As a rule, I try not to question the wisdom of the Bible, my elders or a Grade-A Badass like the late U.S. Army General George S. Patton. So when 'Old Blood and Guts' opined, "Americans love a winner," I was perfectly inclined to believe him. After all, when Al Groh started winning more poetry contests than football games, it was time for Virginia football to start anew. But then I thought of the Charlie Browns of the baseball world - the poor sots who call themselves Pittsburgh Pirates fans - and Patton's law shattered faster than the guy in the glass.
The continued existence of the Pittsburgh Pirates fan base is one of the world's great mysteries, right up there with platypuses and Nic Cage. No sports franchise in U.S. history, let alone Major League Baseball, can even begin to approach the Pirates' current streak of on-field futility. This season alone, the once-proud Pirates (43-88) have made plenty of history - none of it good - while amassing the worst record in baseball. April 22, the Buccos suffered their worst loss in franchise history, a 20-0 spanking at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers. Then Aug. 20, Pittsburgh clinched its 18th consecutive losing season, the longest such streak in North American professional sports. To say that Pirates fans have 'suffered' does them about as much justice as calling Nelson Mandela 'black.' And yet, PNC Park fills half its seats for every Pirates home game at a rate close to that of the playoff-bound Tampa Bay Rays. Call it loyalty, call it nostalgia, call it the fumes from all that metallurgy finally taking a toll. Even with the pennant-winning Phillies just a five-hour bandwagon away, the Steel City hasn't stopped cheering for the Pirates. That's what makes this next part so sad.
Last week, the Associated Press reported that the Pirates made about $30 million in profit from the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Yes, the Pittsburgh Pirates. No, I did not confuse $30 million with 30 million losses. Not the Yankees. Not the Cubs. Not one of the other MLB members of the big-spending, heavy-hitting, play-to-win school of sports ownership. The Pittsburgh Pirates, whose last winning season came when Barney and Scooby Doo were teaching me life lessons in the downtime between snack time and nap time; whose current 2010 payroll of $35 million ranks dead-last in baseball, again; and whose ownership - which 'splurged' for about a $33 million payroll in 1992 - clearly doesn't grasp the concept of inflation. All told, it's a super-sized slap in the face to Pirates players and fans, akin to the lucrative retreat enjoyed by AIG executives mere days after receiving an $85 billion bailout from the federal government.
I dare the owners of a Pirates team that pocketed almost $70 million from MLB's revenue sharing system in 2007 and 2008 to look its players and fans in the eyes and say, "We're doing the best we can with what we've got." That has basically been the party-line rhetoric spewed ad nauseam by Buccos boss Bob Nutting, the principal owner of the club since 2007. Too bad it's been a load of bull.
The Pirates' accountants can say all they want about how the team won't remain a financial success if it starts spending serious money to improve the on-field product. They're being rational. But they aren't accounting for the emotions inherent in a baseball franchise that hasn't sniffed .500 in almost two decades. Human beings do irrational things when they get emotional. Take Jason Bay, a longtime Pirates All-Star outfielder and fan favorite. In 2008, despite Bay's exceptional play and expressed desire to remain with the team, the Pirates dealt their franchise player to the Boston Red Sox for prospects in a rebuilding effort to get younger and cheaper. Immediately following the announcement of the trade, Bay became emotional, struggled to say goodbye. Then Bay wept because he loved the team, the fans and the city of Pittsburgh, where he and wife Kristen were dedicated to charity in local communities. Because he desperately wanted to bring them that elusive playoff berth, or at least a winning season. Because he was no longer a Pittsburgh Pirate. In 2008, after telling Jason Bay that even he wasn't worth it, Pirates ownership paid out more than $20 million to its partners. I guess they were just being rational.
Back in 1988, then-Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly wrote a gem of a piece entitled "Glory to the Gridiron." For baseball fans, it was the sports journalism equivalent of Santa stuffing a big batch of coal into your Christmas stocking, especially the classic quote by ESPN college football commentator Beano Cook. Upon hearing that the American victims of the Iranian Hostage Crisis received free baseball passes for life, Cook quipped, "Haven't they suffered enough?" My answer: only if they're Pirates fans. I wouldn't wish a hostage situation on anyone, and that's why I'm pleading that in 2011, Pittsburgh's penny-pinching owners pull out all of the stops for a Pirates franchise held captive for far too long. Call it a one-year trial run in trying to win - Patton would be proud. Even my roommate - one of those "wait 'til next year" Chicago Cubs fans - agrees that Pirates fans deserve a slice of Cubbie optimism. They truly have suffered enough.
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