I wanted was to tick that box and tell my grandmother that the Olympics were indeed far, but I could now go there. And so I did.It only really sank in that I was at the Olympics the night Usain Bolt won gold in the 100 meters, setting a world record. I was in an area of Beijing called Sanlitun, and I celebrated with fans from all nations. In a way, that seemed to be what the Olympics are all about: an excuse to bring different people together.When I returned home, the global economic crisis began and Brazil, like everyone else, was hit -- although not nearly as hard as others. When the world sneezed, Brazil usually caught pneumonia. Now the world had pneumonia, and Brazil only a cold.Another remarkable thing happened that year: Rio de Janeiro was picked as a finalist to host the 2016 Olympics, alongside Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid. In modern times, Brazil had bid -- and lost out -- on the games three other times, for 2000, 2004 and 2012. We Brazilians never thought we really had a shot, especially against President Barack Obamas city of Chicago.So on Oct. 2, 2009, when then-IOC President Jacques Rogge opened the envelope and the card inside read Rio de Janeiro, back in my newsroom in Sao Paulo I yelled: YEAH!Because I walked the same rocky but successful path of so many Brazilians of my generation, I never felt that the International Olympic Committee was making a concession when it awarded the games to Rio. We did not get this honor because the IOC took pity on us. It was a deserved victory for a country that was more promising then than it is now. As a nation, Brazil should have the opportunity to show our rise, resilience and, yes, the shortcomings that remain.Friday night, when the fireworks went off and the games of the 31st Olympiad were declared open, I saw it all from the press box -- where I helped write the story of the first Olympic opening ceremony in my beloved Brazil. I felt proud, but tense. I wanted us to put on a good show. We didnt hide our flaws even as we exhibited what we do best through our love of music and dance, and in the message about our environment.Brazil celebrated the Olympics as it needs to be celebrated.My grandmother did not live to see the games come to our native soil, but I am sure that if she were here, shed smile knowing that the Olympics are no longer so very far, and that Brazilians like me helped make faraway so close.---Mauricio Savarese is an Associated Press reporter who writes about politics, crime and, yes, sports. He is a native of Sao Paulo, based now in Rio de Janeiro. He has covered, in person, three Olympics: Beijing, London and, now, Rio. ' ' '