Beaver County Times, September 29, 2013

The Pirates soaked the jolly roger, cutting loose with a splashy party after they clinched a postseason spot Monday in Chicago.
Hard to believe, but some people are either criticizing or ridiculing them for that.
This is a franchise that hadn't had a winning season since 1992, and had a 57-105 record in 2010.
Yes, the reality is their stay in the postseason could last all of three hours. But don't begrudge their embracing of a special moment.
The Cincinnati Reds also clinched a postseason berth on Monday, but there was no celebration. Manager Dusty Baker told the clubhouse workers not to order champagne, and not to worry about putting protective plastic sheeting over the lockers.
"Popping bottles for a one-game playoff is stupid," Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips said. (He made the comment in advance of the Reds' clinching, not in response to what the Pirates did).
That attitude is fine for the Reds. They were in the playoffs last season, and were expected to win this year. A wild card spot isn't a big deal for them, and that's OK.
For the Pirates, this wasn't just a celebration. It was an exorcism.
The Pirates finally slayed the demons that had stubbornly stuck around too long.
The ghosts of Derek Bell, Matt Morris, Jimmy Anderson and John Russell were all drowned in champagne.
The celebration was not only appropriate, it was pretty much mandatory.
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--Stuck in the middle
Three games in, we have ample evidence that the Steelers aren't a good team.
But it's also unlikely that they're completely awful, and that's too bad.
As painful as a 4-12 season might be, it would a long-term benefit to the organization because it would translate into a much better drafting position.
The Steelers went 8-8 last year, missed the playoffs, but didn't get their draft call until the 17th turn. Franchise-caliber players are gone by then.
Unless the whole AFC improbably sinks into a morass of 8-8-ness, the Steelers aren't a playoff team.
If you can't make the playoffs, make the top five list at the draft.
The Steelers are in a unique position where they can easily absorb a bad season. They don't have tickets to sell. People will continue to buy "LAMBERT 58" jerseys. The only downside is the endless babble of talk radio, and what does that mean? People were complaining when they were 12-4.
For all the gloom that has come with the 0-3 start, it looks like the Steelers have a bunch of games they can and should win, starting with today's overseas date with Minnesota.
After next week's bye, they play the Jets, Raiders, Bills, Lions and Browns over the course of seven weeks that includes games against the Patriots and Ravens.
The Steelers are going to win some games -- not enough to get them in the postseason, but too many for their long-term good.
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--Money management
Funny, there haven't been any complaints lately about how the Brewers have a bigger payroll than the Pirates.
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--British invasion
England sends us the Beatles, and we send them the 0-3 Steelers vs. the 0-3 Vikings?
That doesn't seem fair.
Then again, maybe this is the way we pay them back for George Michael and Wham!

Beaver County Times, September 22, 2013

The Pirates are playing at 1:35 this afternoon, and the Steelers are scheduled to kick off somewhere around 8:25, depending on when Bob Costas is ready.
Both are home games, which means about 37,000 baseball fans and 60,000 football fans will fight for the same parking spots after they navigate those narrow streets on the North Side.
Usually things are planned so that only one team is home during each of the Sundays in September. Even then, Steelers Sundays are a logistical mess.
Today's traffic crawl has the potential to create confusion of epic proportions. Of course, it's also possible everyone will follow the rules that have been outlined, show the proper courtesy and make it all run smoothly. (It's also possible Kenny Chesney fans will start cleaning up after themselves, but you don't count on it).
The NFL could have saved Bears-Steelers for Monday night under ordinary circumstances, but the Steelers are playing in London on Sunday. They can't afford to lose a day.
So it's two games in one relatively small patch of real estate.
This is the worst idea since....
Huey Richardson? Todd Graham? The Bridge To Nowhere? Kent Derdivanis? People getting autographs from John Rigas? The Pittsburgh Piranhas?
Jeromy Burnitz? "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh?" Walt Terrell? The original Zum Zum concession stands at Three Rivers Stadium? Pittsburgh Phantoms roller hockey?
Mike Kingery? Drafting Jason Worilds instead of Sean Lee? Mike Haywood? Retiring Billy Meyer's number? Rico Fata? Dropping the Pitt-Penn State football series? The Pittsburgh XPlosion?
Bright gold Penguins jerseys? Firing Bob Prince and Nellie King? Replacing them with Milo Hamilton and Lanny Frattare? Roger Marino? The Regional Renaissance Initiative?
Aki Iwamura? Kent Graham? Any and all Steelers offensive coordinators? Banning outside food and drinks when PNC Park opened? Putting Penguins games on pay-per-view? Drafting John Van Benschoten instead of C.J. Wilson?
Giving Howard Baldwin a credit line? Tony Mason on Pitt football broadcasts? Free agent Derek Bell? Update specialist Kalena Bell? Kris Beech and a bunch of nothing for Jaromir Jagr? $523 million for all 1.2 miles of the North Shore Connector?
Thor Tolo? Cliff Stoudt? Eric Green's Super Bowl rap video before the AFC Championship game? Taking the New York Islanders lightly in the 1993 playoffs? Barry Bonds ignoring Andy Van Slyke's advice to move in a few steps in Game Seven in 1992?
Pierre Creamer? John Russell? Public address announcements at Pitt Stadium insulting West Virginians? Alan Cutler? Giving Jack Ham's No. 59 to Todd Seabaugh? Giving Pat Meares a four-year contract extension while he was on the disabled list?
Drafting Rich Sutter instead of Dave Andreychuk? Believing that Terry Bradshaw would bounce back from an elbow injury and eliminate the need to draft Dan Marino? Canceling "Chiller Theater?"
Jim Rooker's promise to walk back from Philadelphia if the Pirates lost? Most Duquesne basketball coaching hires? Hop 'n Gator? Bruno Sammartino's mid-1970s hairpiece? Lynn Swann's run for governor? Trading up to draft punter Daniel Sepulveda?
Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Sudden Death?" Limas Sweed? Dan Potash's fake feud with Pascal Dupuis? Mike Gottfried's lifetime contract? Pretending red was one of the Pirates' colors? Kurt Angle as a TV sportscaster? Promoting Eddie Olczyk from TV analyst to head coach?
You decide. The debate might help pass the time if you're stuck in North Side traffic today.

