So I get a message last night from my friend Steve Ozbolt in Milwaukee that asks me "Are you looking forward the the Pirates season?" It is a seemingly simple question, yet at the same time, it is a rather complex one for a lifelong Pittsburgh Pirates fan to answer.
The simple answer is that, yes, I look forward to the opening of the baseball season today as I have every year since 1959, the year that I attended my first Pirates game. It's Opening Day....all things are possible....every team is 0-0....everyone has a fresh start. You know, all of the usual tired cliches that surround Opening Day. Somehow, though, 2022 feels different for this Pirates fan.
We all know how administration of Bob "Ebenezer" Nutting has turned this team that we love into a national joke. The team makes tons of money for Nutting, but they stink, have stunk for the last twenty five years or so (FACT: Since they last won a World Series in 1979, the Pirates have had the worst winning percentage of all MLB teams over this forty-three-years-and-still-counting time frame). They go into the 2022 season with the 29th lowest payroll in all of MLB. The biggest story out of Spring Training was that they are taking Bryan Reynolds, their best player, to salary arbitration over a measly $650,000 difference, thereby assuring that there becomes a very good chance that Reynolds becomes an embittered ball player, and an even better chance that he will be traded at some point between now and 2023. What is the message Bob Nutting, Travis Williams, and Ben Cherrington send to the fans of the team when they play hardball with their best player over relative pocket change in MLB terms?
Then there was the case of Oneil Cruz. Cruz did everything asked of him in Spring Training. He hit the cover off the ball and he appears to be the most exciting prospect to come out of the Pirates system since Andrew McCutchen. He's 23 years old, not a baby. And the Pirates send him to Indianapolis two weeks before the season starts. Like many of the moves the Pirates make, this can be defended in pure baseball terms and in a vacuum. However, it is yet another case of Pirates management looking at a player that could get the fans (aka, the "paying customers") excited about, someone that they want to go to the ball park and see, and yet again, the Suits at 115 Federal Street seem to say "F--- you" to the ticket buyers.
On a national podcast earlier this week, sportswriters Richard Justice talked about the Pirates and asked "Are they even trying?" Doesn't seem like it.
Last year the Pirates won 61 games. The Over/Under line of wins for them this season has been set at 64.5. I bet the OVER, but I'm not all that confident that it's going to happen. I made a nominal bet out of loyalty and with the idea that I don't want to be in a position of rooting for them to lose games as the season draws to a close. Either way, a 65th win, if it happens at all, isn't going to come for this team until the last days of the season.
Yes, I will be watching the Pirates on television throughout the year, and I will attend games at PNC Park, although far fewer than I have in past years. I saw only five or six games in person last year, a low number for me. There were other reasons for that, but the sheer lousiness of the team was foremost among them. Can't see that changing much in '22.
That question that Steve asked me last night was followed by him saying that he is "positively giddy about the Brewers" for this coming season. Must be nice when your team makes the effort to compete.
Play ball!!!
Bryan Reynolds
Enjoy him while he's here, folks.
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