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IN May of 2006 a few disgruntled Pirate fans created the IrateFans.com
web site. Simply put, we produced this site because we just grew “tired of losing,” fed up with “having the best park and the worst owners,” annoyed at finding our team and ourselves the butt of jokes and the objects of pity. As we point out in our Mission Statement, we feel the time has come for Pirate fans to act on the belief that things could be better for our team, much better. We also suspect that very little about the Pirates will change for the better if we refuse to make our views known to the team’s owners, to the local media and, most importantly, to other Pirate fans. Publicity is our ally! We speak and act because we fear we have little or nothing to lose at this point. After all, the Nutting family, Kevin McClatchy and the staff they employ have taken from us much of the joy we have always felt for the game and our team. They have replaced this joy with the frustration and hopelessness born of rooting for a loser. All that remains to us are our deeply felt wishes for a future that will be much different and better than the present and recent past along with, of course, our ability to speak and act on behalf of that future. So, here we are. Our first efforts to give voice to our concerns led to the creation of this web site, modest as it may be. We also plan to print and sell an IrateFans tee shirt meant to express our displeasure with the Nutting partnership. Group activities will also form important part of our agenda. We are, after all, part of a movement. Stay tuned to the news posted on this page for information regarding our plans and events. We will store this news in the IrateFans.com Archive so that we might have a record of what we have done and said as movement. We hope that you can join us. Thanks for stopping by! And “Beat’em Bucs” |
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11.2.2007 According to the gossip he has heard, John Perrotto of the Beaver County-Allegheny Times and Baseball Prospectus reports that John Russell, the former Pirates coach, will become the next Pirates manager. Charlie Wilmoth of Bucs Dugout has already expressed doubts about Russell. 11.2.2007 Bob Biertempfel of the Tribune Review has just reported that Frank Coonelly has just announced that the Pirates have already chosen their next manager and have made a contract offer which the candidate has yet to sign. An announcement may be made on Monday. 11.2.2007 Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus and SI.com suggests the Pirates should stand pat this winter but believes they will make a deal or two because of the turnover in the front office. 11.2.2007 Paul Meyer of the Post-Gazette reports that the Pirates are close to naming a new manager and that John Farrell of the Red Sox has removed his name from consideration for the position. The current and, perhaps, final candidates, according to Meyer:
On the other hand, Bob Biertempfel of the Tribune Review tells us the Pirates may take a break from their manager search while Neil Huntington attends the General Manager’s meetings in Florida. Although the manager search has generated the most press coverage, we of IrateFans.com believe the critical hires will fill the Scouting Director and Player Development director. We certainly hope that Huntington makes a wise choice when picking the next manager. But the important decisions sit elsewhere. 10.30.2007 Paul Meyer of the Post-Gazette and Bob Biertempfel of the Tribune Review now report (see this and this) that Neal Huntington will begin the major and, perhaps, final phase of his managerial interviews this week. 10.30.2007 WriterHoward recently interviewed our friend, Charlie Wilmoth. A hearty congratulations from your comrades at IrateFans.com! 10.28.2007 Bob Biertempfel of the Tribune Review reports a bit of league gossip ...that things are taking a while to develop [with the new regime in Pittsburgh] because the Pirates are having trouble finding people who are eager to work for them. The team's track record over the past 15 seasons, combined with owner Bob Nutting's decree of a low-budget, home-grown approach to roster-building, are not an attractive lure. One interpretation of this report would have Nutting’s obvious low-budget strategy acting like a filter that eliminates those candidates who would not easily or happily fit in with the program the Nutting partnership wants to execute. To be sure, this interpretation underscores the difficulties generated by the Nutting partnership’s ‘frugal’ approach to professional baseball management. Members of the organization’s Operation’s staff will always confront the obstacles and risks posed by the Nutting imposed budget constraints. Some would not want to tackle this kind of challenge. In short, spend some green, Bob! 10.28.2007 A recent BuccoBlog item claims There is a rumor running around some baseball circles that the Twins have either inquired, or plan to inquire, about Jason Bay. Matt Garza's name is being mentioned in the rumor. Savvy Pirate fans would not bet the farm on the veracity of this rumor given the source of the report. JJ/Sunny of BuccoBlog could destroy arithmetic as we know it simply by reporting that 2 + 2 = 4! 10.27.2007 Chris Antonetti, the Cleveland Indians’ Assistant General Manager, is reported to be the front-runner for the vacant Cardinal’s General Manager’s chair. Antonetti turned down an interview for the Pirates’ General Manager’s position in September. 10.27.2007 According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the Pirates have already considered and eliminated Joe Girardi as a managerial candidate. Rosenthal did not give a reason for this decision. 10.25.2007 Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe reports that John Farrell, the Red Sox pitching coach, will have an interview with the Pirates after the World Series. 10.20.2007 Paul Meyer of the Post-Gazette reports that the Pirates had recent managerial hires Dusty Baker and Trey Hillman on their list of managerial candidates. 10.18.2007 Dan Szymborski of Baseball Think Factory has just posted the 2008 ZIPS projections for our Pirates. The results were not too encouraging. In short, look for more of the same from your Pirates in 2008 unless Neal Huntington improves the team significantly this off-season. 10.18.2007 Myron Cope smartly pummels the Nuttings and their agents in the most recent edition of the City Paper. It seems Cope is skeptical about the Nuttings and their intentions. Just show us the money, Bob! That’s all! 10.15.2007 In what can only be the most backward piece of sports ‘journalism’ written in the last half century, for what could be dumber than this, Mark Madden argues that the Pirates should offer Alex Rodriguez $50M to play for the Pirates next year. Madden’s reasoning: Since Rodriguez would not want to play for our team at that price — Oh, really! — he would refuse the offer, thus giving the Nutting partnership a bit of PR time and coverage for its unwillingness to spend money on the team. Madden then uses this imaginary event to smear loyal Pirate fans. Like so much of what Madden writes or says, what this article makes obvious is his unwillingness or inability to craft careful and compelling arguments which hold, say, the Nutting partnership accountable for its actions. His contempt for Pirate fans is such that it rivals that of the Nutting partnership.
