Beaver County Times, July 19, 2015

What a weekend it was at PNC Park.
That was the kind of atmosphere everyone had in mind when the idea was conceived for an intimate, baseball-only park.
Not only did the Pirates walk off with two victories, they won the games in extra innings, and won both facing a deficit.
Taking three of four games in the weekend series against the NL Central-leading Cardinals allowed the Pirates to get within two and a half games of first place, whittling down a nine-game deficit that had looked so daunting two weeks earlier.
Those two games clearly represent highlights in the 15 seasons at PNC Park. The only comparable game is the 2013 Wild Card win over the Reds, when the Pirates reached the postseason after a 20-year losing streak.
Beyond that? For excitement and drama that stretched beyond a single game, you'd probably have to go back to Sept. 29, 1978 when the Pirates played a Friday night doubleheader against the Phillies.
The Phillies came in for the four-game, season-ending series holding a three and a half game lead.
You didn't need a calculator to figure out the scenario -- The Pirates needed to win all four games. Anything less would give the division to the Phillies (and there were no wild card consolation prizes in those days).
The rivalry between the Phillies and Pirates was white hot, with several brawls spicing the games between two excellent teams. There were fire-stoking loudmouths on both sides -- Larry Bowa for the Phillies, Dave Parker for the Pirates.
The Pirates had attendance problems then, but 45,134 people paid their way into Three Rivers Stadium that night. They saw the Pirates win both games in the bottom of the ninth inning.
In the first game, Ed Ott led off with a triple off Ron Reed, and was able to score on center fielder Garry Maddox's error.
The second game was even wilder. Steve Carlton allowed a leadoff double to Dave Parker, who went to third on another error by Maddox. By the way, Maddox was nicknamed "Secretary of Defense" and won eight Gold Glove awards.
Carlton intentionally walked Bill Robinson and Willie Stargell to load the bases. On a 1-1 pitch to Phil Garner, reliever Warren Brusstar balked in the winning run.
The sweep offered hope that the Pirates could pull of the miracle, but they lost the next day 10-8, despite taking a 4-1 lead after one inning.
So will there be carryover effect from last weekend for the last nine games between the Pirates and Cardinals? Probably not. The Cardinals devastated the Pirates with three walk-off wins in April.
If that sent a message, the Pirates didn't get it. They've won five of seven against the Cardinals since that series.
The good thing about the weekend is it preceded the All-Star break. So instead of getting swallowed in the daily grind of the schedule, it lingered so fans could savor a couple of special moments.
Plus it gave excitable announcer Greg Brown a chance to ice himself down for a few days.
---
--THINKING OUT LOUD
Some quick takes on the Pirates in the second half:
--Josh Harrison's injury highlights the need for another bat, and another starter would be welcome, too. The Pirates have been fortunate with the health of their starting rotation in a season where their back-up options are limited.
But it would also be good to get some help for the bullpen. The heavy workloads on Jared Hughes, Tony Watson and Mark Melancon could be a factor in August.
--Speaking of length of season, this will soon become uncharted territory for Jung Ho Kang. He never played more than 133 games a season in Korea, and averaged 124 games a season. He played in his 73rd game on Friday.
--You can drive yourself crazy replaying drafts, but what if the Pirates had selected Buster Posey instead of Pedro Alvarez in 2008?
--There are only 90 feet between bases, yet the Pirates manage to have some incredible adventures covering those distances. Would it be legal to attach a GPS unit to each uniform sleeve?
---
--LOOKING GOOD
The only significant takeaway from the All-Star game: Everyone should look as good at 79 as Sandy Koufax does.

