Baseball Thread Number 8: Cal Ripken says the playoff hunt is fun

I'm not being a dick here (for once), but if the support is that tepid, they should leave and go to...umm...OK fine. There's no market begging for baseball. I guess they're stuck there.

 

The Cubs made their tradition of shit work. Why can't the Pirates?

 

That park is one of the nicest I've ever been to.

If you put a winner on the field, people will go.

The fact that they suck donkey nuts every year is why they don't draw.

It ain't rocket science, here.

 

Except that they have failed to draw even when they did win in that town. Pittsburgh wasn't a great baseball town even before 17 years of losing. Now you have a large part of the population that grew up on the team sucking, so there are fewer die-hard fans from that time period.

I see your point, Zeke, but I don't think you are taking the city itself into enough account.

 

Looks like Fowler pinch ran for him in the 8th inning. The Rockies were trailing at the time, so maybe they just wanted to get speed on second base.

 

People are front-running fucks. One 90-win summer and everything changes. At least til the next 17-year losing streak.

 

Maybe they can repeat that 20-some-win September they had a year ago. They're always at their best when the season's been long lost.

 

Tied at the time.

The comeback of Helton has been perhaps the most surprising part about this Rockies team (though, Seth Smith and the pitching staff has been up there as well). I think I speak for most people when I say I pretty much wrote him off after last season. He hadn't had power for a few years, was 36 and just undergone major back surgery. The fact that he's been able to at least put up playoff-contender appropriate level production at first base has been shocking.

 

Even the best ballpark in baseball can't make that a good baseball town. And all those years of losing certainly haven't made it better.

 

Do people consider Pittsburgh -- at least the Pirates -- to be small market? I'm pretty sure that's one of the cities included when people talk about small-market teams. It's usually used as an excuse for losing, but you never hear anyone say the Steelers or Pens play in a small-market.

Then again, I could be talking out of my ass.

 

Baseball is the only sport where being a small market is a factor.

The others have salary caps.

The Pirates also have an ownership group that is so freeking cheap that they refuse to do simple things to stay competitive like scout Latin America.

But the Pirates do turn a profit.

 

Are you talking about people in Pittsburgh or people in South Florida?