10.5.2007 Neal Huntington cleaned house today (see this, this and this) by relieving Jim Tracy, Brian Graham, Ed Creech and John Mercurio of the duties with the team. A rumor has Graham in line to succeed Tracy as manager. IrateFans.com supports these moves, believing as we do that change of this kind and degree has been long overdue, and applauds the Pirates for taking this necessary but distasteful course of action. But the reforms remain incomplete. We also hope that Robert Nutting continues to improve the organization by increasing the player acquisition budget so that his new staff has a strong chance of fielding a competitive baseball team. 9.16.2007 A few links: Dejan Kovacevic of the Post-Gazette shows Coonelly’s claim that the Pirates can compete with a $45M-55M is highly unlikely. As Pirate fans know all too well, being cheap does not mean being prudent or being committed to winning. John Mehno of the Times tells us the FSN ratings for Pirate games have collapsed. Losing for a decade and a half will do that! Yet, despite the on-field performance of the team, game attendance has barely fallen this season when compared to last! Mehno believes PNC Park has aided the Pirates in this regard. One wonders what attendance would be had the governments of the region not built Disneyworld on the Allegheny for the team. It would be sensible to predict that it would mimic the team’s television audience. 9.14.2007 The Pirates announce Frank Coonelly as their new CEOAn Adobe Acrobat version of this release can be found here. Sadly enough, yesterday morning’s news conference was a little anticlimactic, given the leaks and speculation of the past week. Everyone had time to prepare. All the same, we at IrateFans feel much relieved to know that Bob Nutting did not give us a lesser candidate than Frank Coonelly. He has “talked the talk” so far. In fact, both Nutting and Coonelly are saying the right things except for their unwillingness to commit in public to giving the team something near a league average payroll. On the other hand, talk is cheap, as the cliché has it. Saying one will do something and accomplishing what one promises to do differ greatly. Pirate fans know this all too well. What will not be cheap is committing the organization to acquiring the kind of talent needed to contend for championships. This point brings us to Mr. Coonelly’s former employer, Major League Baseball. Coonelly recently was Bud Selig’s chief labor negotiator. Before that, he was a partner at Morgan Lewis, which, incidentally, has a Pittsburgh branch. Among his tasks while working for Major League Baseball: Suppress player’s salaries and draftee signing bonuses, fight the player’s union. For its part, Morgan Lewis has a reputation for being a fiercely anti -union firm. Coonelly’s work history thus does not inspire confidence given his current employer, the Nutting partnership. Nutting and Coonelly — the two appear to be of a piece. For some Pirate fans, winning baseball comes first, not owner profit or labor domination. We thus believe both men have a lot to prove to Pirate fans. We also believe the number of credible championship runs and actual titles Coonelly and Nutting produce will determine the success of the Nutting-Coonelly regime. Fine words are no longer sufficient, for we have often heard fine but empty words in the past. Results. That is what we want. We want championships. 9.12.2007 Paul Meyer of the Post-Gazette reports that the Pirates need only to make the official announcement that they have hired Frank Coonelly as their CEO. Bob Biertempfel of the Tribune-Review reports the same. John Perrotto of the Times gives the Coonelly hire a thumbs down. 9.12.2007 While we wait for the Pirates to announce that they have indeed hired Frank Coonelly, the games continue. About last night’s game Dejan Kovacevic of the Post-Gazette reported that By the time McLouth doubled in the Pirates' lone run in the seventh, half the crowd was gone By the final out, no more than 1,000 remained. Within 15 minutes, only the janitors remained, and the decibel level of their cleaning machines topped that of the game. 9.8.2007 Ken Rosenthal now reports that the Pirates have hired Frank Coonelly as their CEO. Coonelly is Major League Baseball’s chief labor negotiator. IrateFans.com will take a more elaborate position as soon as information becomes available. 9.7.2007 An Adobe Acrobat version of this news release can be found here. Littlefield’s Reign of Error endsRobert Nutting performed the bloody deed this morning. Although the stable cleansing remains incomplete, we can be confident the new CEO will have the authority and owner’s blessing to finish the job. David Littlefield might have been one of the worst General Managers in the history of this sport . His legacy will trouble the organization for years. Yet, he was just an agent. The partnership was the principal. It directed the organization since 1996, not Dave Littlefield or Cam Bonifay. The formers’ legacy is a part of that greater whole. The same point applies to Bonifay. Thus, even though replacing McClatchy and Littlefield were two necessary reforms that an organization as woeful as the Pirates had to make if it were to progress, the Nutting partnership must make and implement another difficult decision if it wishes to cash in on these early moves. We cannot do enough to stress the point that the partnership must pledge the organization to building competitive teams — that is, to fielding teams that compete for World Series titles. Lacking this commitment, the removal of McClatchy and Littlefield would be revealed as mere public relations moves meant to obscure the partnership’s monopoly rent taking efforts. The time to change courses is now. |
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