Two questions come to mind about the Pirates’ search for a manager:
1) Does any good baseball man really want to take the job and work for that owner and that general manager and scouting department?
2) Does anyone really care about the Pirates’ hire?
Second question first:
I spend most of my time talking sports with people, on the radio and in the bars. I’m hearing a lot about the Steelers’ chances of somehow remaining playoff relevant despite their 2-4 record. I’m hearing a lot about Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges. I’m hearing a lot about Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang and the Penguins’ chances of staying afloat without Evgeni Malkin. I’m even hearing a lot about Pitt’s chances of winning its final five games and finishing the regular season with a 10-2 record and a second consecutive ACC Coastal Division championship.
I am not hearing anything about the Pirates.
Nothing.
I’m guessing just about everyone thinks the Pirates’ hire won’t make much of a difference. Can one man really come in and resurrect a dead franchise as long as the owner refuses to spend to make the team better? Can one man win with a minor league system that has a horrible record of producing starting pitchers?
The fan apathy that surrounds the Pirates is astonishing and should be terrifying to Bob Nutting and Neal Huntington.
The Pirates will end up with a manager, perhaps even a good one. There are only 30 big league managing jobs, if you insist on calling the Pirates big league. Everybody has an ego. The man the Pirates hire will believe he’s the right man to do the impossible and lead the team to a championship.
It won’t be a well-known name, of course. Joe Maddon was hired last week by the Los Angeles Angels. Joe Girardi, Buck Showalter, Dusty Baker and Mike Matheny have been linked to other, more high-profile jobs. Chances are the next Pirates manager will be someone few people know. BetOnline had Minnesota bench coach Derek Shelton and Oakland bench coach Ryan Christenson as the favorites late last week. St. Louis first base coach Stubby Clapp and Houston bench coach Joe Espada are late entries in the mix. Jeff Banister is a strong in-house possibility.
But Banister, of all people, should know the Pirates’ job is the closest thing to a dead-end job. He is a good baseball man who has been with the franchise forever, other than the four years he managed Texas. He knows the sorry history. He knows a lot of managers came here and watched their career die.
I assume Shelton, Christenson and the others will do their homework. One will ignore it. One certainly will think he can overcome the Nutting/Huntington handicaps. Ego, remember?
Who knows? Maybe the Pirates will get lucky the way they did in November 1985 when they hired little-known Jim Leyland, who stepped in after the dark days of the Pittsburgh drug trials and led them to three division titles in a row. Or maybe the way they will get lucky the way they did in November 2010 when they hired Clint Hurdle, who, against overwhelming odds, ended 20 consecutive years of losing with three consecutive playoff appearances.
Maybe.
Until something like that happens again, baseball won’t matter around here. It matters in Houston and Washington, but, sadly, not in Pittsburgh.
Thank goodness we have football and hockey.
Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter @RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Joe” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: October 20, 2019, 10:12 p.m.
