Yahoo Sports reports that Pirates principal owner Bob Nutting and president Frank Coonelly addressed the team Tuesday before the first full-squad workout of spring training. These are the same Pirates who severely slashed payroll last year by seemingly trading away any player with any value and the same Pirates who will begin the 2010 season with a $35 million payroll; the lowest in the majors.
"The expectation level has been raised," Coonelly said. "We believe this team can be the one that turns this franchise around. And instead of being concerned about subtractions from the team, this is a core which we can add."
This reminds me of a short story.
As a very young man, I delivered pizzas for a national pizza chain that shall remain nameless. It was pretty good money for someone working their way through school and most of my money came from tips from customers as opposed to the rather low hourly wage. In all, a pretty good deal for me. The company frankly was cheap and not very accommodating to it's employees and I could go on and on about that but I won't. Anyway, I kept my nose clean, delivered pizzas and stayed out of people's way for the most part.
One day, without any notice a manager walked up to me, shook my hand, "congratulated" me, and told me that I had just been "promoted" to crew chief which entailed additional responsibilities inside the store (which would have taken me away from deliveries) all for a 25 cents an hour wage increase. I am serious. This really happened.
I told this manager very nicely that I was going to continue delivering pizzas like before (knowing that if he fired me, I would just go down the street to the next store) and that they could do whatever with my pay but I would not accept anything less than I was making up until then. He got frustrated that I would not accept a position with much more responsibility that paid much less than my present position and he finally just said I was "not very ambitious" and he walked away.
Like those Pirate players with their boss, I kind of pitied and hated him at the same time.
You can't get something for nothing.
4 comments:
Well said. Well said. I can't stand Nutting or the rest of his half-wit family. Eventhough McLatchey was in charge for much of the last ten years, the Nutting family was calling the shots, at least since 2003. Everyone in Pittsburgh knows that. Their family knows nothing about running a baseball business. That being said, he doesn't deserve all the blame because the seed of mediocrity and failure was planted long before their arrival.
If I was that owner, I would be ashamed considering how enthusiastically the city supports the Steelers and Penguins.
I have a business associate from Pittsburgh who periodically invites me to town to check out a Pirates game with their season-tickets. I tell him that he knows that he has our business and we like his company and he doesn't need to waste those tickets on me and he responds (of course) that he values our business etc etc but then he tells me that nobody is ever interested in the (free) tickets anyway.
I guess people go to see the beautiful stadium once and never come back to see the team.
You do get whatcha pay for, and the Pirates are a bit short on fielding a complete team. I am a fan of the Pirates and in this time of year, they are one of the most exciting teams in baseball (in my opinion) because there is actual competition to make the team. Where as most teams will sign a free agent to fill a weak position, trade to upgrade, etc. The Pirates are standing pat with the 40 men in camp and they all literally have a shot to make the team. Yes, most of them would still be in the minors if they were in the NY or Boston organizations, but they have a handful of guys who can hit and will probably be superstars in 2 years when they are traded... Either way, seeing real competition is pretty exciting to me. As a fan seeing down to earth ballplayers who will spend 5 minutes chatting with a fan is pretty refreshing, too. For those reasons (and because of Clemente, Mazeroski, Wagner, Stargell) they will always be my favorite NL team whether they field a first rate team (its been a while) or not.
Troll,
Gotcha.
My comments are not at all directed to the players.
I also have a soft spot in my heart for certain players who may not be all stars but are approachable and have been good to my kids.
Kevin
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