Spiraling Out of Control

I like these afternoon games because I can tune in for the radio broadcasts and listen while I plug away at work.

Yesterday was an epic collapse, not just to give up the 7-0 lead, but the manner in which they did so.

After Mr. Sunshine damn near had an orgasm on air when Walker hit his homerun to put the Bucs up by 6 I thought to myself, wouldn't it be funny if Mr. No Run Support Maholm managed to blow this one after all those game that he pitched well, but not well enough to win.

Beltran's 3 run homer in the 3rd was a little disappointing, but acceptable. You throw strikes with a big lead, and sometimes you get dinged for it. Maholm got out of that inning and you figured he’d still be able to hold a 4 run lead down, no problem, right?

Beltran got things going for the Mets again in the 6th with a lead off double, but then after walking J-Bay, Maholm got Pagan to fly out and the runner moved over on a ground out by Paulino. It seemed that the Bucs would escape unscathed. Evans walking to load the bases should have been the sign right there that Maholm was done. Instead he was left out there to dry by his manager and gave up two bloop singles to cut the lead down to 7-6.

A coworker at this point then commented that Diaz’s error could be costly because Tejada moved to 3rd and could now score on a wild pitch or passed ball. That is exactly what occurred and I then proceeded to ask that same coworker for Powerball predictions for Saturday night. IF the #s come up 7-18-26-43-51 PB-44 you will never see me blogging again, I’ll be living down on some Caribbean Island somewhere starting Monday.

I don’t think it took great clairvoyance at this point though to realize that this was not going to end well for the Pirates. Any time Jogging Ronny Paulino can give up 3 stolen bases in the 1st two innings and be the relatively stalwart defensive Catcher for the game, you know your team has a problem.

The 8th inning provided more Super Trooper level shenanigans for the Buccos. The aforementioned fatso Paulino managed to single to start the inning. Then things got Area 51 level weird. I’m going off of memory of half-heartedly listening here, but I believe the Mets brought in a pinch runner for Usain Bolt Ronny Paulino and a pitcher to presumably lay down a sac-bunt. Pitcher fails to do so, but in the process draws a balk that moves the runner to second with no sacrificial lambs needed. So the backup catcher is brought in to pinch hit, since he would have to be entering the game anyway next inning to replace Paulino. A wild pitch is then uncorked by the Bucs hurler, moving the runner to 3rd. The replacement batter then manages to draw a walk, so you have 1st and 3rd, no outs after a solitary single, and a sac fly draws in the run and moves the runner to 2nd on a dumb play by McCutchen to not just throw to the base. 8-7 Mets. Next guy up is walked intentionally. The guy after him is walked unintentionally. Bases loaded again. For the inning that is 5 runners, 7 batters up , and 1 statistical at bat so far. The next guy fouls out, but then the eventual game winning run is walked in with the Bases loaded.

The way the Pirates blew this game is beyond mind boggling. It stretches the fabric of space time relativity and makes you wonder if the team is just plain cursed with some sort of evil voodoo hex.I know Maholm has pitched statistically well and it’s not all his fault when the team doesn’t score runs around him. Call me old school though, but I think there is something to be said for pitching well enough for your team to actually secure the W. He isn’t pitching these games in a statistical bubbledome. It’s an actual real life competition where you are part of a team trying to outduel the other guys on the field. He is very well compensated to get out there and be a competitor. I just don’t see any fire in his eyes or blood in his guts.

A lot of the local media I’ve listened in the past 24 hours have given him, and the Pirates, a pass on this latest blowup as an “anomaly” and “one of those things that happen in the course of a baseball season.” I’m here to tell you folks, it’s kind of attitude that has us staring down the long road to a 19th, and most likely a 20th losing season in a row for this ballclub. I’d rather have some lunatic raving about how they need to blow things up and start all over after a loss like this, then a resigned acceptance that this is one of those things that just happens.

Anytime fans get up some semblance of hope, the Pirates stomp a boot back down on their face.
I, for one, am horribly sick of it.

Abandon All Hope, Ye who Enter Here

I generally consider myself a pretty reasonable fellow. I take alot of things in stride and try to handle situations as they arise in a calm and rational manner. However, there is something about the major league team absolute joke of a pathetic franchise that inhabits my fair city that drives me to the point of stark, raving lunacy.

I grew up loving the Pirates and the sport of baseball. I am not ashamed to admit that as an 8 year old lad, on October 14th, 1992, at 11:52 PM, I bawled my eyes out when He Who Shall Not Be Named hit a line drive into left field and BLB couldn't throw out The Mustachioed Gimp With Two Bad Knees.

My world came crashing down that night, but as a young boy I was encouraged that there would always be hope for next year. Yes, the team would change, and maybe have to rebuild with some of my favorite players leaving, but that in baseball, spring training and a new season always meant a new hope.

We here in Pittsburgh have been robbed of such hope. Anybody who conjures up lofty expectations for this team every April is either delusional or on the payroll. This is not the fault of Major League Baseball, the fans, or the players the team currently employs until they are inevitably dumped off for more prospects.

So please understand that we here of the Mutiny are not anti-baseball, anti-Pittsburgh, or even anti-Pirate. We are anti-Pirate Management, plain and simple. We despise them for their lies, hypocrisy, greed, and manipulations that allow them to continue to drag a profit out of the team while never, ever trying to field a competitive major league club.

The Pirates front office is full of lying liars who lie about lying. I do not believe a single word that exits any of their yap-holes. Every year it is the exact same message about how they have turned a corner, and this is the year the upward trend begins, blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.

This is from the Lying Liar at the start of the 2011 season, but it can be cut and pasted with a few words changed around each year of the past 18: "This is the first time I've gone into a season excited about our major-league team," he said. "Our first year, there was a little uneasiness about where we were going. If that team had shown us it was ready to compete, we were ready to add to it. It didn't, and we knew the transition had begun."

This particularly drove me nuts. It reeks of overarching smug, unjustifiable arrogance that permeates the organization. That they know something that we don’t, us peons, us peasants who line their fat-cat pockets with shillings and sheckels from peanuts, popcorn, and beer at their inflated prices inside the confines of their pristine slaughtering ground upon the Allegheny. They view us as cattle who will line up willingly for another season of losing, hope, and empty promises about a future, that I am more and more convinced every year is never coming from them. There is no future. There is no hope. It is doom and dread, a lifeless corpse of a once proud franchise that inhabits our fair city.

Here is another example of the management's true intentions to always dangle hope out there, but at the end of the day, they pull the rug out from underneath their most committed (and by that I do mean insane) fans:

Pirates Prospects: ``Would the Pirates be able to afford a $70M to $80M payroll, in present-day worth, if this current group of players were competitive enough to merit additional outside free agents?’’

Lying Liar: ``Today, no, but we will be able to support that payroll very soon if our fans believe that we now have a group of players in Pittsburgh and on its way here in the near future that is competitive. We need to take a meaningful step forward in terms of attendance to reach that payroll number while continuing to invest heavily in our future, but I am convinced that the attendance will move quickly once we convince our fans that we are on the right track.’’


Being a Pirate fan is like living in a dystopian world where Love is Hate, War is Peace, and Losing Baseball is Hope For the Future.

This is a disingenuous, deceitful franchise that is well vested in using Orwellian goodthink to continue upon its drifting aimless course of constantly futile major league baseball with vague assurances of a future that is always, always, always, at least 5 years away.
When I imagine the future, I imagine a boot stamping on a human face- Forever.

Glossary of Terms

In order for the readers of this blog to better understand my diction as it pertains to the subject matter, here is a working list of terms/nicknames that will be commonplace in my posts:

#'s:

3RS- Three Rivers Stadium- The former stomping grounds of the Pirates and Steelers. Some of the greatest teams in MLB and NFL history played their home games there. 3RS was the predecessor to the JotNS, which the Nuthouse/Fall Guy regime swindled out of the Tax Payers by promising a better on field product if given a shiny new stadium to display it in. The Steelers and Pens also got new, tax payer funded venues, but have likely generated more revenue for the city and county in a single season than the Bucs in the last 10 years.

.500- the Pirates unicorn. The winning percentage not seen in nearly 20 years. That figure is likely to double.
A:

AAAA player or 4-A Player- refers to the majority of players on the Pirates roster. Not really MLB caliber, but slightly above AAA level.

Anti's- refers to the lunatic fringe Pirates fans who, for some unknown reason, believe the franchise is underachieving.I stole this from SmizBlog

AVS- Andy Van Slyke, Pirates great CF during Glory Years. Suffered career altering injury, referred to by BLB as Great White Hope because he actually tried on every play and people appreciated his effort. AVS once punched BLB in the nose and refused a Canadian flag sticker on this batting helmet because they are "a bunch of socialist pacifists."
B:

Bob Smizik- Former PG writer and current PG blogger who is openly critical of everything, ever. He has oft drawn the ire of the Lying Liar as well as Pens fans and most esepcially Mark Madden (whom he actually got fired at one point). He should, however, be viewed as history's #1 Pirates fan as he is the only person who was alive for all 5 World Series wins. He also wants exactly what we here at the Mutiny want: a competitive and potentially prosperous baseball team.

