Most of you aren't watching the Pirates, but just in case you cared what the BBTN crew thinks about your 2008 Buccos:
BBTN Looks at the Bucs
I don't think Kruk and Phillips are watching the Bucs either. Kruk said Nady will:
give you everything he has every play of the game, regardless of winning or losing.
vs
It's a glorious afternoon, just perfect for afternoon baseball. And the schedule makers have been kind enough to have the Bucs playing the Cubbies from the Friendly confines of Wrigley.
"I'm trying to figure it out," Morgan said. "I've got to get used to the dirt up here. These are better playing surfaces than in the minor leagues. They're more pristine surfaces. I need to go to the lab and figure it out -- maybe slide earlier. It's kind of frustrating when you take your team out of a rally. You feel like you're letting the boys down."We're really missing Littlefield's stress on fundamentals right now. Aren't we?
I'm not going to be able to provide a game by game breakdown of the Bucs. Even if time permitted, it's an agonizing habit to get into the daily coulda, shoulda, wouldas of any team for 162 games, let alone one that is as frustrating as the Pirates. Yesterday's home opener is a prime example: whoever is to blame for the failure to score in the 9th inning, the fact is that these debates happen very frequently with the Bucs - we've already seen at least two in the first 7 games - the infamous popup that fell in the first game was just the first in a long season. The fact is, they will continue to occur until the Bucs get better players who make the plays instead of offering some postgame explanation about what they were thinking and why the play didn't work.
Let's start out by giving a weekly, or some approximation therof, Good, Bad and Ugly of what we've seen of the Bucs and an adjusted forecast for where they will wind up in September.
THE GOOD
THE BAD
THE UGLY
So I've read a lot of previews, analyses, blogs, articles and other compositions about our Pittsburgh Pirates and their hopes for 2008 and what I've been able to deduce is that people are taking two different approaches to the '08 Bucs: either they aren't worth the time to write about or people go in depth and get creative about their chances and why they haven't won since 1992 and won't in 2008. Either way, the final result all the pundits come to is that the '08 Bucs will be just like every other team since '92 - losers.
Some offer help for Pirate fans, even listing 10 positive things about being a Bucco fan; some struggle for anything to say at all.
There is a 'starting 9' for the Bucs and there are position and role analyses.
A few think voodoo is working its magic on the Bucs: one fears voodoo is cursing the Bucs like it has the Cubs and Red Sox, another thinks it is keeping them from being the worst team in baseball.
One even records a video and thinks the Bucs will get of so close to that hallowed .500. Another has them just short as well. But WHYGAVS has already played out the season and knows .500 isn't all the Bucs will achieve. Or wait, maybe WHYGAVS was slapped back to reality.
And one feels a lot like me and has trouble even bothering with the Bucs right now.
But the Bucs are the Bucs and nothing wold be finer than a World Series parade through downtown. I know it won't happen in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or .... sometime soon. But progress is first measured in baby steps so sure as PNC Park is the finest yard in the land, I'll be following the Bucs in 2008, bleeding for them just I have for every year since 1975, which is as far back as I can remember.
So my prediction? How about improvement but not .500. How about 72-90 and maybe a finish ahead of the Astros in the NL Central.
Maybe Russell is the right hire. Maye his job last year keeping the Ottawa Lynx playing hard despite going 55-88 is a positive sign that he can manage. To me, it sounds a lot like what he'll be trying to do with the Bucs over the next few years: keeping a team that is clearly lacking the talent that others have playing hard even after their season has been decided. Sadly, after the players quitting on Lamont and Tracy, playing hard in August and September when they're 20+ games out of first is more than we've become accustomed to.
But that is obviously not the goal. The goal is to win. And the interesting, perplexing thing, is that there were candidates available to at least talk to who have won and who have ties to the Pirates and as Bob Smizik points out, weren't even in the conversation. Why not? Why not talk to Pena, Garner, Macha or Howe, all of whom have had success on the major league level in similar situations as the Bucs?!?!
And with an apparent renewed focus on re-establishing the Pirates tradition and identity, bringing back Chuck Tanner was the first step, why not think about Tony Pena, maybe the greatest catcher in Pirate history and a former manager of the year?
Why? Probably because Frank Coonelly is doing his job, which can be described as nothing more complicated than guarding the Nutting's bank accounts. And until that changes, having a team play hard in September is about all we can expect.
About a year and a half too late for this. Wonder if Cowher will defend himself this Sunday.
Happy Valley? Nice to see the PSU fans taking their lead from the irate JoePa after his traffic incident.
Are the Pirates still around? And no, interviewing this guy is not proof of life on the North Shore. While the baseball world frenzies itself with Torre drama, our nine continues to sit quietly by giving local baseball media types something to do instead of sparing us and going on vacation.
Open up Sunday Ticket for everyone, go for it on fourth down, teams with coaches and cheer babes that wear less will win, blitz and you will give up touchdowns. Yep, another TMQ that sounds an awful lot like all the others. I used to like him but no find myself about a paragraph in thinking "COLUMN OVER".