Beaver County Times, July 12, 2015

The unwitting architects of replay in MLB are Don Denkinger, Jim Joyce and Jerry Meals.
Those three umpires blew calls so badly and conspicuously that baseball had little choice but to follow other sports in using video technology to correct errors.
Denkinger missed a simple call at first base in the 1985 World Series that wound up swinging the Series in the Royals' favor. Joyce's incorrect call at first base in 2010 cost Detroit's Armando Galarraga a chance at a perfect game.
Meals put his name on the Pittsburgh sports infamy list in 2011 when he couldn't see that the Braves' Julio Lugo was tagged out at home plate in the 19th inning.
The plays live forever on the Internet, but everyone moves on knowing the wrong call was made. Salem, Ohio's Meals was later promoted to crew chief and will work Tuesday's All-Star game.
The cumulative effect was to create demand for replay review, which started on "boundary" plays. It was a major step for baseball to acknowledge that umpires running toward the outfield might not be entirely certain if a ball a hundred feet away was fair or foul, or whether it had been affected by fan interference.
The theory was sound: Get the call right. What sense did it make to live with a result that everyone could see was wrong?
Then they expanded replay. Now it's a monster.
The spirit of replay was correct. But now it's being used to determine whether a sliding base stealer may have lost contact with the bag for a split second while the tag was being applied.
Some players over slide the base, and should be called for that. If anyone is doing the blatant over slide (the Nyjer Morgan model), he should be called out.
But if someone is sliding in and oh-so-temporarily fails to hold the base, should a safe call be overturned if it takes the most nitpicking video evidence to reverse it?
If it takes super slow motion and freeze frame to make the case, haven't we gone beyond the spirit of things? It's even worse when the game stops for several minutes while the game umpires clamp on headsets and talk to colleagues at the replay center in New York.
There's always a shakeout period on replay policies and the degrees of rule enforcement.
Once the NHL disallowed goals if replay found a player with an inch of his skate blade in the crease. It didn't matter if the breach affected the play or not.
They realized that was ridiculously petty and it's tilted totally in the other direction. Now players can pretty much have lunch in the crease with no penalty.
Baseball needs to separate the clinical from the practical. Because every second base slide is under the microscope, runners are desperately hugging the bag like it's a much-loved teddy bear. The fielders applying the tags are clutching the runners like they're getting ready to polka.
It's silly. Replay is a great tool. Part of the application is knowing when not to use it.
----
--FIZZLING OUT
Gerrit Cole heads into his first All-Star appearance with a 13-3 record, and much has been made of the fact this is the best pre-All-Star performance by a Pirates pitcher since Dock Ellis and Ken Brett.
Ellis was 14-3 at the break in 1971, and Brett had a 12-6 record at the 1974 break.
Better hope that Cole doesn't duplicate the seasons they had after the hot starts.
Ellis seemed to be a lock for a 20-win season. He finished 19-9 and wasn't of much value in the postseason.
Brett only won one more game, finishing 13-9. His chronic shoulder problems flared up and he gave the Pirates two ineffective innings in the playoffs.
---
--VOTING IRREGULARITY
The demise of paper ballots in All-Star voting reminds of the days when the Three Rivers Stadium ushers refused to hand them out to fans.
The union deemed that a change in work rules that hadn't been negotiated.
Did it really matter? Does anyone believe MLB actually counted the write-in votes on all those cards?
---
--SORRY, NOT SAFE
The sports books in Las Vegas take action on everything. So next year you have to figure they'll establish an over/under line on how many NFL players blow up their hands over the Fourth of July weekend.

