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The first caller into GBoF wants to talk Buccos

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I know many people are upset about the Bucs tearing the team apart once again and especially about Jumpin Jack and Sanchez leaving, but it comes down to this: do you want to watch players you like or do you want to watch a winning team?

If you want to watch a winner, these moves had to be done. And all of them had to be done. No sense doing it halfway.

Now that doesn't mean Huntington has stocked the system with players who will definitely turn the team around and produce a winner. But they weren't going to win as they were. Now, maybe they'll have a chance in a couple years. Many pieces have to come together still and there are some questions about who they acquired, but the system now has some talent in it and depth as well and jobs will have to be won, not handed out.

The pitching staff in particular may not have an ace in waiting, but there are now many who project as major league arms, something that wasn't true with guys like Bullington, JVB, and other from the Littlefield era.

Just for fun, let's look at 3 different lineups:
2009 Opening Day
C: Doumit
1B: Adam LaRoche
2B: Sanchez
SS: Wilson
3B: Andy LaRoche
LF: Morgan
CF: McLouth
RF: Moss

Post Trade Deadline lineup, 2009
C: Doumit
1B: Pearce
2B: D Young
SS: Cedeno
3B: Andy LaRoche
LF: Milledge
CF: McCutchen
RF: Jones

Tell me the truth, after all those guys who've been dealt, is the second lineup any worse than the Opening Day lineup? Nope, and it might be better if Pearce and Milledge play to their abilities.

Opening Day 2011
C: Doumit
1B: Pedro Alvarez
2B: D Young
SS: Argenis Diaz
3B: Andy LaRoche or Neil Walker
LF: Jose Tabata
CF: McCutchen
RF: Milledge

Rotation: Maholm, Duke, Alderson, Lincoln, Morton. Or possibly: Hart, Bryan Morris, Karstens, Ohlendorff, Ascanio.

Still lots of questions and issues with this lineup. But it COULD be a good lineup and they might still have guys like Gorkys Hernandez, Brian Friday, Chase D'Arnaud, Tony Sanchez, Miguel Angel Sano (??!!) and others to back up in case or be dealt for more players. And jsut waht if guys like Pearce and Garrett Jones can actually play over a full season?

Bottom line: the moves had to be done. It might be more interesting to watch Indy and Altoona for the next little while, but those guys will be in the Burgh soon.

Pittsburgh, PA; Everything Baltimore and Washington Would Love to Be

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/200972-pittsburgh-pa-everything-baltimore-and-washington-would-love-to-be

Does it burn you up, Washington D.C.? Does it hurt to see what your hockey franchise could be in the near future? The Pittsburgh Penguins, among the most hated pro sports franchises around these parts, took the impossible and converted it into a glittering reality for hockey fans.

How about it, Baltimore? You are a blue collar lot. Your city knows how to get down and dirty. You love hard-hitting defense and a smash-mouth running attack. Yet in the moments that count, the Pittsburgh Steelers can hang their hard hats on unshakable nerves and a fan base that lives and dies on every tackle evaded by Ben Roethlisberger.

Two metros with Three Rivers envy. Pittsburgh, at least in the ranks of professional sports, is everything we want to be.

Sure, colleges and universities dot the periphery of our collective metropolitan conscience. Fine art is accessible to the masses, a sprawling nightlife beckons to all that enter the limits of both cities, and the surrounding counties are a safe haven for those who just want to tour the concrete jungles on occasion.

There is more culture on I-295 than in the whole of Pittsburgh, but the Steel City continues to lord one thing over yuppies of the mid-Atlantic: championship-caliber sports.

For as much as we enjoy the trappings of city life, Baltimore and Washington leave much to be desired in the pride delivered by championship-winning teams. The Ravens unexpectedly delivered the goods in 2000, and while they’ve been consistent enough, they are never the favorites to win their own division, let alone the Super Bowl.

As for Washington pro football, we don’t even have to go there. Daniel Snyder continues to drive the crown jewel of the city into the ground, while Ted Leonsis has turned the city’s dunce cap into a shimmering crown of glory, making the Washington Capitals the franchise closest to competing for—and winning—a league championship. A championship that figures to run through Pittsburgh, at least for the near future.

We hate to admit it, most less-than-intelligent fans based here won’t. But Pittsburgh fans reign supreme in this axis of a sports rivalry, and so do their teams. We could say that they don’t know how to handle their success, but success itself is always the best response.

We yearn for your excitement. We envy your homegrown love for your teams and wish we didn’t have to suffer folks who move to our cities to work while holding their allegiances to other squads.

We hate the fact that you have fans all over the world, that Dan Rooney is savvy and beloved, and that your hockey star can be a crybaby and still find success.

And yes, we especially hate the fact that your rapid transformation into a Boston-like collection of ignorant, arrogant jerks is well-deserved. Lord knows how much we want to show off the jackass inside of all of us, if we only had the chance.

The Day Dawns

By the time I go to sleep again, I will experience a once in a generation event and be either ecstatic and drunk with joy or incredibly disappointed and wondering if I'll ever experience joy again.



I was 9 the last time a day like this happened. Almost 30 years later it has come around again.

Championships have been won. Game 7's have been played. Do or die's have been contested. But nothing compares to a Game 7 in the Finals.

Courtesy of the Pirates, if you can believe that, Pittsburgh had a run of 3 from 1960 through 1979, that being the last one and the last time a road team has won a Game 7 in a Final round of the NHL, NBA or MLB. Not since then have we seen something like this.

The Steelers have played 4 Super Bowls since the last Burgh Finals Game 7. Won 3 of them. But that is a one game matchup. Sometimes, like in February, it takes a bit for the game to heat up, for emotions to come to a boil.

Not in a Game 7, the last of a long series that forces emotions to the fore and hatred for the rival.

The Pirates have all but faded, but their last gasp provided perhaps the most painful Game 7 collapse in history. But it wasn't the final round. Even if Espy catches the ball, Lind fields it like the gold glover he was, Berryhill gets called out on strikes like he was, and yes, Bonds earns a series ending assist, there was still more work to do.

Tonight, or early tomorrow morning, no matter what there will be nothing more to do. Both teams go home. But one gets the prettiest present in all of sports to share with their fans and family all summer long. After a season pushed as far as it can go, that is the reward. Both have come as far as they can, but the teams and their fans will depart will remarkably different feelings and memories from today.

I am somewhat removed from the glow that is burning in both Pittsburgh and Detroit, unable to join the thousands in the Burgh on this collective roller coaster. This time, unlike in 1991 when I drove all day from Tennessee to the Igloo (getting lost and winding up in Kentucky along the way) for Game 2 vs the North Stars and got to witness 66 splitting Chambers and Wilkinson and enjoyed the Pens return with the Cup with thousands of others at old Pittsburgh International, this time I'll be watching from afar.

But even that didn't take 7 games to win. And even Game 7 heroes like Kasparaitis and villains like Volek and Fitzgerald will take a back seat to a Finals Game 7 hero.

Because this day is unlike any other. It's Game 7. Stanley Cup Finals. In the schoolyard for all the marbles.

And sometime Friday morning, I'll fall asleep with memories and emotions that I know won't likely come around again for a long long time, if ever.

Let's Go Pens!

Meet You In the Schoolyard for all the marbles...

Nobody does it better: Mike Lange in Game 6