Sports Contraption fans can listen to Popeye describe the salad days of the show...
The scene is a rehabilitation center somewhere, possibly in a hospital. A man with braces on both legs is attempting to walk again using his hands and bars to hold him up since his legs are clearly not strong enough to support him. A trainer is assisting the man, encouraging him to walk towards him.
Suddenly, the trainer turns away, his attention caught by something off camera. The man falls backward awkwardly but the trainer offers no assistance. Instead, the trainer is transfixed, staring offscreen. Finally, his lips move a little and we hear him say, “Giles always crushes that pitcher.” The fallen patient exclaims, “Can I get some help here?” but gets no help, only a finger advising him to wait.
From what the trainer says, you’ve figured out that this is a commercial for a baseball team. Absurd as it may be and as little as it may have to do with baseball, somebody has decided that this is the best way to get people to watch baseball on TV. That somebody is an executive at Fox television, the real power that rules baseball.
Through the magic of baseball’s Extra innings package, anyone can watch baseball games televised on the various regional Fox Sports networks around the country. You can watch almost every major league game on most nights. Besides the fact that the game of baseball is being played, there is another similarity to what each of these channels airs during the games: this same tv ad.
The only difference is a subtle dubbing of the line spoken by the trainer. In Pittsburgh, you hear “Giles always crushes that pitcher.” In San Francisco, “Giles” becomes “Bonds”. In Cincinnati, it’s “Griffey” who does the crushing. And so on, with each regional network dubbing their stars name into the line. That is the only change in the ad as it airs from New York to Los Angeles.
The obvious question this raises is not the important question. The obvious question is who in the world thought this was an effective commercial, that somehow a baseball game was so compelling that it causes people to completely lose track of their surroundings resulting in disastrous results. This isn’t the only ad that Fox runs in this manner. They have been doing it for over a year now and while there is a miniscule amount of humor buried in the commercial, what I take away from the ads are how stupid and pointless they are. There is no connection to baseball and nothing that makes someone want to attend or even watch a game. They are dumb and pointlessly stupid commercials.
But there is a bigger issue: who runs baseball and are they looking out for the welfare of the game and its franchises?
The Pirates are not one of baseball’s elite franchises. To be successful, they need everything to go right for them and they cannot afford to waste money. They have in the past and it has crippled them, on and off the field and they are still struggling to rebound. Their money management is so tight that any extra dollars spent promoting the team must be welcomed, perhaps to the point where they are not concerned about the long term effect these Fox ads are creating.
The best way to promote baseball, if you’re not Bill Veeck, is to promote the game. If you are able to sell fans on the game, you can be more confident that they will return year after year since the game stays the same year after year. The allure of PNC Park has already worn off. Pierogi races don’t draw fans. Fireworks can’t be shot off every gamenight. Bobbleheads come and go. Selling the game also leads to a deeper understanding of the game, an understanding that can find reason t support the local nine through dark times if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
A fan of the game comes to watch the players perform and even if the team is not good, there is something in every game that a fan can watch and admire and may not see again the entire season. A fan of fireworks comes to the game, doesn’t pay attention to the game, is more easily agitated when the team is losing and gets most excited after the home team has gone to the clubhouse.
However, despite its need to develop a strong fan base, Pirate marketing efforts have been laughable. Not since their “We Play Hardball” campaign of the late 80s have the marketing efforts focused on the game and the team. The success of the early 90s and the large crowds provided a perfect opportunity to grow new fans on the game, but little headway was made and as soon as the free agents left town and success faded, so too did the attendance. From the mid 90s on, marketing efforts were overshadowed by threats to move the team, its financial problems and the momentous battle to build PNC Park, none of which cast positive light on the Pirates. Recent years have featured PNC Park and giveaways as the central focus of advertising and marketing efforts.
Finally this season things seemed to be coming around for the Pirates. The team brought in several players that juiced the fans. Optimism was higher for the 2003 Pirates than at any point over the past 10 years. Marketing centered on the players and not promotions that have nothing to do with the game.
Yet here we are and while the Pirates have stumbled badly on the field so far, they have been worse off the field because of their inability to draw fans. Those who have come to PNC Park have been treated to lousy baseball and more losses for the home team than any other team in the majors. In this situation the Pirates wallow, trying to dig out of a seemingly deepening hole. There is no more effective marketing tool than a winning team, yet an effective strategy would be able to minimize the impact that losing has. But it hasn’t.
And worse, they allow Fox TV executives to effectively sabotage Pirate marketing efforts by airing these senseless ads. To fans, there is no differentiating between the Fox ads and the Bucs ads. They both sell the same product, just with different messages and imagery. Conflicting messages and imagery. The Pirates have allowed their marketing efforts to be derailed by Fox.
Then again, Fox delivers the TV money so the Pirates won’t complain about the erosion of goodwill and mindshare that a conflicting and diluted marketing message creates during such a critical time for the Pirates to capitalize on a strong, focused and game friendly message.
Fox clearly doesn’t care about the individual markets and by not objecting to the TV execs, it seems that the Pirates don’t care about the long term in their current market either. So why should I?
