Friday, March 07, 2008

The Pirates will not stand for fatness

You probably saw that Josh Sharpless and Carlos Maldanado got cut from camp yesterday. If you thought seemed strange to see ONLY those two guys gone and no one else when those two seemed like they were going to have a shot at making the team, well, it was strange. Apparently Huntington was not pleased with the physical shape they were in when they got to camp:

The Pirates reassigned reliever Josh Sharpless and catcher Carlos Maldonado to minor-league camp, and did so with a purpose: Management clearly was irked with both for having failed to follow prescribed offseason conditioning programs.

"Those who have done everything they needed to do are still here," general manager Neal Huntington said. "Those who didn't have been weeded out."

Of course, I don't know how cutting Sharpless and Maldanado is really going to make a point, but good for the Pirates on this one.

I also thought it was interesting to see the Bucs are limiting ticket sales for the Yankees series in June. Think they're expecting some demand for those tickets? Luckily, my dad pulled some in his season ticket draft so I'm coming home a bit early that week to catch the Yanks before WHYGAVS Night (which is on June 27th, if you recall, and if you don't, that's why I'm reminding you).