What makes "Major League: Back to the Minors" the stupidest sports movie ever made is the ridiculous assertion that minor league players and coaches can't stand the guys on their parent big league club and want to challenge them competitively.
Nothing could be further from the truth because, in reality, minor leaguers usually have a lot of friends on the big league club, and they all root for each other to succeed.
Pirates fans everywhere are thrilled about what's happening this season after two long and painful decades of losing, and you can count Curve players among those who are excited about the Buccos being in first place.
"When they win, it feels good for us and makes us want to win also," Curve first baseman Matt Curry said.
When Andrew McCutchen played for the Curve in 2006 and '07, he would come into the clubhouse after games and watch the conclusion of the Pirates' contests on TV. Same for Pedro Alvarez in 2009, and Josh Harrison in 2010, and so on.
Those guys, unfortunately, had to watch a lot of bad baseball, but the current members of the Curve get to enjoy the Bucs having a great season so far.
What makes it even better for the Curve players is that many of them know and have played minor league ball with some of the young guys who are currently with the Pirates, such as Harrison, Jordy Mercer, Alex Presley and Tony Watson.
"It makes it more real," said Curry, who was teammates with Mercer and Hughes just last year with the Curve.
"We played with those guys down here, we know that we're good enough to play up there and it just gives us some hope. Those guys, we played with them every day and know what kind of players they are and what kind of players we need to be to be just like them. It just shows us that we have a chance."
Top Double-A players can do most of the same things that big leaguers can do on any given day, but they just can't do it as consistently, which is why they're still in the minor leagues.
For Curve players like Curry and Brock Holt and Jeremy Farrell, all of whom played here in 2011, to see a former teammate like Mercer get to the big leagues gives them what manager P.J. Forbes called something "tangible."
The players, Forbes said, can look at it like, "Jordy Mercer's there, I played with him, I know his skills, and I've got some of those skills. And there's things that I can do that he can't do, and there's things that he can do I can't do and I've got to work on. So it becomes more of you can almost touch it when you see guys that you played with up there."
Another aspect that links the big leaguers and minor leaguers is that, with the Pirates organizational philosophy, they all learn to do the same things, go through the same drills and focus on the same parts of the game.
"You see them do something, you're like, 'Hey, we work on that down here,'" Curry said. "We see them do it, and it makes us want to do it."
The organization's principles also apply from top to bottom, including Bucs manager Clint Hurdle's mantra to "finish" what they start.
"The feedback we get from up there from Clint and the coaching staff, that stuff filters down to us," Forbes said. "There's so many things that they can see that translates."
Nothing, though, translates better than the sheer volume of players who have made it up to the big leagues quickly from Altoona over the past two years. Twelve members of the 2010 Curve club and two from the 2011 team already have reached the majors.
It's exciting to see the Pirates winning, and it's even more so for us locally to see so many former Curve guys having instrumental roles in the success.
And unlike years past, the members of this Curve team can look forward to having a chance to play winning baseball if and when they earn the call to Pittsburgh in a year or two.
Cory Giger is the host of "Sports Central" from 4 to 6 p.m. daily on ESPN Radio 1430 WVAM. Reach him at 949-7031 or @CoryGiger on Twitter.
