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Bold Pirates fan gets 2015 World Champs tattoo, is ‘praying for the best’

“There’s no way I can cover it up. It’s there, so I’m praying for the best.”

Updated Oct 8, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

In mid-August, a photo made the rounds purporting to show the world's bravest Pittsburgh Pirates fan, who, 77 long days before the start of the 2015 World Series, tattooed a giant Pirates logo on his calf commemorating Pittsburgh's 2015 World Series victory -- which, again, is 77 days from beginning.

@espn @BBTN @SportsCenter pic.twitter.com/OWBllGyHUo
— Andrew Broadwater (@ajbroadh2o_24) August 12, 2015

It makes for a good punchline: the perennial underdog Pirates, who two years in a row have been knocked out of the playoffs in their bid for what would be Pittsburgh’s first Fall Classic since 1979. The Pirates look poised to claim another Wild Card berth this fall -- but surely nobody would get a tattoo preemptively celebrating a victory, would they?

So we called him.

“I’ve been joking around with my wife for about a month now saying, ‘hey, I’m gonna get the Pirates championship tattooed on my leg,’” said Andrew Broadwater, a correctional dietary officer in Frostburg, Md., two hours southeast of Pittsburgh.

“And she said, ‘nah, you won’t do that, you’re not that crazy,’” Broadwater said, who has seven other tattoos, none of which have attempted to predict the future. “And she went to work today and I had the day off from work, and I went down and I got it tattooed on me, and there it is.”

The Pirates will prove him right, he says.

"Last year I still felt we were missing a couple key players," he said. "But this year -- AJ Burnett returned, the pitching’s strong, Andrew McCutchen’s playing lights out, Polanco and Marte in the outfield."

“I think this will be the first time since 1979. I think the championship banner will go up at PNC Park next April on Opening Day.”

But what happens if it, well, doesn’t?

“If they don’t win it all, then I guess I’m just one of those fans like the Cowboys or Lions, someone that has the ink on my body,” Broadwater said. “There’s no way I can cover it up. It’s there, so I’m praying for the best.”

As for his wife: now that she’s had a few hours to digest it, she said she’s on board. At first, however, she was somewhat taken aback by the discovery that her husband is a seer, or at the very least, crazier than she had previously thought.

“Face was priceless.”

UPDATE, 10/8/15:

With the Bucs newly eliminated, Broadwater used Sharpie to make a slight adjustment to his tattoo: