Breaking up is hard to do

Words can be very powerful and can cause many different types of emotions. Once something is said to someone else, whether it is in the privacy of the home or a public press conference, once words are out there they are impossible to retract and the difference between what is said, what is meant and what is done can be three completely different things.

Take the now completed sagas of the trades of Jack Wilson to Seattle and Freddy Sanchez to San Francisco today. The finalization of these deals completed a long and drawn out process which began with all of the right things being said and perhaps done but, in the end, those words by Pirates management eventually came back to haunt them and the difference between what was once said and what is done now are two totally different things.

When both Wilson and Sanchez signed their deals a couple of years ago, Pirates management stood proud as peacocks and spoke of the affordability of these deals and that even in the final and most expensive years of each deals, the Pirates would have no problem being able to pay each player throughout the contract.

Obviously, this was not the case, regardless of what general manager Neal Huntington said today. And it's this continual saying one thing and doing another approach that has cost the Pirates much more than just players and losses over the years.

It's just like in a marriage. In good and relatively stable marriages, there may be things said over the course of years by one person or the other which that person regrets and ultimately apologizes for. If this happens on rare occasions, these verbal missteps are eventually looked past, swept under the rug and life can go on as normal.

However, if one partner or both partners either continually exchange insults or one partner has shown a dishonest pattern of behavior toward the other, the trust in the marriage crumbles and the foundation of that relationship follows soon behind.

In this case, it seems as if the Nutting-Coonelly-Huntington management team is just the latest in a long line of bad, dare I say mentally abusive relationship partners, that Pirates fans have taken on over the past 17 years. Just like someone who continually jumps into bad relationship after bad relationship, Pirates fans have endured such a pattern said in 1991 and 1992 that it was a difficult business decision that the Pirates couldn't keep the likes of Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Doug Drabek, etc.

Since then, year after year, management group after management group, have all come in and fed Pirates fans the same line of B.S. over and over again about doing its best to try and put a winning team on the field, and doing it by building within, and not being able to put large amounts of money into the payroll, and by building a new stadium the Pirates will be competitive again, and by promising that the signing of each player will bring the organization one step closer to contending when in reality all it does it bring said player one day closer to the day he is traded to a contender, then another promise of rebuilding and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

Even if the Pirates did manage to get a couple of legit prospects http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/freddy-sanchez-for-who-seriously, it's not enough for the Pirates fan who has been lied to or been insulted enough to make up for it. This management team can only give Pirates fans so many apologetic verbal roses and candies before Pirates fans really and honestly say "enough is enough. I'm through with you."

Verbal roses and candies just won't cut it this time. In a matter of two months or so, the Pirates will officially become THE worst franchise in all of sports when they break the consecutive losing seasons streak mark. Simple words and promises won't cut it this time for this rebuilding project, Pirates fans should need to see real and honest progress before they think about rekindling the relationship with the team. And Pirates management should take very seriously the anger that will come about from Pirates fans over these latest trades because any more like this and they will stop coming home.

The break-up will be bad and ugly. Pirates management needs to seriously consider what it says publically from now on because every verbal misstep will brings Pirates fans one step closer to the door. And by the way, Neal, you're "not breaking up the '27 Yankees" line didn't help your cause at all, considering you and your team at least partially built the one on the field.

Pirates fans are not going to brush off a flippant remark like that as cute or funny. Instead, most of the ones I know will look at that and think "Gee, first they act like they don't care, now they are basically saying they don't care or don't care what they say. If that's the case, I don't care either."

The Pirates are THE last organization in sports that needs fans who do not care. In fact, every single person in the organization from owner Bob Nutting down should be doing whatever he or she can to kiss the proverbial ass of each and every remaining Pirates fan remaining so that soneone, anyone, shows up to watch this Triple-A team now and in the future.

I have a wife and three young children and I have no good reason to say why I should take any or all of them to a Pirates game at any time in the near future. The wife isn't a baseball fan anyway so she could care less already. My oldest daughter (soon to be 11) already knows the Pirates stink and her breaking point came today when her favorite player (Sanchez) was traded away. My son (5 years old) and youngest daughter (soon to be 4) have no interest in the game or the Pirates and I honestly can't justify giving them any reason to care about this organization any more.

If I, someone who grew loving baseball and enjoyed every minute that he got to play and eventually cover it, feel this way, I'm guessing there are a lot more people out there like me who feel the same and I'm guessing those numbers keep growing.

Until legitimate progress is made both on and off the field, I cannot justify spending any more money or putting any more energy into this so-called organization. For now I am calling this a trial separation, but I have a hunch, sadly, that this could become more permanent. I hope that I am wrong but, unlike most of the Pirates hunches over the last 17 years, I'm guessing that I will be right.