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20 Years of Suck · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I am your co-host, Tim Hannon, and joining me as always.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm the other co-host, Steve Wert.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast where we delve into some topic in the Pittsburgh Sports History universe.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: This episode, we're going to talk about our baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who went on a losing streak for the ages.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: They lost, had had posted 20 consecutive losing seasons between 1993 and 2012.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: That is a North American sports record.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: So if you look at the list, um it's the Pirates had 20 losing seasons.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Second on the list was the Philadelphia Phillies of the 30s and 40s that were ravaged by World War II and losing a bunch of their roster.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: They lost 16 seasons in a row.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Then uh the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL, the Sacramento Kings of the NBA lost 15 years in a row, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL had 14 consecutive losing seasons in the 80s and 90s.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: So the Pirates set a record that may never be broken.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: And in this episode, we're going to kind of run through those 20 years, kind of look at the lowlights, what happened, what fell apart, and just kind of relive just 20 years of our baseball team just absolutely sucking.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: So so so yeah, so exciting stuff, right?
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: So so what so what happened, right?
1:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can point to a lot of reasons, and we're not really going to go into the reasons why this happened.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, there's two real easy and obvious ones.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: One is um, you know, market disparity in baseball is pretty bad.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: It's the only North American pro major pro sport without a salary cap.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And uh the Pirates had had a lot of success in the early 90s, won three straight division titles, and then in started losing their core players.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: They lost Bobby Bonilla and Barry Bonds and Doug Drayback and all kinds of other guys, and they couldn't really afford to compete.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, however, um, so that's a problem.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: But in baseball, you know, probably half the teams can't really afford to compete the way that the New York Yankees and some of the other big market teams can.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: And they still don't lose for 20 years in a row.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: So the other piece of the puzzle is just poor management, and we'll we'll delve into some of that um as we get into this.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Steve, any any uh memories of of those two decades for you?
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, really bad baseball.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh just like you, you know, it's like you would think you would at least break 500 once.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: Like you can break 500 and not make, especially back then, like they still only had the two teams made the playoffs, right?
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Or the you know, the league championship series.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: So you could win, you know, 82 games and at least you know have a non-losing season and not make the playoffs, and they couldn't even pull off that.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: They were just they were really, really bad for a really long time.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: And um, there's I I don't know.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's just baseball, I guess, lends itself to that.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, but like we said, there were other teams like the Cubs didn't do anything during those 20 years either, but they never had that many losing seasons in a row.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, like you said, it's impressive.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: You would think that there would be at least one, you know, uh uh instance of putting together some kind of run of just getting over 500.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: So it takes a lot of really consistent uh set of bad decision makings to to make it that long.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And just to give you an idea how long that was, um Bryce Harper, when that streak started, Bryce Harper was not alive, he had not been born yet.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: When that streak ended, Bryce Harper had already been named to multiple all-star teams in the major leagues.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: So so you know, we're talking generations, people, kids being born during the streak and being in college by the time that um they saw the pirates, you know, even break 500.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: So pretty miserable.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, they would always be pretty much like there was always like the April, May, like if the penguins weren't do uh were kind of finishing up, you had the pirates, and the pirates would be kind of relevant like in May and June.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: And no, the Steelers normally start what end of July.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: So the Pirates would normally kind of like you know be out of it after the All-Star break.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: So it'd only be like a week or two off of sports, and then the Steelers stuff would kick up.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: As far as the you know, the the what would they call the Pittsburgh sports landscape and seasons, how they overlap.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, that's how bad the pirates are just totally irrelevant.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: I remember going to games in September, and I mean, people were there just to, you know, and that's fine.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: You go there and just to get a beer and a hot dog, and you know, kind of hang out with your friends, not really there to see the baseball, which is you know kind of sad.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep, and that's kind of what it became, unfortunately.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: So, so the streak, so again, uh 1992, they lose game seven of the NLCS to the Braves on the um Francisco Cabrera hit.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: We will do an episode about that at some point.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I have to get through about I I think about four more therapy sessions, and then I'll I'll probably be able to um talk about it at that point.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh so in 1993, um, they've lost again some of their core pieces.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: They still won 75 games in '93, which is under 500, but that's close to 500.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: So, okay, they're worse.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: That's what people expected, but maybe things aren't going to get that bad.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Um and then after that, things really start going downhill.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: 1994 is a miserable season.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: That year they become only the third team ever to hit into seven double plays in the same game.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's on June 16th against the Cardinals.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: That same year, they host the All-Star game.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's kind of a highlight.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: They actually hosted two All-Star games, uh, '94 and 2006 during this streak.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: That 94 All-Star game was a highlight for me.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: I went to the home run derby that year and I got to see uh Ken Gurfee Jr.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: and Frank Thomas.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: This was before the days of interleague play.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: So that so you never got to see those guys come play at your ballpark.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was really cool.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was cool, but the team stinks.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then of course, that's also the year that they have the strike and the World Series gets canceled.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, they they go into the 95 season on April 20th of 1995, and this is this starts a string of just terrible personnel decisions.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, they released Tim Wakefield.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Tim Wakefield was a knuckle ball pitcher who got red hot during that 1992 pennant run.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he went 10 and 1 in the late season and postseason.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he had won, I believe he won both games in the NLCS that year.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of people that think that Leland should have put him in the bottom of the ninth instead of Stan Belinda.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh he became the opening day starter in 1993, but then he he did struggle a lot after that.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: He had elbow surgery.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: He actually got demoted to the minors at one point, and the Pirates just said, you know what?