Beaver County Times, July 5, 2015

Time to get that hole in the screen door patched, and rid up the yard, too. The Super Bowl could be coming to town.
The Steelers have applied to the NFL to host Super Bowl LVII in 2023. That would be Super Bowl 57 at Heinz Field, of course, a symmetry that should appeal to the commercial-minded league.
Alas, we missed our shot on Super Bowl 33 (Rolling Rock beer) and Super Bowl 11 (the number of herbs and spices in the secret KFC recipe). We won't get caught napping this time.
The Steelers have taken the first stop in the process, which is submitting an application. That's sort of like announcing your intention to invite the class hottie to the prom. No guarantee it will ever come close to happening, but you establish interest.
A Pittsburgh Super Bowl really doesn't make much sense, but the Rooneys have some sway in the NFL in some matters. For that reason, it can't be ruled out instantly.
The Super Bowl isn't just the biggest football game, it's the NFL's combination party/trade show/convention. Companies who spend a lot of money with the NFL get a lot of the tickets and spend the week showing off their association with the No. 1 sports league.
That's why most Super Bowls are in warm weather cities with a reputation as party places, like New Orleans and Miami. Sure, they sidetrack to Detroit and Indianapolis now and then, but the game is played under a dome.
The exception was 2014 in New Jersey, the first time a Super Bowl was played outdoors in a place guaranteed to be cold on game day. The NFL lucked out there, as the weather wasn't a factor.
And besides, that was New York. Where better to spend the week of the run-up? New York has dozens of Broadway shows. Pittsburgh gets the touring company of "Kinky Boots," and it's a big deal if someone in the cast once appeared in an episode of "Seinfeld."
Pittsburgh mayor/Undercover Boss Bill Peduto is solidly behind the plan, and he ought to be. Pittsburgh's tourism bureau is an awfully lonely place when the bike lanes are snowed under.
It's too early to project an exact date, but the Super Bowl is usually around the first week of February. Considering 2023 is still eight years away, do we even know if Heinz Field will still be around? The Steelers might decide the place is outdated and start squawking that they need a new one.
But let's proceed with caution and start making some preliminary plans, just in case. People who sell funnel cakes should be put on alert because this could be one monster street fair.
Of course, we'll need those two western Pennsylvania traditions, a classic car cruise and a parade. Fireworks every time it's dark.
Obviously we need more hotel rooms, even though there's now a hotel every 15 yards between PNC Park and Heinz Field. Who knew the number of hotels would equal the number of panhandlers in that sector?
The Penguins should have some home games during that week. One should be against the Bruins, given that the Patriots are likely to be one of the Super Bowl teams. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady will probably still be in charge, too, even though they'll be 71 and 46 by then. Pure evil lasts forever.
This is a chance to show off the North Shore Connector, the boondoggle of a non-bullet train that crawls beneath the river from downtown. Not many cities have a light rail line that covers 1.2 miles at a cost of $523.4 million and -- oh yeah -- routinely passes up potential passengers because the cars are already packed.
(By the way, suspend the free ride policy for SB LVII week. If somebody has $800 for a game ticket, they can kick in the $2.50 fare).
This is a chance to promote Pittsburgh in a way that hasn't existed since people flocked to town to watch the implosion of Three Rivers Stadium.
Just imagine barons of industry going back to headquarters bragging about their week in Pittsburgh and telling astonished lackeys, "They put the fries right on the sandwich!"
The possibilities are endless. North Siders are already dreaming of gouging a tourist for the use of a parking space that's been saved with an old kitchen chair.

Beaver County Times, June 28, 2015

Coming to a ballpark (sort of) near you: Baseball's all time hit king.
Also coming: The game's most famous outcast.
It's actually a 2-for-1 on Tuesday, when Pete Rose stops by the Washington Wild Things game at Consol Energy Park. The town once known as "Little Washington" will never seem smaller than it will on Tuesday.
Rose is making a promotional stop, something he's allowed to do since the Wild Things are an independent league not affiliated with Major League Baseball. He'll spend a little time on the field, serving an inning as an "honorary coach" for the Wild Things, who play the Lake Erie Crushers.
The Wild Things are the lowest rung of professional baseball, a catch-all for guys who have washed out of affiliated baseball but still harbor some hope of getting back. That happens, but not often.
Ticket prices at that level are low, but the Wild Things are offering a $100 VIP package that includes a meet and greet with Rose and a photo opportunity with him. That seems like a pretty expensive selfie, but the customer will decide that.
This booking is a publicity bonanza for the Wild Things, who usually don't get a lot of attention. Rose signed a document agreeing to a lifetime ban from MLB 26 years ago, and he was back in the headlines again last week.
ESPN came into possession of a notebook that documented Rose's $2,000 per game bets on MLB. It's not news that he bet on baseball -- he admitted to that after 11 years of denials because it was his hook to sell a confessional book.
The new angle here is that Rose was betting in 1986, when he was still an active player. He has always denied that he wagered on games when he was playing. Somehow he thinks his gambling is less of a violation if it was done while he was a manager.
The evidence seems to show that Rose never bet on his team to lose, and some people have the misguided notion that lessens his sin. It doesn't. Gambling on baseball games is prohibited, and one of the reasons is spelled out in his trail of losses.
It's possible for the bettor to wind up in significant debt to bookies who are tied to organized crime. That's a scary scenario for any sports league.
It's probably no coincidence this news came out just when it seemed possible there was the slightest chance MLB might relent at least a little on Rose's penalty. There's a new commissioner, Rob Manfred. The All-Star game is in Cincinnati. Public sentiment has long been in Rose's favor, more so after the steroid users shredded the record book.
But it appears now the door is slammed again, and Rose has used up his last chance to have any relationship with MLB.
No doubt someone will take kids to the Wild Things game on Tuesday and tell them how Rose's Reds and Phillies were bitter rivals of the Pirates a generation ago. The confused kids will only see a 74-year-old man wobbling on bad knees and wearing a cap to cover his bald spot.
The Hit King is an indy league touring attraction now, the role that Max Patkin and the San Diego Chicken used to fill. It's a one-nighter designed to help a struggling franchise pop a crowd on a slow weeknight. If all goes well, increased concession sales will make it pay off.
The Wild Things advise that autograph tickets are available (no price listed), but that Rose will only sign Wild Things merchandise. The news release warns: "No Cincinnati Reds or other MLB licensed merchandise will be permitted for the autograph session."
So if you've always wanted Rose's signature on a Frontier League baseball, here's your chance.
There's a caveat for coverage, too, per the release: "Wild Things officials are currently working with Pete Rose's representatives regarding how and when he will be available to media.  It is our understanding he will not discuss MLB, the Cincinnati Reds, or any of the information that has been in the news recently."
So what that does leave for discussion? Bruce Jenner's transition to Caitlyn? The NHL draft? The weather?
The Wild Things report tickets are still available.
That's Tuesday night. Step right up. It's the saddest story you'll ever see.

