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.
