Shiver me timbers, we've entered the crazy times. Pirates are totally making a comeback. They're more in fashion this fall than cashmere sweaters and plain-front trousers.
It's been 200 years since they've been a force at sea, but lately no one is safe, from super tankers to fishing boats. The map on the right is from the International Chamber of Commerce's Crime Service web page and it's constantly streaming in real time to bring you the latest pirate information.
No joke, there's a website dedicated to tracking pirate attacks around the globe. And courtesy of Google's nifty little pointers you can get the exact GPS coordinates of each sea invasion.
The stories making the big news include the Sirius Star, an oil tanker loaded with a cool $100 million in crude. But, for us anglers there's a bit more worrisome news. Several fishing vessels, both commercial and private have been boarded by Blackbeard wannabes. And though this just seems absurd to type, be careful if you're fishing the east coast of Africa near Madagascar or around the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Silly as it seems, these are prime fishing spots for big-game species like marlin and tuna and draw fishermen each winter from around the world.
The good news is this new breed of pirate seems to be a little less savage than his predecessor, mostly demanding princely ransoms. So far there are no reports of plank walking.
And for your pleasure, no wait, actually this is more for my pleasure, a couple of cheesy pirate jokes after the jump.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are going to right a wrong in the sports world this season. After the New England Patriots same so close to an undefeated season only to lose it all in the final moments, the Pirates are going to conquer the world of baseball and go 162-0 with the team they have and the power of dreams!
And if they lose? Well, all the kids on the hipster t-shirt circuit get a "161-1" yellow and black novelty tee.
On today's Spring Dugz (are we seriously calling it that), we take step one on the year-long journey toward destiny with the Pittsburgh Pirates. And hey, we managed to get this one done without throwing in the mascot!
Anyone who was afraid that the Blue Jays might trade Josh Towers for a bag of doughnuts can relax. Because Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi has gone on the record as saying that he won't do such a thing.
See, check it out:
"I'm not going to trade Josh Towers for a bag of doughnuts, I've got to get something back that is a very good player for us to say, 'Hey, we can hang our hat on this guy.'"
They also won't be trading him to Pittsburgh for shortstop Jack Wilson, or so Ricciardi says, shooting down a popular rumor.
"We have absolutely no interest in Jack Wilson," said Ricciardi. "None."
These and other recent comments by Ricciardi indicate he'd prefer to see how the Jays' lineup plays when no one is injured before making any changes. That means he may well stand pat at the trade deadline and see what a healthy team can accomplish in 2008.
"We want to finish as best we can, we're under 10 in the wild card, it's not insurmountable. Obviously you've got teams in front of you but maybe we can cut that down. But more importantly we want to see what our team looks like when it is together."
The career of Jeromy Burnitz has seemingly finally ended today; Burnitz announced his retirement at the age of 37 today.
Burnitz was bought out by the Pirates for $700,000 this past off-season after they declined to pick up his $6 million option in his final year. It was the first year Burnitz didn't have a guaranteed deal, according to the Sports Frog:
Agent Howard Simon said Burnitz had contemplated retirement for the past two or three seasons, only to return to play each time.
Except he didn't retire, perhaps because he had a guaranteed contract. No team is interested in him this spring, making "retirement" a mere formality ...
The entire ESPN story - which has this quote from Burnitz's agent - can be found here:
"When it came down to it, he wasn't quite ready to do it," Simon said. "I thought the same thing might happen this time around, but he's made up his mind to call it quits for sure."
Welp, that's that. Burnitz is gone "for sure." I'm not sure exactly who's mourning the loss, or if Burnitz will be remembered for more than the really weird way he spells his first name, but such is the nature of the game. Thanks for the nomenclature memories, Jeromy.
One of the great things about the Cincinnati Reds blogosphere is that they have not one, but two local beat writers that write blogs at Cincinnati.com. This gives them a place to share funny stories and asides that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle of newspaper writing. C. Trent Rosencrans gives us such an tidbit today when discussing the Reds exhibition opener, a 9-7 win over the Pirates that included eight homers between the two teams. Behold:
[Josh]Hamilton and David Ross were talking before [Hamilton's] at-bat. Ross was counting all the homers that had been hit already during the game. Hamilton then said, "You forgot one." After Ross looked at him, Hamilton continued, "The one I'm going to hit."
Hamilton proceeded to crush a 400 foot homer that happened to be his first homer in a game since 2002. The guy hasn't hit a home run in almost five years and is still calling his shot in the on-deck circle. That is badass my friends. Now granted, the knock came off of Allan Simpson and even as a Pirate fan I'm not entirely sure who that is, but it's still badass.
There are lots of words generally associated with Spring Training. Fifth starter, fourth outfielder, rehabbing knee, bounce back, and hope are all words that tend to pop up in most camps in both the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues. "Colonoscopy," however, tends to be one that is not heard often. Unfortunately for Xavier Nady, he's been flown back to Pittsburgh for just such a test in what's been an on-going saga to determine if he has Crohn's disease. Somewhere, Luis Castillo is shuddering in fear for X.
If you haven't been following this saga all spring (and if you aren't a Pirate fan, I can't imagine that you are), Nady's been having stomach problems since he got to camp and the doctors have been having a hard time diagnosing what's wrong. He's now in Pittsburgh being tested for Crohn's as he's got a small bit of family history of the disease. David Garrard and Theo Fleury immediately come to mind as athletes that have played with Crohn's so things could clearly be worse, but Crohn's is pretty serious and if Nady misses any significant amount of time this year the Pirates already thin line-up is going to be even weaker. Since this is pretty serious, I'll refrain from the numerous obvious jokes about a Pirate with a bowel disease, but The Dugout is already all over it.
