The Pirates at the 20% Pole

Regular readers know that I usually wait until thirty games have been played in a new baseball season before making any serious commentary on how our Pittsburgh Pirates are doing.  By that time, batters have accumulated enough AB's and pitchers enough IP's to make some reasoned judgement on "how they're doin'."

As in 2023, the Bucco started off hot and after eleven games, they were at 9-2 and in first place in the NL Central Division.  Twenty-one games later, things have balanced out, to say the least, and here are your NL Central standings as of this morning:

A 5-16 record after that hot start, and ensconced in last place of a division that appeared be eminently win-able coming out of spring training.

Surprisingly, the pitching, especially the starting pitching has been surprisingly well, and the story of the season so far has been the performance of 22 year old rooking Jared Jones.

As he has been routinely serving up pitches at 100 mph and being among the league leaders in strike outs, Jones has indeed been fun to watch, even if his last start against the Giants this week didn't go so well.  He has given fans something to excited and optimistic about.

Then there are the Pirates bats.  Simply stated, the Pirates offensive output has been truly offensive in these thirty-two games.  In their last game against the Oakland A's on Wednesday, the Pirates started guys with BA's of .162, .168, .205, .212, and .217.  Ke'Bryan Hayes, Brian Reynolds, and Oneil Cruz, the guys who were to be the offensive core of the lineup, are batting .264, .248. and.239, respectively, and Cruz has been striking out a prodigious rate.

Andrew McCutchen, who appeared as a pinch hitter yesterday, and has been used as a DH all season is hitting .188.  Cutch, easily the best and most beloved Pirates player of this century, appears at age 37 to be finished.  The team will be needing to make a hard call on his future soon, it would seem.

Over the winter, my friend Dan made the frequent comment that went along these lines:  "If the Pirates are really serious about wanting to win and compete in the National League, they will need to sign a first basement who can still play, and can hit."  The name Rhys Hoskins was frequently batted around amongst our crotchety breakfast group.  But the Pirates didn't do that.  Instead, they signed Rowdy Tellez.

In 31 games and 83 at bats, Tellez has 1 home run, 7 RBI, and is batting .205 with an OPS of .552.  In other words, he stinks, and he becomes just another name in a long line of washed up players (Jeromy Burnitz, Derek Bell, Lonnie Chisenhall, and others that have long been forgotten, with good reason) whose biggest attribute was the one that the Pirates value the most:  They all came cheap.   It's nice that Tellez appears to be a decent guy, a team player, and good guy to have in the locker room, but that ain't winning any games for the Pirates these days.

And perhaps most infuriating of all is the case of pitcher Paul Skenes, chosen by the Bucs with the first pick in the first round of last years draft. 

Despite limited use last season and in spring training this year, Skenes looked to be the Pirates best pitcher, if not the best player in the entire organization.  In 23 innings pitched at Indianopolis, Skenes has struck out 41, while allowing one earned run (0.39 ERA), and WHIP of 0.87, while frequently exceeding 100 mph with his pitches.   Yet he remains in Indy as the Bucco Brain Trust continues yammering about checking boxes and "the plan" that they have for Skenes.   Skenes has shown that he has nothing to prove or learn at the Triple-A level, and the major league team is floundering, so there is no reason that Skenes should NOT be in Pittsburgh right now if, that is, you care about winning baseball games in 2024, and not just saving dollars by putting off Skenes arbitration and free agent eligibility an extra year or two.

But, regardless of who the manager of general manager may be, it has always been thus on Bob Nutting's Pirate Ship of Fools.

As I often say, it ain't easy being a Pirates fan.

The Grandstander Returns and Absent Friends

For a period of thirty-two (32!) days, March 28 until today, April 29, The Grandstander has made exactly one (1!) post, and many of you are probably asking, "Where in the hell has The Grandstander been?"  

You HAVE been asking that, right?

Well, there has been much going on in our lives these recent weeks, including a death in the family and brief vacation that I need to share with you. There's start of the Pirates season, and the Steelers Draft, and thoughts on the Truman Capote classic "In Cold Blood" on which I want to opine, and over the next several days I will share my thoughts on all of those matters, but first, let's start with what is undoubtedly The Grandstander's most popular feature: Obituaries.  Three Absent Friends to commemorate today.

