The Protest

You probably feel like I've been avoiding talking about this, other than posting news bits about it on the Fanhouse, and if you do, I understand. It's my fault. I'll be honest with you guys, outside of the blog, I've been having a bad, bad week (I don't like to drag my personal life onto to WHYGAVS, but let's just say a girl is involved and leave it at that, lest you guys worry about the health of my family or something) and I haven't been thinking about the Pirates or the protest terribly much. I've known since the date was announced that tonight was on my dad's season ticket plan and I've been putting off what I'm going to do tonight until my uncle gave me a talking to this morning and basically told me that as a prominent Pirate fan, it's my duty to everyone that comes to this blog every day to not only go to the protest and write about it, but to take a stance and make sure people know what it is. I don't like to think of myself as any different from anyone that reads this page (seriously, I'm just a guy with a computer and maybe an above average way with words), but he's right.

I'm going to the Pirate game today, and I'm wearing a green shirt, and I'm leaving after the third inning. How can I not? I won't try to duplicate Charlie's amazing post (must read if you haven't read it) but I love the Pittsburgh Pirates and the people that own this team and killing them. I watched the 1991 highlight video and "Battlin' Bucs, the first 100 years of the Pittsburgh Pirates" until I wore the VHS tapes out as a kid. I somehow feel connected to Babe Adams because when John Lackey was the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series, I knew he was the first rookie to win Game 7 since Babe Adams did it for the Buccos against Ty Cobb's Tigers in 1909 before anyone on FOX could tell me that. Honus Wagner isn't just a guy that has an expensive baseball card, he's the forefather of everything I love about the Pirates. Who's the first team to ever come back from a 3-1 World Series deficit? Why, the 1925 Pirates of course, and they had to beat Walter Johnson in Game 7 to do it. Pie Traynor, Kiki Cuyler... what a team. I get visibly pissed whenever Bobby Thompson or Joe Carter's home runs get ranked above Bill Mazeroski's. Greatest World Series performance of all-time? Screw Reggie Jackson, Roberto owned 1971. Then there was 1979. I was -6 then and my parents weren't even married, but don't get me started. And then we can talk about what I remember. I grew up with Andy Van Slyke and Doug Drabek on the TV at all times. I shut off FSP whenever their best baseball moments come on so that I don't accidentally see "the play" again. I can never root for Barry Bonds and it has nothing to do with steroids.

And that's why I keep going to the park. Because that's what great about baseball, somehow it lets you feel like you're a part of all of these things even if you weren't alive when they happened. On Wednesday I was having a shitty day. Just awful. Then Xavier Nady and Ryan Doumit hit back-to-back homers and the Pirates won a game I thought they were going to lose and I smiled. Did it fix everything? No. But I smiled and for a couple minutes, I felt really happy. And that's why I have to go and I have to walk out tonight. Because I really feel like the way the team is being run is stealing that kind of feeling from way more people than just me. People can laugh at us all they want for paying for a ticket and walking out of the park, but they don't get it. The Nuttings get the money one way or another, either from us or from the league. But tonight, tonight's a chance to give a message. You can say that the message won't get to them if it doesn't hit them in the pocketbook, but that's not true. If enough people leave that stadium, it'll be a story and it won't be one Bob Nutting likes.

Will I go back to PNC Park this year? Hard to say. In a month, I'm moving to North Carolina to start grad school and my options for seeing Pirates in person will mostly be limited to watching Indianapolis when they play in Durham, or maybe getting really desperate and driving to Greensboro to watch Hickory play. I'd like one more hurrah at PNC before I leave. When I cleaned out my apartment at Duquesne this week, I found a stash of like 50 or so Pirate tickets. This is a part of who I am. And that's the message I'm sending tonight. The Pirates are something I love and a part of who I am, and for tonight, I'm walking out on that part of me to send a message, to let Bob Nutting and Kevin McClatchy know that while bobbleheads and fireworks might fill a stadium on a Friday or Saturday, there are people out there that care about the Pirates a lot more than they do.