In some cases, being the fan of a constant loser can actually be fun. Look at all the Boston Red Sox fans before they finally won their first World Series in 86 years, in 2004.

Look at the Chicago Cubs; their fans wear that club’s century-plus without a championship as a badge. It’s like their own big misery club. They don’t even let you in unless you demonstrate your years and years of misery.

But others?

Take the Pittsburgh Pirates. Please.

This is a team that hasn’t had a winning season since 1992, when Barry Bonds was in the outfield and still wearing the body God gave him — which was plenty good for playing baseball at an elite level — rather than the Frankensteinian body drugs created.

That was the year the team of Andy Van Slyke and Jay Bell and Doug Drabek went 96-66 and were headed to the World Series until the Braves rallied to win the National League in a Game 7 that was 2-0 Pittsburgh into the bottom of the ninth.

And since then …

Nothing.

Not only zero championships, zero appearances in the playoffs and zero winning seasons. Yes. You saw that correctly. No winning seasons in 20 consecutive seasons.

Then came 2012, which may turn out to be one of the cruelest of Pittsburgh Pirates seasons.

The club made a bright start, and surged in midseason. They had one serious player in Andrew McCutchen, an MVP candidate, and some nice role players in Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez and Garrett Jones, several competent pitchers, starting with A.J. Burnett and continuing with James McDonald and Kevin Correia, and they had just traded for Wandy Rodriguez. And they had a very nice closer in Joel Hanrahan.

On the morning of August 9 they were 63-47, the fourth-best record in the National League, including a big-league best 35-17 at home. They not only seemed locks to end that losing-record streak, but in great shape to make the playoffs, as well.

And then the wheels came off. Rather like last year, except later, and with a greater fall.

They finished August 7-14. But they were just cooling off for September, where they are 7-16 to fall to 74-77.

Had the pre-2004 Red Sox done this, or any of the Cubs teams since 1908, it would be celebrated. “Oh, the pain! But we are Red Sox/Cubs fans to the end! It will go down in our history of noble failure!”

The Pirates, however, somehow have failed to create the lovable loser thing. Maybe because they don’t have the memorable ball field. Or because they were poor and bad and played in a smallish market.

Like some other routinely bad franchises (the Los Angeles Clippers come to mind, as well as the Kansas City Royals and, till this year, the Baltimore Orioles) … the Pirates just stink. Nothing lovable about them, as far as most baseball fans are concerned.

No one cares if they fail. That’s what they do. They are losers. Plain and simple. No pity for them; only contempt.

The playoffs are out of reach. Of course.

The Pirates can still finish with a winning record, but they need to win eight of their final 11 to get to 82-80. If they win seven of the last 11, they at least are not losers, per se, at 81-81.

Unlikely, however. They lost to the Houston Astros again tonight, and have lost five straight.

To me, this is sad. And has to be truly painful for the handful of Pirates fans who may still hide out in Pittsburgh.

This was going to be the year. No. Really. McCutchen wins the MVP, Burnett wins the Cy Young, they win the National League Central and get to the the World Series and … well none of that will happen.

Odds are, it will just be another losing season, the 21st in succession. And I feel bad for fans I have never met and a city I have never seen.