If my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates were a traditional business, they would be Enron:
Asked if the Pirates could be facing a payroll cut similar to the one they had after the 1996 season, McClatchy didn’t hesitate. “It could be … I’m not saying that will happen because I don’t know what moves [General Manager] Dave Littlefield is going to make. We took it back to almost $9 million in ’97. I don’t think we’ll do anything close to that this time. But am I going to continue to blindly write checks for unproductive players? No. We have to get this franchise back to the break-even point. It’s going to be painful.”
You think only a bumbling ownership group could take the promise of the best new ballpark in America and turn it into such a financial nightmare so quickly?
Of course, you do, but you might be surprised to hear what McClatchy said about that.
“This is our fault. I don’t think anyone can say we didn’t try to put together a winning team, but we made some bad decisions. I have to take the blame for that.”
The baseball season is now over. Here we go Steelers, here we go!