For about two years now, Mark Cuban has indicated his desire to buy one of two National League Central teams, his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Up until now, it has seemingly been mostly bluster on Cuban's part. It's well known in Pittsburgh that despite the state of baseball operations at PNC Park, the Pirates are actually a rather good business model and the current owners have no intentions of selling whatsoever.
He then moved his focus to the Cubs because, well I don't know. Probably something to do with the semi-creepy John Henry becoming a folk hero in Boston after Sox won the 2004 Series. That all seemed like idle speculation until the Tribune Company began exploring their options in recent months. Now Radar Online brings us this:
Billionaire blogger Mark Cuban is more serious about buying a major league baseball team than he's been letting on. The tech entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner is set to offer $625 million to buy the Chicago Cubs from Tribune Co., according to a source familiar with the matter. "Mark is desperate to buy the Cubs," says the source. "He wants this so bad."
Cuban would be a great baseball owner. He's a good basketball owner not because of his money, but because he thinks differently than most of the other owners in the league. The Cubs spent a ton of money this off-season without much of a plan and still succeeded in making themselves a lot better (if only because they couldn't make themselves worse). Cuban is essentially the perfect "Moneyball" owner, outside the box thinking and lots of money. If this happens, that noise you hear will be the remaining serious Pirate fans jumping off of the Roberto Clemente Bridge like lemmings.
I am not a Major League general manager. I often like to talk like I am and sometimes pretend that I am, but I am not. Because of this, some things that I tend to think are very easy may, in actuality, be very hard. Despite this realization, I think that picking a back-up catcher is probably one of the easiest things to do in all of sports. The back-up receivers on playoff teams in 2006 were Ramon Castro, Sandy Alomar Jr., Rob Bowen, Gary Bennet, Kelly Stinnett, Adam Melhuse, Vance Wilson, and Who Gives a Damn Because Joe Mauer Caught 140 Games Last Year. I think you see where I'm going with this.
Despite that, the Pittsburgh Pirates are completely unable to break-down their backup catcher situation. This is all happening in the face of the fact that one of the candidates for the illustrious position, Ryan Doumit, may be a better hitter than half of the starting line-up. Nuclear physics. Rocket Science. Protein characterization. Baseball team building. I suspect that Pirates' GM Dave Littlefield is equally skilled in all.
Say you've had fourteen losing seasons in a row and are rapidly approaching the all-time record for most consecutive losing seasons in any sport ever. You would probably want to avoid that situation, as it would most likely be terribly embarrassing. There are a couple of roads you could follow to avoid that if you happen to be said team, in this case my Pittsburgh Pirates (yes, I'm a Pirate fan, I'll cop to that).
One would be to stockpile the minor leagues with lots of young talent and have your shrewd general manager make some great trades to top things off (see: the Twins). Another way would be to exploit market inefficiencies, think outside the box, and still stockpile the minors with lots of young talent on your way to the top (see: the A's). Or you could forget about the minors, pull off a couple of decent trades, and try to bring in a new left-handed first baseman every winter in hopes that your fan base will drool over him, then top it off by having Dick Vitale come in to spring training to motivate your players.
Some of the wisdom Dickie V imparted on the Pirates:
How many guys feel sorry for themselves ... and pout ... and sulk ... and quit? You can't do that! Do you have any idea how many people would love to be where you are as major-league ballplayers?
I checked. There are no players from Duke on the Pirates 40-man roster. I'm as confused about all this as the next guy.
Shiver me timbers, we've entered the crazy times. Pirates are totally making a comeback. They're more in fashion this fall than cashmere sweaters and plain-front trousers. 
The Pittsburgh Pirates are going to right a wrong in the sports world this season. After the New England Patriots same so close to an undefeated season only to lose it all in the final moments, the Pirates are going to conquer the world of baseball and go 162-0 with the team they have and the power of dreams!
Anyone who was afraid that the Blue Jays might trade 
The career of Jeromy Burnitz has seemingly finally ended today; Burnitz announced his retirement at the age of 37 today.
One of the great things about the Cincinnati Reds blogosphere is that they have not one, but two local beat writers that write blogs at Cincinnati.com. This gives them a place to share funny stories and asides that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle of newspaper writing. 
There are lots of words generally associated with Spring Training. Fifth starter, fourth outfielder, rehabbing knee, bounce back, and hope are all words that tend to pop up in most camps in both the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues. "Colonoscopy," however, tends to be one that is not heard often. Unfortunately for Xavier Nady, he's been flown back to Pittsburgh for just such a test in what's been an on-going saga to determine if he has Crohn's disease. Somewhere, 
For about two years now, Mark Cuban has indicated his desire to buy one of two National League Central teams, his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Up until now, it has seemingly been mostly bluster on Cuban's part. It's well known in Pittsburgh that despite the state of baseball operations at PNC Park, the Pirates are actually a rather good business model and the current owners have no intentions of selling whatsoever. 
Say you've had fourteen losing seasons in a row and are rapidly approaching the all-time record for most consecutive losing seasons in any sport ever. You would probably want to avoid that situation, as it would most likely be terribly embarrassing. There are a couple of roads you could follow to avoid that if you happen to be said team, in this case my Pittsburgh Pirates (yes, I'm a Pirate fan, I'll cop to that). 
