Sure a lot of people are jumping on the Penguins bandwagon, but that happens in every city. The Penguins have tried to do something about their situation and management got them the right kind of picks and they lobbied for a better bargaining agreement.
I was at Mellon Arena 3-4 years ago when attendance was 9,000 on most nights yelling at the top of my lungs like we were making runs for the Cup.
Pittsburgh fans ain’t all bandwagoners, but when your team doesn’t do shit to try and make things better, then you lose hope on them.
the penguins 1) were lucky the NHL went on strike and fixed itself and 2) LUCKY as fuck to get the first pick of the draft the year the next hockey GOD was available.
the people who make the crowds sell outs are bandwagoneers those 9000 were the real hockey fans. its not like the pirates dont try… they just can’t compete and still be lucrative… i mean hell if it was ur team would you want it to lose money and lose money year after year?? dont be fooled by george steinbrenner… that motherfucker is spendin a lot of money because he’s making like 5 itmes that. it wouldn;t matter if mark cuban was the owner… he’d want to make money too. don;t be fooled by all that “he just wants to win” talk… BASEBALL IS FUCKED UP… THE FANS ARE TO BLAME BECAUSE THEY BEG FOR MORE OFFENSE AND BOBBLEHEADS!!! if people would still go even thou there is a chance of a 1-0 pitchers duel… the sport would right itself but they won’t … the fan is greedy and they feel this sense of entitlement. Me, i’m a baseball fan… i enjoy seein both pitchers mow people down rather than seein double AA caliber pitchers giving up 460 ft homeruns to giants gorillas.
We could get 2 or 3 allstars in the next draft and it would not save the Pirates. We have had plenty of great prospects and the Pirates either trade them away for someone who sucks, or somehow suck the talent out of the guys.
you obviously dont shit about baseball… what can be done when guys play well somewhere else or in the minors and come here and go in the shitter… coaches and organization do not have that much of an impact to make a guy all of the sudden play like shit. ok we traded brian giles for jason bay and oliver perez… bay was great then sucked this year and perez was unhittable then went in the shitter and was traded. you can do anythng about that… it happends. the word prospect just means someone who is goo but not good enough to be in the big leagues… if you that good u will be in the bigs and not a prospect. Do you not understand the pirates can’t buy talent like other teams… so they sign verterans and pray they have a abnormal great year… sometimes it works. most times it doesn;t… a far as trading prospects away… they only traded guys they knew would not sign or they knew they couldnt so they tried to get the best they could for them… the cam bonifay set the pirates back so many years because of bad contracts such as jason kendall @ 10million a year… to the yankees thats nothin but to the pirates that hurts big time. the problem is MLB… the problem is MLB…the problem is MLB… i dont know how many times i have to say it. fix baseball and the pirates have a chance. Until then 79 was the last championship they will ever win.
I disagree. If coaches and management had nothing to do with the quality of play, then they would not make as much as they do. Something is wrong with the way the team is being managed/coached and the players’ ability levels is suffering. We aren’t trying to improve our players; we get guys who are good prospects and could be allstars with some development and somehow they always end up being a nobody 2 years later. We also have the tendency to pick up guys who are about 5 years past their prime and we pay them like they are still putting out league leading numbers.
you must read and believe everything you see in the post gazette… who by the way is a competitor of the nuttings in the news paper business… don;t you think there is a conflict of interest on the PG’s end?..
look i work there and i’m always willing to point our the teams faults because i hate my job but the areas you are attacking aren;t the main reason the pirates are aweful.
No, I don’t read the newspaper at all. I just see who the Pirates have a prospects and I see their potential talent and then I see them die off as a nobody a few years later. And it is hard not to notice when the Pirates spend their payroll on washed up players who were at the top of their game in like 2000. I am not saying that your explanations for the Pirate’s bad track record is wrong, you work there so you should know. But I am just saying it the way I see it. I may be wrong, but this is just the way I see things from my perspective. I have followed the Pirates since I was little and it was great to be a fan in the early 90’s but at this point I could care less what happens to them. Being a bandwagon fan is one thing, but I just can’t cheer for a team anymore that does absolutely nothing for the city and has not had a winning season in like 15 years give or take a few; and thats not from the PG thats just facts.
i think they are maxed out for the market they are in. if they spend more they can’t get the return… i mean they could sell lout everygame but they wont because its pittsburgh.
being around a lot of baseball minded people i can tell you that most “prospects” don’t pan out. we only know about the pirates ones but it goes on in every city. i will say the pirates and MLB as a whole needs to get rid of the good ole boys network. there are too many scouts with one foot in the grave. they keep recycling these same coaches… its time for new blood… no phil garner, no ken macha… A NEW GUY!
to say the pirates do nothing for the city thou is not true unless you speak soley on wins and losses. without the pirates there is no all star game last year… the pirates bring more business to the city than the other two sports teams (81 dates, you can argue that) the pirates put more money into pittsburgh charities than the other two combined. The pirates too have competion that the other sports dont have for the most part… the pirates play in the citys best weather months and they have to compete with kennywood and anything else that is open in the summer. Pittsburgh is also a pretty big college city… for most of the season those students are not around because they are back at home.
and now you have come to the answer of why i dont like baseball as i did when i was a kid…its a business not a sport. you can;t expect someone to lose money on a business. if the fans had a financial stake they too would sell out their want for winning for their want of money.
it dont really matter thou… say they spend the 30 million they are making a year on the team… the yankees, rod sox etc are still spending like double even triple that. … it wont matter till they tell the MLBPA to fuck themselves and institute a salary cap… let them strike forever if they want.
Where do most NFL teams make the most money from? I would imagine from TV Networks. Not that big of a demand in baseball for games on tv. Thats probably the biggest differentiator in income
noooooo you miss interpreted… the pirates themselves made 30mill that is their profit. while the steelers and NFL teams bring in tons more money… that is for theselves! my comment was that the pirates bring more money into the city (businesses, parking, hotels, airport traffic, etc etc) than the steelers do. its very simple… 81 home games vs 8 home games. yeah the heinz will pack in 60,000 for one game we averaged 22,000+ this year. so in a three game series is about equal to one steelers home game. so in aprx 24 games the pirates bring in (fans) what the steelers do for a season.
i know its hard pill to swallow becasue living in this city the steelers are treated like God and the pirates are treated like Dogs. But you can’t ignore 81 vs 8.
the NFL has way more lucrative endorsement deals than MLB. teh tv contracts, the corporate sponsorships, etc… And the fact that that is all shared is why those teams are pullin that kinda bank in… the yankees pull in that kinda bank. its the most valuable sports team in this country. but then you have a team like the nationals on the other end of it.