Beaver County Times, September 15, 2013

After careful in-depth analysis, here's the Steelers' biggest problem: They don't have enough good players.
This is what happens when teams don't draft well. It's bitten the Steelers before, back in the 1980s before the salary cap made it even more critical to steadily replenish the roster .
The Steelers assembled a nucleus of talent that was good enough to get to the Super Bowl three times in six years.
But players get old or get hurt or get too expensive, and they go away. Hines Ward, Aaron Smith, James Farrior, Santonio Holmes, Alan Faneca, Willie Parker and James Harrison are among the talented players who have departed.
How many have the Steelers adequately replaced? The double whammy of the salary cap and poor drafting have hit hard.
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--Dire (or Dwyer) circumstances
Jonathan Dwyer's return illustrates the curious nature of recent decisions.
GM Kevin Colbert said after last season that the running backs on the roster weren't good enough. The Steelers addressed that by spending their second round draft pick on Le'Veon Bell.
Bell got hurt in training camp, which left the Steelers with the backs who weren't good enough. They traded for failed No. 1 draft pick Felix Jones, and immediately decided he was a better option than Dwyer, who was then cut.
Jones barely got on the field last week because he doesn't know the offense yet. LaRod Stephens-Howling was injured in the opener, so the Steelers brought back Dwyer.
Mike Tomlin said they were "fortunate" to re-sign a back they twice judged to be inadequate in the last six months.
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--Pitching a fit
A.J. Burnett took to Twitter to emphasize he was not aiming his hissy fit at teammate Clint Barmes the other day in Texas.
He was unhappy with the defensive shift that had been called from the bench and not with Barmes' play on a ball that went for a two-run single.
So he was throwing the manager and the coaching staff under the bus rather than the shortstop. Does that make anything better?
Doesn't matter who made him angry, Burnett's reaction sent the message, "Hey, this isn't my fault." It wasn't a good thing to do, just as Burnett probably wouldn't appreciate one of his outfielders throwing his arms up in disgust as a home run ball sailed over the fence.
Have a problem with the shifts? Strike out the batter.
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--Non-reality show
It's been a while since the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, but they remain champions of media manipulation.
The TV stations were all over Sidney Crosby delivering season tickets to a long-time customer last week.
When this gimmick started, it still had at least a scintilla of spontaneity. People answer the door and, whoa, there's Sid!
Now it's terribly obvious the recipients have been thoroughly vetted. Or else it's just happy coincidence that most of their relatives and half of the neighborhood stopped by on a weekday morning with piles of memorabilia to be signed.
One good thing about it -- given the market value of Crosby autographs, the lucky fans have a chance to make back some of the big bucks they're dropping on those tickets. As long as the TV cameras keep following the parade, there will be video evidence the signatures are authentic.
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Beaver County Times, September 8, 2013

The Pirates were fresh from losing 104 games and drawing 735,900 fans when Syd Thrift took over as general manager in November, 1985.
Three years later, Thrift was fired because not only did he clash with his superiors, he wouldn't even acknowledge he had superiors.
In typical fashion, his parting shot was an advertisement for himself.
"It ain't easy resurrecting the dead," he said on the way out the door, a statement as accurate as it was immodest.
Thrift was fired after an 85-win season, the Pirates' first step toward the three division titles from 1990-92.
His successor, Larry Doughty, made some necessary additions (notably Jay Bell and Zane Smith), but Thrift created the base. He did that mostly by acquiring players who had been undervalued by their organizations.
In St. Louis, Whitey Herzog had made a rare miscalculation, deciding that Andy Van Slyke couldn't play full-time and that he wasn't suited for center field. The Yankees saw Doug Drabek as erratic, and preferred Rick Rhoden's veteran presence. The White Sox jumped at the chance to trade inexperienced Bobby Bonilla for power arm Jose DeLeon.
This year's Pirates' resurgence may not be a matter of resurrecting the dead, but it qualifies as waking a franchise from a deep slumber.
The starting rotation and back of the bullpen that have carried the Pirates were acquired by GM Neal Huntington in a climate where teams are reluctant to part with quality pitching.
It took Huntington longer to turn things around (he was hired six years ago this month), but it's also a different MLB landscape. The gap between the top and bottom payrolls was $13 million in 1988; the difference was $142 million last season.
When the Pirates traded their best player, Tony Pena, in 1987, he was making $1.225 million. Rhoden was paid $620,000 in his last Pirates season.
Jeff King, the overall No. 1 pick in the 1986 draft, had to hold out for a $180,000 singing bonus; Gerrit Cole got an $8 million bonus as the top pick in the 2011 draft.
Unlike Thrift, Huntington has no interest in self-promotion, and he won't ever push his way into the spotlight.
But like Thrift, he's taken a wounded organization and restored it to health despite budget restrictions most GMs don't have.
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--Countdown to kickoff
The Steelers season that opens today doesn't have the usual level of anticipation.
That's probably because the team was 8-8 last season and missed the playoffs. It's also probably because that seems like a reasonable forecast for this season as well.
This has the look of winding up somewhere in the range of 9-7 to 7-9. The scary part is the lack of depth, which could show itself when injuries inevitably occur.
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--Family feud
The soundtrack for the 1979 Pirates championship run was Sister Sledge's "We Are Family," a bouncy number that promoted harmony well enough to overcome the gender-specific lyrics.
Turns out Kathy Sledge left the act some time ago and performs on her own. Now she's in court with her sisters, fighting over the right to use the "Sister Sledge" trademark for bookings.
So perhaps they sing:
"We were fam-a-lee,
Now I've got these lawyers with me...
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Beaver County Times, Sept. 1, 2013

If Starling Marte hadn't injured his hand, maybe the Pirates don't deal for rental players Marlon Byrd and John Buck.
But with Marte facing more time out of the lineup, and with one corner outfield spot already completely unsettled, the Pirates had no choice. They needed help.
When you have a chance to win the division, you can't fill both corner outfield positions by dipping into the same grab bag of mediocrity.
So they wisely paid the price, which was two decent prospects. Second baseman Dilson Herrera is only 19, so who knows how he'll develop. He's probably three years away from the major leagues.
Reliever Vic Black is ready now, and the Pirates had plans for him in their ever-changing bullpen. But one of the reasons to stockpile prospects is to have them available as trading chips to fill other needs.
Somehow Buck makes $6 million, so there's a $1 million hit on the remainder of his contract. That shouldn't be a big issue with the kind of business the Pirates have been doing for the last few months.
(Buck will be paid more for this month than previous backups Michael McKenry and Tony Sanchez will make for the entire season, combined).
Byrd is a bargain whose payroll impact is negligible. Each player represents an upgrade, so it was a deal that had to be made.
You take the chance, but never know for sure. The Penguins found that out in the spring when they landed Jarome Iginla, Brenden Morrow and Douglas Morrow in deadline deals that were widely praised.
But all three players flopped in the playoffs, and the Penguins had no interest in bringing any of them back.
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--Ben's Big Broadcast
They were dancing in the hallways at 93.7 The Fan (KDKA-FM) last week when Ben Roethlisberger agreed to do a weekly show.
Roethliserger will appear on the Vinnie and Cook show every Tuesday at 11 a.m. This is a coup because it shuts out WDVE, the flagship station for the Steelers' games, and because anything Steelers-related draws business.
No Steeler is bigger than Ben, and advertisers will pay premium prices to get proximity to a Roethlisberger show.
It remains to be seen how candid he'll be, but people will listen and The Fan will rake in even more money. As it stands how, you can grow a beard during a typical Fan commercial cluster in the daytime hours.
There could be one tangible benefit for listeners. Interviewing Roethlisberger may temporarily distract the mismatched hosts from their usual squabbling.
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--Musical tribute
Frank Pulli, who umpired for nearly 30 years, died last week at 78.
Pulli was once working the plate at Three Rivers Stadium, and found himself in frequent disagreement with the Pirates over his calls. The crowd picked up on the discord, and soon every pitch was an issue.
Organist Vince Lascheid noticed from his perch on the fourth level, too. When Pulli finally called a strike on an opposing hitter, Lascheid punctuated the moment with a sarcastic "Ta da" riff that the crowd loved.
Pulli wasn't so crazy about it. After the game, he summoned Lascheid to the umpires' room. He used that face-to-face meeting to strongly let him know he preferred to work without musical accompaniment.
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