Larry O'Brien

Larry O'Brien

1942-2024

The death of long time Pittsburgh disc jockey and radio personalty Larry O'Brien comes less that six moths after the death of his on-air partner John Garry.  The team ruled the Pittsburgh morning drive time radio airways from 1975 to 1997.  There is no reason to change any of the wording that I used when I memorialized Garry's death last October:

"John Garry....and partner Larry O'Brien ruled the Pittsburgh morning drive airwaves for over twenty years from 1975 to 1997 on WTAE 1250 and on 96.1 FM.  I spent my entire working career, it seems, waking, showering, dressing, and driving to work listening to O'Brien and Garry.  To me at least, they were the team that finally filled the void in  Pittsburgh radio left when Rege Cordic and Cordic & Company left in 1965 for Los Angeles.

"I can still remember many of the bits that these guys performed over the years.  It is radio and television personalities like John Garry (and Larry O'Brien) that become such a rich part of the communities in which they worked."

Carl Erskine

Carl Erskine

1926-2024

The death of baseball player Carl Erskine at the age of 97 is notable for several reasons, but perhaps the foremost reason is that he was the mainstay member of the pitching staff of the team that was memorialized in Roger Kahn's classic book, "The Boys of Summer", the Brooklyn Dodgers circa 1949-56.

Erskine pitched twelve years in the majors, all with the Dodgers, and won 122 games.   He was a twenty game winner in 1953, and pitched two no-hitters in 1952.  In game three of the 1953 world Series, Erskine struck out 14 batters, including Mickey Mantle four times, to establish a Series record that stood for ten years.  He was the starting pitcher for the Dodgers for their first game ever in Los Angeles.

After his retirement, he returned to his native Indiana where he became a banker, working his way up to becoming president of the bank and a high official in the Indiana State Bankers Association.  He also coached a small college baseball team to four conference championships in his tenure.

One of the Erskines four children was special needs child, so he also become involved in Special Olympics and raising awareness for special needs persons.

In more recent years, the Borough of Brooklyn renamed a street Erskine Street in his honor, and that street is, of course, located in the vicinity of where Ebbets Field once stood.

Carl Erskine's life was truly a life well lived.

Roman Gabriel

Roman Gabriel

1940-2024

The thing that I remember about quarterback Roman Gabriel, who died this month at the age of 83, is that he was big.  Really big.  In the current era of guys like Josh Allen, Ben Roethlisberger, and Joe Burrow, quarterbacks who are big don't stand out, but in the late 1960's, the 6'5" Gabriel stood out against peers such as Fran Tarkenton and Bart Starr.  Gabriel was good, too.  His career lasted 16 season, eleven of them with the Rams, and he threw 201 touchdown passes against 149 interceptions.  He was the NFL MVP in 1969 and the Comeback Player of the Year a few seasons after that when he moved to the Eagles.  

He also dabbled in acting with some modest degree of success.  He has 28 credits in IMDB including a movie, "The Undefeated" with John Wayne and Rock Hudson, and spots on Rowen and Martin's Laugh-In, Perry Mason, Wonder Woman, and Gilligan's Island.

He played most of his career in the pre-Super Bowl Era, and his Rams never made it to the NFL Championship, either.  He is not a Pro Football Hall of Famer (although he is a member of the North Carolina State HOF), so he is not all that well remembered here in the 2020's, but he was quite a force in the NFL during his time.

RIP Larry O'Brien, Carl Erskine, and Roman Gabriel.

To Absent Friends - Yvonne Mulzet, aka Grandma Bonnie

 

Yvonne Puharic Mulzet

"Grandma Bonnie"

1931-2024

Family and friends said good-bye this past Monday morning to my mother-in-law, Yvonne, who died on April 11 at the grand age of 92, even though she told everyone that she was 90.  Of course, I only met Yvonne about two and a half years ago, so I have had no long history with her, and that, based on everything that we saw and heard over the last several days and during the ritual of the viewing and funeral, is my loss, for what a legacy she leaves.

She and her husband Chuck had three children, Kurt, Susan, and Linda.  She had six grandchildren and twenty (20!) great grandchildren, who all knew her as "Grandma Bonnie", but it seems that she was Grandma Bonnie to just about everyone who came into the spheres of her and her children.  The viewing was filled with friends of Kurt, Sue, and Linda who all came to say good-bye to Grandma.  A little boy who lived on her street once took her to show-and-tell when he was in first grade, and he made sure that she went with him to the premier of one of the Star Wars movies.  That same little boy, now 15 years old, did one of the readings at her funeral Mass on Monday.