Brontosaurus- refers to Brewers portly 1B Prince Fielder. He is the world's largest vegetarian, owns the Pirates, and always rubs it in. He is also very fat.

Bucs- a nickname for the Pirates. Short for Buccaneers, rhymes with sucks. Also synonymous with the name of the Tampa Bay NFL team that once went 2 games shy of losing EVERY GAME for 2 consecutive seasons.

BLB- Barry Lamarr Bonds- refers to the candy arm who couldn't throw out Sid Effing Bream on the Day the Franchise Died. Bonds naturally left the team soon thereafter and in his late 30's ballooned from 185 lbs to 250 lbs and improved his stats. He clearly did not do steroids. He is also seen by many Pittsburghers as an albatross around the Pirates' neck as his departure was the beginning of the end.
C:

Cutch- refers to Andrew McCutchen, the Luke Skywalker/Obi-Wan of the Pirates franchise. i.e. believed to be Our Only Hope.

Cleveland- the city that every Pittsburgh sports fan is glad that we are not.......

D:
the Day the Franchise Died (DFD)- refers to October 14, 1992. If you do not know what that  date refers to, then honestly why are you even here?

Dynasty- what the Lying Liar envisions for the Pirates in the not too distant future.

DK- Dejan Kovacevic. The very talented PG reporter who had the unreal job of being the Bucs beat writer for a very long time. He is very realistic and honest.

E:

Evil Empire- refers to the New York Yankees. But honestly, at least they want to win.

Welcome Aboard

Let's get a few things out of the way:

The purpose of this blog is for the many, many jaded Pittsburgh Pirates fans to voice their opinions on the franchise. Since 1992, the Pirates have been a much maligned franchise and while some people are still inexplicably optimistic year in and year out that somehow this team will catch lightning in a bottle, most of us living in reality know that just isn't going to happen without some DRASTIC changes to the organization. Also, have you ever tried to catch lightning in a bottle? That's damn near impossible! Odds are something like 1 in 775,000 of getting hit by lightning alone, I am sure actually catching it would be like 1 in 2,000,000. What's ironic is that if you add those 2 up, that is precisely the same odds of the Pirates having a winning season under the current ownership group.

If you know me, and chances are you do because you are just reading this as a favor to me ,you know I love irony almost as much as I love my wife and my dogs. So a little bit of irony is what lead me to finally starting this blog. Yesterday, I learned that the Pittsburgh Pirates organization has had yet another Public Relations SNAFU ( situation normal: all f***ed up). If they could count PR blunders  as wins over the years, we wouldn't have a losing streak in place old enough to legally vote. Yesterday's mishap, however, was the straw that broke the camel's back for me as a (disenfranchised) Pirates Fan.

Upon learning that a local bar in Kennedy Twp, The Stroll Inn, runs a promotion of 5 cents off a pitcher of beer per Pirates loss ( cumulative for the season) employees of the Pirates conjured up the brilliant idea to initiate a company wide boycott of the this little bar in the suburbs. News of the boycott eventually reached the owner of the establishment, Estelle Aversa. who was justifiably angry at the thin skinned nature of supposed professionals.While I side with Ms. Aversa, I would have cautioned her that an organization who can't bother to put a team of professionals on the field shouldn't be relied upon to do the same with their administrative staff as well. Moreover, it was later discovered that team President Frank Coonelly, referred to from here on out as the "Lying Liar", contacted Ms. Aversa. According to her account of the conversation, he was rude, unprofessional, and discourteous to her. He said he supported his employeess' right to freely express their opinions. This is from the same organization that just a year ago fired a Pierogi Racer for making disparaging remarks about the teams' win/loss total via his facebook account.

With that in mind, it occurred to me that the Lying Liar is a hypocrite. Actually, he is a fascist. You are free to speak your mind as long as what's on your mind is something that he agrees with. It reminded me of an early episode of The Office when Michael Scott tells Toby Flenderson: "This is an environment of welcoming, and you should just get the hell outta here." because he didn't agree with his practices. But that is the nature of the beast when dealing with the Pirates,  assume the worst, most inept, idiotic situation will occur and then watch it unfold before your very eyes. With the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, if you hope for the epitome of embarrassment, bottom dwelling, hall of shame level performance, you are in luck because you are going to get it in spades.

This organization can't take a joke because they are one. From top to bottom and every person in between, it's like a comedy of errors day in and day out. The only problem is, to fans who want to be something more than a punchline, this joke isn't funny anymore.