Beaver County Times, June 21, 2015

After all the overkill coverage of deflated footballs, it's easy to be dismissive of another sports cheating scandal.
But the computer hacking investigation in MLB is no trivial matter, as demonstrated by the FBI's involvement.
There are allegations that employees of the Cardinals breached the Astros' computer system and had access to all their files.
Fox commentator Tom Verducci was on TV the other day shrugging this off as silly because the Cardinals are good and the Astros haven't been. Therefore, he concluded, what interest would the Cardinals have in stealing intelligence from the Astros?
Plenty, actually. Any knowledge is helpful, and access to scouting reports and e-mails regarding trades would have value.
There's no proof at this point that anyone in a position of authority at the Cardinals authorized the hacking or had any knowledge of it. There's no proof that information was even taken.
But just the idea that it could happen is enough to shake up MLB, and it should have the same chilling effect in other sports as well.
Time to tighten up the cyber security -- if it's not already too late.
---
--BUILT ON A BUDGET
For unknown reasons, some people don't have much regard for Neal Huntington.
Yet what he's done with the Pirates is bordering on miraculous. He's not only improved the major league team to postseason level, he's also supervised the building of an organization. These Pirates are constructed to be able to sustain success, and not fall off a cliff the way the 1990-92 teams did when the stars got too expensive and left.
That's tough to do, and it's even more difficult with budget restraints that a lot of organizations don't have.
Huntington made some big mistakes after he took over, but he's also learned from them.
Every time Mark Melancon saves a game, remember that he was acquired in a pre-emptive trade that sent Joel Hanrahan to the Red Sox after he had saved 36 games in 2012. The Pirates sent Brock Holt to Boston in the same deal and while he's proven to be a useful player, the key was upgrading the closer position.
Since leaving the Pirates, Hanrahan has pitched in nine major league games and recently had his second Tommy John surgery.
It was a classic example of selling high on a player, finding a replacement who had been undervalued and coming away with a substantial improvement at a much lower price.
---
--TRUMPED
Now that Donald Trump has officially thrown his hair into the ring as a Presidential candidate, he has to answer tough questions.
Here's one for him: Why did he kill the Pittsburgh Maulers?
Trump was one of the organizers of the USFL, which the Maulers joined for the league's second season, 1984. Trump was also the leading advocate of switching the USFL to a fall schedule to go head-to-head with the NFL.
That insistence led to the demise of the Maulers after that lone season. The DeBartolos owned the Maulers and they also owned the 49ers. They weren't about to compete with the NFL.
The goal of any upstart league is to force a merger with the established league. That happened when the NFL took in the old AFL in 1970. It happened on a limited scale with the NBA (ABA) and NHL (WHA).
The takeaway from that alphabet soup is the owners of teams in a competing league get to join the "real" league at a bargain price. That was Trump's goal in pushing for the USFL to go directly against the NFL.
It never happened, of course, and the Maulers didn't get a do-over on their 3-15 season.
We'll never know what coach Hank Bullough might have done with an '85 Maulers squad.
Candidate Trump should be made to answer for that.
---
--LACKING SUPPORT
Sometimes the details obscure the long view.
The Penguins' problem is they can't assemble a supporting cast to go with their stars. Seems like finding complementary players -- the Bob Errey, Phil Bourque and Troy Loney types -- should be the easier part.
Yet this is the sixth year Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury and Kris Letang have watched other teams play in the Stanley Cup Final.
---
--IN THE ROUGH
Poor Tiger Woods. If he didn't have 100 bazillion dollars in the bank, you'd feel sorry for him.