My memories of Yvonne will be of nickel poker games and showing her how to play black jack on my FanDuel phone app, after which she asked Linda if she could get that "FanDuel thing" on her phone.  (That never happened, btw.)   I also loved hearing her stories about the days when she and her husband would follow the Pittsburgh Hornets at the old Duquesne Gardens.

So we begin to move on.  Losing a parent, regardless of how long that they have been with us, is never easy, but our parents never really leave us, do they? They live on in the memories that they leave to us, and the values that they have instilled in us.  That becomes a parent's greatest legacy.

RIP Grandma Bonnie.

With her kids, Sue, Kurt, and Linda

Three Generations

Sarah and Linda

Opening Day 2024

I cannot recall a time in the fifteen years (!!) that I have been writing this blog where I have spent a spring time where I have written less about baseball and, more specifically, the Pittsburgh Pirates than I have in this Year of Our Lord 2024.  So, on this Opening Day, the day in which all things remain possible, as JFK might have put it, let us begin.

Before getting into the Pirates, a word about what will be, if it isn't already, Rob Manfred's biggest nightmare, the Shohei Ohtani Affair.  Baseball's biggest star has found himself smack in the middle of some questionable affair concerning illegal bookmaking and betting on, maybe, possibly, baseball games to the tune of a measly $4.5 million.  The Dodgers and Ohtani have already fired the guy set to become the Fall Guy here, Ohtani's interpreter, but this thing is far from over, and Manfred has to be sick with the thought of having to suspend or even ban the sport's brightest and biggest star over these matters.

As the saying goes, we'll see how it all plays out.

Now, on to the Pirates.

Of the twenty-six players coming north with the team, here are the players about whom I am excited:

SP Mitch Keller

SP Jared Jones

RP David Bender

C   Henry Davis

SS Oneil Cruz (especially him!!)

3B Ke'Bryan Hayes

OF Brian Reynolds

OF Jack Suwinski

OF Michael A. Taylor

DH Andrew McCutchen

Ten out of twenty-six, and only two of them are starting pitchers, and therein lies the biggest question mark and/or weakness of the team: starting pitching and the lack of depth therein.   This is especially frustrating when one realizes that the team just might possess an outstanding starting pitcher, one who shows all the signs of becoming a legitimate Ace Number One starter, and he will be starting the season in Indianapolis.  I am speaking of course of Paul Skenes, last year's over all first pick in the draft.  He has pitched all of three innings in spring training, but according to all reports, he is Major League ready NOW, but the Bucs are not bringing him to Pittsburgh to start the season.  Gotta protect that service time...gotta put off that arbitration eligibility date....gotta put off that free agency eligibility season (by which time, there is a good chance that the team will already have traded him for prospects).  Yep, can't spend any money if you don't have to on the Bob Nutting Ship of Fools.  What a tiring story this has become.

In 2023, the Pirates improved by 14 games over 2022, and won 76 games.  A similar improvement in '24 would produce 90 wins and put the Pirates in the thick of playoff contention, but alas, I don't see it happening.  FanDuel set the Over/Under on Pirates wins for the season at 75.5.  I put $20 on the OVER, if only because I don't want to be rooting for them to lose as the season winds down in September.  I think 75-80 wins is about the outside limit for the team this year.  As always, when it comes to the Bucs, I hope that I'm wrong in this gloomy forecast.

My own goal is to see at least twelve games at PNC Park this season.

Oh, and I also know that we are all looking forward to 162 more of Derek Shelton's always riveting post game pressers.

Raise The Jolly Roger!!

On Katherine, Princess of Wales

 

I don't write a lot about the Royal Family of Great Britain because, frankly, I view the Monarchy as an anachronism of immense proportions, and, outside of watching a well done soap opera like "The Crown", who really cares about this family, which over the last century or so, has brought whole new meaning to the term "dysfunctional family"?

As such, I was vaguely aware that the Princess of Wales had recently undergone abdominal surgery, and then seemed to disappear from sight.  I did, however, like most other people, see the video that the Princess recently made announcing to the world that during the course of this rather serious surgery, cancer was discovered, and that she is now undergoing chemotherapy for treatment of the disease.

As person who lost his wife to cancer almost three years ago, after she had battled the disease for almost five years, and after she had undergone chemo and and other treatments for the disease over the course of her illness, watching this video of the Princess was almost personal to me.  It brought up lots of bad memories, and it made me feel a great deal of sympathy for Katherine.   I could almost see the feelings and emotions that had to be roiling within her.  Why did she need to make such a deeply personal announcement for all of the world to see?

