It could be worse...we could be Pittsburgh...

[BaltimoreTerp]

http://deadspin.com/5543615/the-pittsburgh-ownership-war-heats-up

I'm just going to post the Deadspin link, because they have the links all set up and their write-up is better than I could.

Here's the basic summery, put in Baltimore terms:

Imagine that Steve Bisciotti and Cal Ripken formed an ownership group to buy the Orioles, and made an offer that the team rejected. However, the offer received a lot of press and fan support, angering the Orioles.

A "fan" website that is known to be essentially a mouthpiece for the Orioles posts a column from a local sportswriter that mocks the new group due to the "failures" of the Ravens in the playoffs recently.

Honestly, I don't know how Baltimore would react to something like that (likely involving an unholy OH-WNST alliance and possible in-game rioting), but it sounds like the Pirates fans are pissed with a capital "The Owner Sucks!!!"

I'd feel bad for them, since I think it's horrible that they and KC are as bad if not worse situations than Baltimore right now, but then again, they ARE Steelers fans...

[Miller192]

That's interesting. Thanks for posting that.

Nothing will probably come of that though.

I could see a similar scenario unfolding here.

[sakata_catching]

This story really started percolating a few weeks ago when BP editor-in-chief John Perrotto — a very vocal disgruntled former employee of Nutting's Pirates Report — sent out a rapid-fire volley of paranoid-sounding tweets about Nutting having spies in PNC's pressbox and conditions therein being primed for "a throwdown." A little taste:

Maybe I'll be giving standing eight counts the next time I'm in the PNC Park press box. I'm going to wear a bow tie like Arthur Mercante.

11:00 PM May 8th via web

Pirates Report is now a web site, an Ogden-run site, the one they hired me to provide copy to last year then fired me beause I was truthful.

10:37 PM May 8th via web

Conditions are ripe for a throwdown in the PNC Park press box and, believe or not, I WON'T be involved. Who would have guessed that? LOL.

10:23 PM May 8th via web

The Pirates Report people are also going right to management with any negative comments made in the press box. Thank God I'm off the beat!!!

10:22 PM May 8th via web

The Pirates Report people are the press box spies and now they are talking smack on the other beat writers right in front of their faces.

10:21 PM May 8th via web

link

This apparently spilled over into a shooting match on facebook with local radio host Rocco Demaro.

At best, Perrotto was guilty of behaving unprofessionally toward a former employer; at worst, it appeared he had turned into a pie-eyed lunatic. In any case, it didn't reflect well on BP to have it's EIC shooting his mouth off about Pirates' ownership in such a reckless way.

Then the Ladewski article appeared this week. Honestly, it almost read like a parody of the black ops scenario Perrotto had painted. As yellow journalism goes, it's hardly worse than the columns by Bob Smizik, Ron Cook and Gene Collier that the Post-Gazette runs daily. But it did succeed in pissing a lot of people off — Pens and Pirates fans alike (there's not as much overlap there as you'd think) — and the article was yanked from the site in short order.

What a sideshow.

[NewMarketSean]

You know, if something like that did happen here with the Orioles, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

And yeah, I am glad this isn't happening here.

[byrdz]

Dude, it's like you're daring the Orioles to be worse than those teams, you even planted the seed. Don't do that...if it's one thing the Orioles are good at, it's embarrassing themselves in new and exciting ways.

[sakata_catching]

Really, is this any more embarrassing than the whole Lunch with Dave Trembley kerfuffle that erupted back in January?

Please note that I find enormous credibility gaps in both stories.

[Camden_yardbird]

Well this explains some of the other articles I have read about the team recently that weren't so kind about management.

I wouldn't call the Pirates in the worst situation in baseball. They are rapidly growing a decent farm system, and they are in an attainable division. But I will believe the change in direction that they have stated when Andrew McCutchen gets an extension and not a bus ticket out of town.

And yes, they are that cheap that they would give him a bus ticket.

[sakata_catching]

By the way, the name of the author of the original article, one Paul Ladewski, might ring a bell with O's fans. When he was writing for a Chicagoland paper in 2007, he turned in a blank HOF ballot because (his words) "what makes Gwynn and Ripken so special that they deserve to be unanimous selections?"

Walter Johnson, Cy Young and Honus Wagner didn't receive such Hall passes. Neither did Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. In fact, nobody has in the history of the game.

Based on the standards set by the Hall of Fame voters decades ago, is there a neutral observer out there who can honestly say Gwynn and Ripken should be afforded an unprecedented honor?

So the guy has a history of writing douche-y, attention-grabbing stuff.

[BaltimoreTerp]

By the way, the name of the author of the original article, one Paul Ladewski, might ring a bell with O's fans. When he was writing for a Chicagoland paper in 2007, he turned in a blank HOF ballot because (his words) "what makes Gwynn and Ripken so special that they deserve to be unanimous selections?"

So the guy has a history of writing douche-y, attention-grabbing stuff.

Well, then he's definitely qualified to be an owner's stooge.