Beaver County Times, June 14, 2015

Oh, it's complicated, this relationship between Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
A lot of the animus comes from the fact the cities are so similar and carry the same kind of well-developed inferiority complex.
There's hostility, and almost all of it comes from the annual home-and-home series between the Steelers and Browns. When the Steelers agreed to move to the AFC in 1970 -- a big move at the time -- they wouldn't make the switch without the Browns.
Storied though it may be, the Steelers-Browns rivalry hasn't always been all that great. Cleveland had championship contending teams in the 1960s; the Steelers had Kent Nix at quarterback.
When the Steelers were winning Super Bowls in the 1970s, their hot rivalries were with Oakland and Houston. Cleveland wasn't a big obstacle.
Since the Browns came back as an expansion team after the original Browns became the Ravens, Cleveland has mostly been a pushover for the Steelers.
There's still passion and drunken parking lot showdowns, but the Steelers have mostly been gunning for the playoffs while the Browns have been auditioning a succession of awful quarterbacks.
Baseball doesn't matter because the Pirates and Indians rarely meet. MLB has decided the Tigers are the Pirates' "natural" rival.
Cleveland plays in the NBA, while Pittsburgh is in the NHL.
But some of the rivalry has apparently spilled over to the Cavaliers' NBA Finals series against Golden State. Reports say the Cavs have a gimmick where the scoreboard displays images designed to make people boo vociferously.
Apparently nothing gets a reaction like showing the Steelers logo and a photo of Ben Roethlisberger (a loyal son of Ohio, by the way).
The guy in charge of the Cavaliers is Len Komoroski, a Pittsburgh native and Duquesne graduate who got his start working for the now-defunct Spirit indoor soccer team.
It's probably all in good fun, but it seems cheap and serves as a reminder that overbearing "in-game entertainment" departments are probably one of the most loathsome sports trends of the last 20 years.
Could Pittsburgh reciprocate? Why bother?
Scoreboard images of the Browns logo and Johnny Manziel would just draw laughter, not boos.
---
--HAIR TODAY....
There was a tempest in a shaving mug last week when an executive from NBC suggested that playoff beards interfere with the marketing of NHL players.
His position was widely decried, but the point was legitimate. Players are already bundled in unflattering Michelin Man armor, and they all wear helmets that often have visors attached. You get a better look at some bank robbers.
Having a six-week growth of facial hair only adds to the inadvertent camouflage effect.
Fighting the beards is a losing battle, though. Hockey players have changed in a lot of ways -- today's players are bigger, stronger, better conditioned and smarter than their predecessors. The thing that hasn't changed is their devotion to superstition.
Another constant is the denial of superstition. So putting fresh tape on a stick every period, chewing two pieces of gum and tapping a certain teammate three times on the shin pads is a "routine," not superstition.
Has anyone noticed the playoff beard thing hasn't worked so well for the Penguins over the last six seasons?
---
--NICE TOUCH
Root Sports does so many dumb things on game coverage, it's a relief to mention something well done.
On the 30th anniversary of Bob Prince's death, Wednesday's game was dotted with reminiscences of his 28 years as The Voice of the Pirates. Greg Brown and Steve Blass both knew Prince, and could speak of their experiences with him.
When a replay of Pedro Alvarez's towering home run was shown, it was accompanied by a tape of Prince's classic, "Kiss It Goodbye" call. It was a perfect fit in the context of the evening.
By the way, colleges that offer sports marketing classes should make a case study of the monumental mistake the Pirates made in 1975 when they signed off on KDKA's decision to fire Prince and Nellie King.
The station didn't suffer, but the Pirates did. It was a huge blunder at a time when the Steelers were taking over the town anyway.
---
--START HIM UP
The Rolling Stones play Heinz Field on Saturday night.
It's expected to be a wild time. There are even rumors that Art Rooney II might leave the top button of his shirt open.

