you just dont get it… its two separate things. its how was a baseball stadium more benificial than a football stadium to the citys economy… the other issue is the teams performance. and within that there is the underlying issue of how MLB doesnt have the same rules for a team to succed like football and hockey. you keep ignoring black and white facts that spending more and more money isn;t goin to garentee anything. the cubs, mets and even LA havent won anything in the last 20 years and continue to spend tons of money. It hasnt even worked consistantly for the yankees. The pirates are in a catch 22 right now because previous regimes (way before mclatchy, littlefield, bonifay) left their farm systems baron of any talent. You can sit here and say how much better the pirates would be if they had bay and nady and mcclouth but i remember they were just as bad of not worse when they had them. A lot of things have been out of their control as well… Oliver Perez was untouchable his first year then went in the shitter…you can’t blame the onwer for that stuff. you can;t blame the owner for adam laroche hitting 35 HRs in ATL and then trading for him and hit shits the bed in april may and june… Casey Stengel could rise from the dead and manage the team and it wouldnt mean they would win more games…Forget about 93-08…there isnt shit that can be done about it now…its 09…they are finally starting to make ground on getting too consistancy. you cant get good until you are consistant. the fact they are doing slightly better without bay/mcclouth/nady’s HR’s is a credit to how good the moves actaully were… the pirates are doing it with speed, contact hitting and consistant pitching. That is the model they need to follow. They simply cant outbid the yanks, sox, cubs, mets…etc for the big HR guys. The Pirates under the MLB structure would have to throw all their eggs in one basket and they proved it doesnt work… they’ve went out and signed quality players that have come here and went in the tank and then get blamed for signing washed up bums when it was not the case. They paid kendall big money to make the fans happy and he couldnt get an extra base hit to save his life. They had giles who hit 30+ HRs on a regular basis and LOST with him.
to be fair the nuttings didnt just buy they team. they have been the silent majority for atleast 8 years… McClatchy was just the face because he was part owner/CEO. he infact only ever owned 10-15% of the team. he took all the abuse when he really wasnt the man behind the black curtain. his initial investment was 10mil when the team was bought for 90mill in 96. i mean mcclatchy to the pirates was less than mcginleys were to the steelers. there are many entities that have their hand in the pirates. one of which is the pittsburgh associates…there are a lot of people who are part of them. to put things in perspective the pirates playing in a league with the yanks, red sox, etc…is like the corner store going against walmart.
I’m not making excuses…i just understand the reasons of why they haven;t done well on a regular basis… I want to see them do well as much if not more than the average fan…it affects me in more ways than just my fan side. I would love to be getting a ring just like the steelers and penguins front office staff. for most of my career here i have been against most of what they did in baseball ops but i still understood the pirates cant compete in the current MLB. the fan in me doesnt want to support losing but i now really do think progress is being made from A to the big leagues and believe their is reason to be positive.