Confluence Soapbox; Hey Bob, open the books....

I just continue to be furious over the sham of a press conference the Pirates pulled on the fans yesterday.

And as I suspected, I'm not alone.

All over the Pirates blogosphere, the same feelings are portrayed, albeit written in bloggers' respective styles.

But it's just the outlandish and completely ridiculous comments that they made that are an insult to me and all other Pirate fans that have put up with this nonsense for so many years.

"I will say this: I am absolutely committed to having the team win,"

"It's a plan that absolutely can work, and I expect it to work,"

Give me a frickin' break.

But here's the one that's got me steamed;

"Ownership is not taking money out of the team and putting it in their pockets. It is going right back into the team."

You want to earn some brownie points with Pirate fans now that you've come out of hibernation with your Daddy, Bob ??

PROVE IT.

Do like your divisional rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, did when they were pressured to do so by their fans.

If you're so confident that your team is doing the right thing, and not spending that money against the regulations that MLB has set forth, open up the books and PROVE IT.

Kevin McClatchy said as much a couple of years ago in an interview with FSN 'Burgh. He admitted that the money that they received from MLB's revenue sharing was going toward paying off debt, completely against the "spirit" of the rules of revenue sharing.

I would love to see fans continue to pressure Pirate ownership to open up the books, and show us where the hundreds of millions have gone over the past 14 years.

But I'm also realistic enough to realize that that day probably will never come.

Bucs ownership changes; Big Frickin' Deal

I was like most Pirate fans today.

I saw the headline, Nutting To Replace McClatchy As Controlling Owner, and of course, I completely misunderstood what it really meant.

Because, of course, it means absolutely nothing to Pirate fans.

Why would I give a shit if the Nuttings own more of the Pirates than they used to ??

Bob Nutting showed his face today, let's all run out and buy season tickets !!!

McClatchy still runs the day-to-day operations, so what's the difference ??

Will they all of a sudden produce an influx of money ??

No ?? Then it doesn't mean a f#$king thing !!!!

Littlefield hasn't done a damn thing. If fact, if you count the signing of Jose Hernandez for the 37th time, they've gotten worse.

The ownership does some completely cosmetic crap today, thinking that fans will be gullable enough to really think it's going to make any difference.

I'm so tired of this spew coming from this group of malcontents, and I hope everyone else is as well.

I'll tell everyone this right now, if Littlefield does relatively nothing before the season starts, my Pirate coverage will be maybe once a week.

Lots of folks have given some nice compliments in relation to my Pens coverage, and I had intended of doing the same for the Bucs upcoming season, but not the way they're going now. I've got enough gray hairs as it is, I don't need any more.

If they make the trade for LaRoche, or maybe Chad Tracy, I'll reconsider it. But not with the status quo.

I'll resume my Steelers coverage as well. After all, it's time for draft talk for us non-playoff teams, right ??