Ron Cook: A sorry situation

It was an especially tough weekend for Pirates fans, who watched the team's fortunes sink once again, while the rising Brewers clearly display that it's not impossible for a small-market team to succeed

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The right words always are so hard to come by at a difficult time like this.

All I can say is you have my deepest sympathy.

There can't possibly be anything worse than -- and we're talking sports now -- being a Pirates fan.

That is especially true this morning, now that the lousy events of the weekend have fully sunk in.

It's bad enough that the Pirates lost three out of four to the smaller-market Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park, making it five losses in six games against the Brewers this season. The primary difference between the clubs is clear: The Brewers' ownership group has a clue. Milwaukee took a major league-best 21-10 record into its home game against the Washington Nationals last night. The Pirates are 13-17, 71/2 games behind the Brewers after the loss Sunday, looking very much like they always do, a bad team headed toward a staggering 15th consecutive losing season.

But that's only half of it. About the time the Brewers' Prince Fielder was rubbing the Pirates' Matt Capps' nose into it Sunday, attention was called to the owner's box at Yankee Stadium. There, Roger Clemens announced to the world he was rejoining the New York Yankees. Imagine being among the 52,553 on hand, thinking you had shown up to see a win against the Seattle Mariners and getting that sort of bonus surprise. Then again, if you were a Yankees fan, you would be used to it.

"The sole mission of this organization is to win a championship," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement after the signing of Clemens.

It must be nice.

"I believe that winning is the most important thing. A baseball team has to win baseball games," Pirates owner Robert Nutting said earlier this year.

Doesn't quite mean the same thing, does it?

Hang in there, Pirates fans:

Bryan Bullington could be on the way!

I know, I know. It's not exactly a breaking story that the system is stacked against teams such as the Pirates. To fill their needs, they must look within. When the Yankees need a pitcher after their rotation crumbles and they fall 51/2 games behind the hated Boston Red Sox, they go out and sign the great Clemens for $4.5 million per month, which is more than any of the Pirates but shortstop Jack Wilson will make all season. Steinbrenner doesn't even mind the additional $7.4 million in luxury tax he must pay because of Clemens. He just figures it's the cost of doing business the right way.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be envious.

You should be downright green, actually.

Not so much of Steinbrenner. There's only one New York after all.

Of the Brewers' ownership. The Brewers' payroll is about $20 million more than the Pirates' payroll even though the team plays in a city two-thirds as big. So much for that small-market excuse that always seems to be heard around here a little more often than it is in Milwaukee, Oakland and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Brewers' owners don't appear to be pocketing all of their profits. On the contrary, the money they get from baseball's $3 billion television contract, its new Internet and international revenue streams and from the Steinbrenners of the game in revenue sharing seems to be going back into their product. They actually are trying to win.

What a concept.

And what are you stuck with?

You know the sad answer to that question:

The worst ownership in sports, one that has shown no signs of the accountability that Nutting promised when he emerged from the shadows last winter to replace Kevin McClatchy as the face of the franchise, even as the losses are starting to mount again and the same silly mistakes keep happening on the bases and in the field and the lame offense continues to produce virtually nothing.

At least Nutting was honest about one thing when he publicly took charge in January.

"There's really no change in how we're doing business," he said.

Lucky you.

Poor, poor, pitiful you.

Condolences hardly seem like enough at a moment like this.



(Ron Cook can be reached at rcook@post-gazette.com.)