By ‘strosrays 

The Pirates Look At 40

Pirates (65-81) at Astros (63-83)
Minute Maid Park, 501 Crawford St., Houston, TX  77002
a/k/a “The Wal-Mart at Union Station” 

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▪Friday, September 14 (7:05 p.m. CDT) – FSN

▪Saturday, September 15 (6:05 p.m. CDT) – KNWS (Kick-ass Nineteen Watt Signal)

▪Sunday, September 16 (1:05 p.m. CDT) – FSN

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Ahoy and Avast, the Pirates Suck Ass (ah, but so too the hometown Astros)

Now is the silly time of the season for also-rans like the Astros and the Pirates.  They can expand their rosters to up to forty players each, and there are so many farmhands wandering around, you wonder how they can all fit on the bench during games.  The Astros and Pirates have a lot in common these days, it seems.  They have similar records this season, and one or the other will finish in the NL Central cellar.  Their immediate prospects for the future don’t look so good, either.  The Pirates are in the midst of a stretch of mediocrity of historic proportions, 15 straight losing seasons, and no end in sight.  They probably have no chance of turning it around until the current inept ownership sells the team to someone with enough sense to hire good baseball people and open up the checkbook and stay out of the way.  The Astros are at the beginning of a downward spiral that probably won’t wind completely out until the current (gutless) proprietor/huckster figures out his endless meddling in baseball decisions and his Dale Carnegie bullshit isn’t going to get it anymore, and decides to go elsewhere, where there are people who want to be champions, today (there is of course the possibility this will never happen, fans.)  Drayton McLane can micromanage in the business world, and force his silly motivational crap down the throats of all the underlings he pays $7.50-an-hour with meager benefits to wear blue aprons, and fake smiles, while they move his cheap, Chinese-made merchandise, while he gets rich off of the disadvantaged and disaffected. . . but his business ideas and his brand of hypocritical pandering don’t work quite as well on professional baseball men, or on millionaire players, either.

You had some good times in Houston, McLane, but you have stayed on too long.  Save your legacy, do us all a favor, and take your hoary bromides and your polished Florsheim loafers and your idiot offspring and just get the fuck out.  Sell the team.  I don’t care to who.  Please, Drayton.  Don’t leave mad, just leave.  Shove off.Read More