I suppose that since she is the wife of the guy who will one day become King justifies it.  Also, perhaps the Princess wishes to serve as a role model others similarly afflicted.  

But if you can justify this public announcement on those bases, there is one other question that needs to be answered:

WHY WASN'T HER PRIG OF A  HUSBAND SITTING ALONG SIDE HER AS SHE MADE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT?

You can give me all of the British "stiff upper lip" bullshit you want, but this is inexcusable.  I have been that husband, and throughout the whole ordeal, the only place I ever wanted to be was by Marilyn's side.

Count me among the many who shall be rooting for Katherine to come through and survive this awful ordeal.

Down By the Old Video Stream

I have finally finished watching three different streaming series on the boob tube, and here is what I have to say about them.

Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (Hulu)

Remember the "Feud" series from 2017 about Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford?  That was a delightfull bit of soap opera-ish trash that was so much fun to watch.  Well, FX/Hulu finally came up with a new season, this one about Truman Capote and what he called his swans, a group of six high society ladies who he courted and in whom he confided, and they, in turn, confided in him, until he one day wrote an Esquire magazine article where he thinly disguised each of them and told the world about all of their foibles, flaws, faults, and secrets that were behind their high society veneers.  They, in turn, ostracized him, and sent him into a sinking spiral of drugs, alcohol, and writer's block.

Tom Hollender, like Phillip Seymour Hoffman before him, plays Capote to a T with the high pitched voice, fey mannerisms, and outlandish clothes.  It was the cast that comprised the Swans that intrigued me about this show: Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloe Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, and former brat packers Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald.   Among the six swans, Watts, Lane, and Sevigny get most of the screen time in this eight part series.  Ringwald, of "Sixteen Candles" fame and who is now, believe it or not, 56 years old, was the one that I was most anxious to see.  Alas and alack, she was prominent in only two of the episodes and was barely recognizable, to me, at least.

One of the main plot points was Capote's struggle to produce what he felt was gong to be his masterpiece, a novel called "Answered Prayers" which would expand upon the Esquire piece and bring further humiliation to the high society grande dames.  Capote may or may not have finished Answered Prayers.  There are legends that he did finish and then destroyed it.  Capote himself once stated that he locked it away in a locker in the Los Angeles bus station.   Whatever happened, the completed version of the novel was never found amongst the papers and files of Truman Capote, who died in 1984 at the age of 59.  

A version of Answered Prayers was published.  It was only 150 pages long, and consisted of three parts, one of which was the complete article that appeared in that long ago Esquire magazine story.  I bought a copy of it and read it, but I didn't really like it at all.  I also bought a copy of Capote's true masterpiece, In Cold Blood.  I read that book over fifty years ago when I was in high school, and I can't wait to read it again, as I now have over fifty years of life experience and, I hope, maturity, under my belt, but more on that after I do read it once again.

The show is lavish and stylish, well written and acted, and delightfully trashy.   It gets Three Stars from The Grandstander.

TED (Peacock)

Remember the 2012 movie that starred Mark Wahlberg who, as a young boy wished that his teddy bear would come to life and be his best friend forever, and did?  "Family Guy's" Seth MccFarlane was the brains behind that movie, as well as the voice of Ted, and it delivered exactly what you would have expected from MacFarlane.

Well, now Ted is a TV series from Peacock.  It is set 1993, and Ted lives with a Boston family that includes his best buddy, sixteen year old high schooler, John, John's parents, and his cousin Blair, who is living with the family as she attends college in the area.

"Family Guy" is a series that you are almost embarrassed to tell people that you watch.  It has crude humor, which include lots of flatulence jokes.  It has almost no social value and much of it is very bad taste, but it is also hilarious.  Well, "Ted" is all of that and then some.  As it is not on network over-the-air television, MacFarlane doesn't let out any stops when it comes to "adult" language and humor.

Season One consists of seven episodes.  It is rude, crude, often tasteless, but you will also find yourself laughing constantly and loudly.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

True Detective: Night Country (HBO Max)

I was really looking forward to watching this six episode series for several reasons.  HBO's True Detective series were always praised, (even though I had never seen one), it had an exotic setting, the wilds of Alaska during the six months of the year when the sun never appeared, and it starred Jodi Foster.