Beaver County Times, June 7, 2015

The Penguins aren't going anywhere. Mario Lemieux might be headed elsewhere, though.
The news last week that the team's current ownership has hired Morgan Stanley to explore its options could be the first step to another twist in this franchise's fascinating history.
Theories abound. Canadian media reports suggest the partnership of Ron Burkle and Lemieux has become less harmonious in recent years. This claims there have been disagreements over how to run the Penguins.
The issue there is why Burkle, who made his fortune in the grocery business, would not defer to Lemieux on hockey decisions.
Conflicting reports claim that either partner is the one pushing the decision to explore a sale.
The idea is that Burkle, who initially invested $20 million, is simply anxious to take his profit and move on to other adventures.
At the same time, it's believed that as Lemieux faces turning 50 in October, he'd rather cash out and enjoy a leisurely life free of the pressures of running a pro sports franchise.
Lemieux's four children are out of the house (so is Sidney Crosby, for that matter), and there's little else to tether him to western Pennsylvania and his Sewickley mansion. Canadian outlets have reported that Lemieux spent $20 million to build a 20-room/10 bathroom castle in the ski resort town of Mont Tremblant, north of Montreal.
Forbes magazine has pegged the Penguins' value at just short of $600 million. Those figures are always theoretical until real market value is established by actual bidding, but that's probably the correct neighborhood.
Lemieux could walk away with a sum that's easily into nine figures. That could make for a lot of enjoyable sunny afternoons on the golf course, a much more peaceful existence than fretting about the team's power play problems.
Lemieux has become such a mythical figure that it's easy to lose track of how he came to be involved in ownership. Taking equity in the franchise was his best chance to recover the money the previous owners owed him after declaring bankruptcy.
Burkle, who had no connection to Pittsburgh or any known affinity for hockey, became involved because some additional cash was needed. As an investor, he's worked out better than Roger Marino.
It's been suggested the Penguins are seeking something similar to the restructuring of ownership that the Steelers undertook a few years ago. That's incorrect. The Steelers changes were at the insistence of the NFL, and the Rooneys were careful to set things up so that they retained control of the franchise and its day-to-day operations.
Dan Rooney and Art Rooney II are in the office every day, and they still call the shots.
Although the statement from Lemieux and Burkle said both would like to maintain some stake in ownership, it's doubtful that would amount to more than a token presence. Old timers might remember when Bing Crosby (he was an entertainer, kids) owned a small piece of the Pirates.
If the franchise is sold, someone else will be running the Penguins, and that opens up some interesting possibilities.
The NHL has traditionally done a lousy job of vetting owners. Bruce McNall (Kings), John Spano (Islanders), Paul Greenwood (Islanders) and John Rigas (Sabres) have all served prison time for financial misdeeds. William "Boots" Del Biaggio, who had an agreement to purchase the Penguins in 2005, was sentenced to eight years in prison for bilking investors.
Howard Baldwin, whose personal cash investment in the Penguins was $1,000, took the team to bankruptcy.
There is absolutely no interest in moving the franchise. Pittsburgh is a strong market for a league that has real problems in too many other places. There's a long-term arena lease tilted so heavily in the Penguins' favor that former Gov. Ed Rendell should have sealed it with a kiss.
Don't worry about the Penguins' zip code. They're staying put.
But with last week's announcement, just about everything else is potentially up for grabs.
---
--MUST-HAVE ITEM
Giveaways at baseball games have evolved from the early days of bats, baseballs and caps.
Sunday will be Andrew McCutchen Compression Sleeve Day at PNC Park.
Just a heads-up before the kids start nagging.
---
--HERE WE GO, STONES
Commerce makes strange bedfellows sometimes.
For proof, just look at the giant banners hanging from the side of Heinz Field: They display the Rolling Stones' famous tongue logo done in black and gold.