Saturday, January 13, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bob Nutting, the chairman of the Pirates, stepped out of the shadows yesterday for first-time meetings with the Pittsburgh media. Nutting was front and center as he and CEO Kevin McClatchy had a series of approximately 30-minute sessions with individual media outlets in the Pirates' offices.
The men met with about 10 different news outlets and for most, if not all the media members, it was the first time they had seen Nutting, let alone met him. That is an unusual situation for the owner of a major sports franchise.
Nutting long preferred very little public contact when it came to the Pirates. But such an approach wasn't working. Since it became widely known that his family had taken controlling interest in the Pirates and he was the man making the major decisions for the franchise, Nutting has not been popular with Pirates fans -- although no one really knew him.
McClatchy has been the face of the franchise since he bought it in 1996. Once extremely popular and hailed as the man who saved baseball in Pittsburgh, he became the obvious target for fan unhappiness over the team's poor play, which now measures at 14 consecutive losing seasons. Of late, though, he has shared that role with Nutting.
Dressed casually in a button-down blue shirt with no jacket or tie and wearing sharply creased dark gray trousers and black shoes, Nutting made an impressive appearance. He's a tall man with a thick shock of black hair and bears a distinct resemblance to a young Mario Lemieux. Nutting looks enough like Lemieux that if he removed his glasses and stood in one of the sky boxes at Mellon Arena and waved down to a capacity crowd, he likely would get a standing ovation.
He comes across a bright, well-spoken and sincere in the belief of wanting a winning team in Pittsburgh. How far he will go financially to achieve such a goal remains to be seen.
The purpose of the media gatherings was to introduce Nutting, who previously had refused one-on-one interviews, and at the same time announce a minor reshuffling within the organization. The Pirates have asked Major League Baseball to ratify a "change in control" within the franchise. Nutting will replace McClatchy as the man who speaks and votes for the Pirates on baseball business. It is the most minor of changes because even when McClatchy was voting, he was speaking for the Nutting family.
Nutting spoke with Post-Gazette reporters for approximately 30 minutes and vehemently denied, with strong backing from McClatchy, that he and the other owners are pocketing profit, which is a widely held belief by the media and fans
"That is absolutely inaccurate," he said. "The ownership group is not taking money out of the team and putting it in their pockets. We are not moving profits."
To which, McClatchy added, "We are not paying ourselves dividends and we're reinvesting every penny that we've made back into the club."
Another way for ownership to take profit out of a team is to pay themselves excessive salaries. When asked about that, McClatchy offered a surprising answer.
"Bob doesn't take a penny from the team, so I'd say he's underpaid. My salary is probably on par with other CEOs or a little bit below."
If Nutting and McClatchy are being honest, and there is no reason to believe that is not the case, the profit the team is making is either being plowed back into player development or, more likely, being used to pay down debt. It certainly is not going toward player salary. The Pirates' payroll remains among the lowest in baseball.
Nutting went to great pains to point out he is interested in winning and has no desire to have a profitable but losing team.
"Questioning my commitment or my family's commitment to winning, I think that's completely inappropriate."
Nutting presented a picture of a team on solid financial footing that is equipped to handle the nearly impossible scenario of winning in a small market with a limited budget. He also emphatically endorsed McClatchy, who, he said, had his "unconditional" support.
It was a public relations step forward for the Pirates. But, on the field, little has changed. The Pirates remain a team in desperate need of additional talent, and that's something a suddenly media-friendly chairman of the board can't change.
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(Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com. )
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