Three episodes in I was saying to myself "Gee, I hope that this picks up soon."  It took me three separate sittings to get through Episode Four, and when it was over I was saying "Well, I've put this much time into it, so I guess I'll watch the final two episode."  It took two sittings to watch Episode Five, and today I made myself plow through the sixth and final episode.

What a convoluted slog of a series.  I couldn't keep track of the various plot lines, probably because I didn't care all that much.  And that final episode!  (ATTN: Spoiler Alerts to come right here)  Foster and her partner (Kali Reis) enter an ice cave all by themselves, with no back ups.  This defies all credulity insofar as correct police work goes.  Foster falls through the ice and into the ocean, but somehow survives.  We are forced to believe that ghosts from beyond have dogged Reis throughout the series are now visiting Foster, too.  And the central mystery - what happened to the crew at the Tsalal Research Station - seems to get solved, not from out of left field, but from out of the bullpen located on one of the spring training practice fields.

A very disappointing series to me.  Glad it was only six episodes instead of ten.

One Star from The Grandstander.

Up next for me are two series: "Death and Other Details" (Hulu), a ten part mystery in the mold of "Murder on the Orient Express" starring Mandy Patinkin, and "The Regime" an HBO Max series starring Kate Winslet.  HBO and Winslet hit it out of the park a few years back with "Mare of Easton", so I am hoping that they can do it again.

Also, for the past few months Linda and I have been binge watching "Seinfeld" from Season One, Episode One, and we are ready to start the ninth and final season of the series.  I have come up with some thoughts and comments on the series as a whole as I rewatch it all these years later (can you believe that this show  debuted in 1992, over THIRTY years ago?), that I will yak about in this space once we finish the series in the next couple of weeks.

Way To Go Duquesne, and Other Sports Tidbits

Hearty CONGRATULATIONS go out to day to the Duquesne Dukes, the college basketball team of my youth, and the Alma Mater of my parents, Class of '35, and my older brother Jim, Class of '66, and their head coach of seven years, Keith Dambrot for winning the Atlantic 10 Tournament and earning an automatic bid into this year's NCAA Tournament.  As we were constantly reminded by the announcers over the course of the A-10 tourney, this is the Dukes first trip to the Big Dance since 1977, the first year of the Carter Administration to put it perspective.

I'm not going to lie, I hadn't followed the Dukes much at all this season, but I was thrilled to watch them in this tournament as they beat top seed Dayton and then St. Bonaventure and Virginia Commonwealth in the semis and the finals.  When I was just a tyke being indoctrinated into the world of sports by my grandfather, father, and older brothers, there were the Pirates in baseball, the Steelers in football, and Duquesne in basketball.  That's was it.  That was the list.  So, yes, I'm thrilled for Duquesne today.

One could write a book - and my pal Dave Finoli probably already has - about what has happened to the once storied program on The Bluff, but let's forget about it for now and celebrate today.  Who knows what kind of run the Dukes may have once the NCAA extravaganza tips off, but it sure is nice to see them relevant once again.

********

Well, the figurative ink was barely dry on my Grandstander post of yesterday, wherein I detailed the the amazing news from the Steelers this week, first Wilson, then Pickett (see what I did there), when another bombshell was donated from South Water Street:  the news that the Steelers had made a trade with the Chicago Bears and obtained quarterback Justin Fields (as speculated upon in yesterday's Grandstander).  To get this former first round pick and three year starter, the Steelers sent to Chicago a bag of practice footballs, a tackling sled, and a few kicking tees.   

Fields is set to be Russell Wilson's back up.  He is 25 years old, and he could become the team's QB for the next decade.  Of course, that might not happen either, but regardless of how it plays out, the Steelers and GM Omar Kahn have certainly not sat still during this off season.  An interesting note in the paper this morning stated that since Kahn took over as GM two years ago, only 17 players from the Kevin Colbert era remain on the current 90 man roster.  In addition, Kahn has let go of a bunch of scouts and personnel people and replaced them with new ones.   Omar is definitely putting his stamp on Rooney U.

********

Of course, when the Steelers are making one blockbuster deal after another, other sports news in The Burgh gets pretty well lost in the shuffle.  Such was the case with the signing by the Pirates of outfielder Michael A. Taylor (former Twins, Nationals).   It was pretty much stated that Taylor would become the starting centerfielder for the Bucs heading into the '24 season.

To be sure, Taylor is no Andy Van Slyke, but I think that he could become a significant contributor to the Pirates as the season unfolds.