I am officially done with being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. After 25 years of loyalty, I have closed the book on that chapter of my life. I will only re-open the book if the team is sold. I will no longer worry about the Pirates' moves, win totals or record.What I will do is mock everything they do. I will question their leadership with unabashed joy. And I will put all of my creative energy into my hatred for the Pirates. This includes my going to more games in the hopes of attracting others to join my platform.
I will never say that I was a "die hard" Pirates fan. But I was loyal. I was caring. And most importantly, I was a Pirates fan during the darkest, lowest period any professional sports team has ever experienced. When I was in high school and college at Pitt, I would attend 3-5 games a year. I now live in Arlington, VA and plan on attending as many Pirates games as possible just to have an outlet. I want to be heard and I want to help make it clear that our current situation is not acceptable!
I will never say that I was a "die hard" Pirates fan. But I was loyal. I was caring. And most importantly, I was a Pirates fan during the darkest, lowest period any professional sports team has ever experienced. When I was in high school and college at Pitt, I would attend 3-5 games a year. I now live in Arlington, VA and plan on attending as many Pirates games as possible just to have an outlet. I want to be heard and I want to help make it clear that our current situation is not acceptable!
What I find most troubling is the fact that I have defended the Pirates decisions and moves and chalked our situation up to economics. "If it weren't for the Yankees and Red Sox buying the best players every year, we (small market teams) would be just fine." I feel as if I somehow was brainwashed into this line of thinking. Well, if that's the case, then why are the Brewers, Twins, A's, Indians, Tigers, Marlins & Padres all in contention?!? Not only are they in contention, but the A's, Twins & Indians have been for the better part of this decade. But I thought "small market teams" can't compete in Major League baseball?
You know what makes me even more sick? The fact that the Marlins have been born, built a championship, been gutted and sold for spare parts, built championship team number 2, ripped that team apart and are busy assembling the third competitive team all in the past 13 years. What have the Pirates done in that time? Failed miserably with 2 separate 5-year plans. It's kind of difficult to build a house or a foundation when you have no idea where to buy the materials needed.
If that isn't bad enough, the ownership questions our intelligence by telling us the idiotic reasons why something is do
ne and expect us to believe it. "John Van Ben Schoten is going to be a great pitcher - although every other MLB team loved him as a position player. Trust us...we know what we're doing after all!"
ne and expect us to believe it. "John Van Ben Schoten is going to be a great pitcher - although every other MLB team loved him as a position player. Trust us...we know what we're doing after all!" Last year was bad enough. Remember the trade deadline deals? Our 1 piece that was attractive to a team looking to make a run (Craig Wilson) gets traded for Shawn Chacon - a player who the Yankees planned on releasing if a trade was unable to be worked out. So...we get a guy we could have claimed off of waivers in exchange for the player that a few teams were interested in. Nice move, Dave! But even he wasn't finished. Remember back before the 2006 season when Texas offered us Hank Blalock for Oliver Perez? Littlefield thinks: "No, I will not give up on him yet. He has something left to give." So, Dave keeps the faith long enough to toss-in Ollie in an underwhelming deal with the Mets! A toss-in! I realize that he sucked last year and wasn't doing much for us, but if Littlefield was offered Blalock for him a mere months earlier and passed, why would he sell so low on him just 5 months later? Look at Perez now...pretty much the ace of a Mets team that is expected to challenge for the National League Pennant. What harm would it have caused to hang on to him and see if he'd re-gain that zip that made him so desirable back in 2004? He'd cause us to lose 90-100 games if we keep trotting him out there every 5th day? Who gives a shit!?! We lose 90 games standing on our heads!
The drafting of the 5th best pitcher in the draft at the number 4 slot was the last straw for me. Sure we could have drafted a "once a decade player" in catcher Matt Wieters. We don't need him! We will be able to sign a stud free agent in a few years - no worries. What we do need is a relief pitcher! We'll need that relief pitcher to help protect all of the leads that we get with our dynamic team in a few years starring all of our minor league stars. Namely, (crickets)....
So what if Wieters would bolt once he becomes a free agent? Maybe we'd be able to have at least one year where we're not terrible. And I don't care what anybody says - the 2007 Pirates team is god-awful. Somehow we've been able to stay semi-competitive. I'm not sure how. But we're on the verge of a monumental Pirates meltdown. July will be bad. I just hope I can make it up to PNC Park to help pile on. I plan on building a tee pee in Centerfield and heckling the Pirates players for the rest of the year like the guys in Major League.
Anyway, maybe I'll never write another post on this blog. I just felt like I needed an outlet to get all of this shit out. But I am done with the Pirates until we get an owner with some balls. An owner who wants to win. I am having a hard time looking at myself in the mirror lately upon the sad realization that it wasn't the economics of baseball that kept us in the cellar. It was the fucking awful ownership of Bob Nutting.
1 comment:
Your Hickory Crawdaddy's are currently down 17-2 in the 3rd! Our farm system sure is looking up! the starter was pulled in the 1st!!!
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