Pirate trades ripped
In light of the most recent actions to decimate the Pittsburgh Pirates, the trading of our beloved shortstop Jack Wilson and second baseman Freddy Sanchez, I wonder if team management/owner honchos Huntington, Coonelly, and Nutting will ever explain why they hate the fans so much? Why are we taken for granted and consistently expectorated upon/ Following the trade of Nate McLouth, another fine player, good person, and fan favorite, my wife and I purchased Atlanta Braves’ McLouth jerseys. We wanted Braves’ jerseys rather than Pirates jerseys to display our disgust over the trade. We recently secured custom-made Pirates jerseys which instead of a name on the back, have the word “traded.” Our new clothes are going over well wherever we wear them, given the feelings that true baseball fans have for the Pirates management wrecking crew, which has destroyed the lives of beloved players who for some strange reason wanted to remain in Pittsburgh, and which has kicked in the pants those who have loyally followed the Pirates through thick and thin.
We must come to accept that Pirates management’s brazen goal is to field a team of minimum-salary minor leaguers. It assumes that as long as the Parrot and the Pierogis are not fired, and as long as the team is willing to spend a few dollars for concerts and fireworks, we will all come to watch professional baseball, albeit with only one team on the field able to be called “professional.”
We cannot become attached to any player, and the team should not promote any team member for if they excel, their time as a Pirate shall be short-lived. The Pirates consider players to be interchangeable pieces, rather like inanimate objects. Neither their feelings nor the sentiment of the fans mean anything.
Does management ever consider the psychological effect on players who know that their lives may be turned upside at any moment through a trade? The bedraggled fans should respond to management’s disdain for us accordingly.
How many more times can we be expected to turn the other cheek? How many more years of “rebuilding”/destruction can we abide? How many more games can we be expected to watch and attend for a team with a losing mentality, one which is understandable, given the composition of managment?
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair