PNC Park by Joseph Bacharach

17 seasons and counting.

The Pittsburgh Pirates hold many firsts in MLB history. The first team to have a game broadcast over the radio, the first team to field an all-minority lineup, the first team to win a World Series on a home run, the first team to play a World Series game at night. The list can goes on. But the one first that stands out with fans now days is the first team, in any professional sports to record 17 losing seasons back to back to back to. . . well, you get the point.

It’s pretty much common knowledge in Pittsburgh that since losing to the Atlanta Braves two playoff appearances in a row, the 1991 and 1992 seasons, getting rid of Jim Leyland and deciding to rebuild the team anew, the Pirates haven’t had a winning season since. My father still curses Sid Bream to this day.

It seems nobody has been happy with this organization for some time. Everybody from fans to Pirate players themselves have been unhappy with the way the organization is run and voice their opinions openly. On the whole, criticism can be found for every aspect of the Pirates organization from the top on down. There are countless blogs authored by hapless Pirates fans crying foul.

Here is one: newbucs.com /
They accuse the principal owner, Bob Nutting, of caring more about making money than of making a competitive team.

Here it is: blogs.forbes.com/sportsmoney/2010/04/the-pirates-who-dont-do-anything /
What fans the flames of the accusations is that revenue sharing for the league will give a team between 30 million to 40 million dollars. The Pirates payroll bottoms out the league at 35 million dollars. In contrast the Yankees pay roll at the top of the league is well over 200 million dollars.

There are accusations of throwing whole seasons to get higher draft picks that coincide with accusations that the front-office chooses lower quality draft picks to keep the cost of player contracts low. There are complaints about poor managing decisions practically every game, from the starting lineup to the bullpen rotation. The common belief among the Pirate faithful (if one could be faithful to the belief of certain doom season after season) that the Pirates will sign talented players who perform to reasonably middle of the road contracts to make them more appealing for teams looking to trade for them. The whole idea being that they can trade a young talented player with a reasonable contract for a number of less talented, discount players to fill their roster with. So it goes.

With all of the theories about how and why the Pirates have been terrible for so long, it’s hard to keep in mind that Major League Baseball is a business. Maybe Bob Nutting is only looking for more money. Maybe. He wrote an open letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette claiming that his intentions were to create a winning team.

Here it is: www.post-gazette.com/pg/07013/753508-63.stm 
This may all play to the conspiricies and accusations, but there is one thing that should be kept in mind: Sure, Bob Nutting is most likely looking only to make money, and the front office and managing decisions reflect that, but Jim Leyland didn’t leave until 1996, after 4 consecutive losing seasons; but maybe the Pirates are just really, really unsuccesful.