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he had his little flat, he was a flat in a pan, and he's he's not going to be any good anymore.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So they released him.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And a few days later, he signs with the Boston Red Sox and promptly wins 200 games for them over the next 17 seasons.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, to give you an idea, in the history of the Boston Red Sox, which is a pretty storied history, here are your top three winningest picture pitchers in the history of the Boston Red Sox.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Cy Young, Roger Clemens, Tim Wakefield.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't realize Tim Wakefield had won that many games.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: But he had given up like the home run, I think, in the uh to the Yankees, didn't he, in one of their playoff series loss?
8:27
SPEAKER_01: He did before they turned a corner there and finally won.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: He he did.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he had good moments and bad moments, but he still was you know 17 seasons of being a uh pretty you know consistent pitcher for them.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and and it was a guy that we gave up on.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: And again, you could you could make the argument, well, he wasn't he was hurt and he wasn't that good.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, but as we'll see as we go through this, it's gonna become a pattern.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Um in on May 8th of 1995, uh Sports Illustrated published an article.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Um the name of the article was Anybody Home.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And the the article was about how fans were angry because of the strike and the World Series being canceled the year before, and how they were staying away from ballparks.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And the picture they use is a big double-page spread of Three River Stadium during a live game looking just completely empty.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll post a link to that on our on our website.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, the average attendance at the Pirate Home Games in 1995 was 12,500 people, which is hard to believe.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, 12,000 people per game is peanuts, and this is only three years removed from them being a three-time consecutive division winner.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: So already people are starting to get apathetic towards the baseball team.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: That summer.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and what three rivers held like 40 or 50,000, so it's not even well, not even half full.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Yep, exactly.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it was with tarps.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: They had the tarps out, they would put the tarps out too.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Right, even when they covered the seats, you know, you still could fit a lot more than 12,000 people in that stadium.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, July of that year, uh, there's a really scary moment.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, two of the outfielders, Dave Clark and Jacob Brumfeld, are trying to catch a fly ball and they collide into each other.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Um Brumfield, his face is covered in blood.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: He needs 15 stitches.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Clark, meanwhile, lays motionless on the three-reverse turf for about 10 minutes.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: He ends up broken with a broken collarbone.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Both players are taken by ambulance to Allegheny General Hospital.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, they end up being mostly okay, but it's a really scary moment uh and and just again, sort of emblematic of where the team is and where they're headed.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: In 1996, the team finishes in last place.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of 96 was kind of the last bastion of the the early 90s because after that season they trade away kind of their last remaining pieces.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: They trade away Jay Bell and Jeff King and Orlando Merced.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: And then Jim Leland, who has earlier said he's gonna honor the rest of his contract, which I believe runs like four more years.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: He he kind of reverses course.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: He finally has enough and he quits.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, he just feels like the team's not gonna win anytime soon.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: He's not getting any younger.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, cigarette prices are going up in Pittsburgh.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Who knows what all of his reasons are?
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Um But but he goes to he goes to Miami and he ends actually ends up winning the World Series with the Marlins the following season.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's another fun thing that happens during this streak is the Marlins, who didn't exist, I think, when the streak began, actually win two World Series scoring it.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: And and they probably have they have they I can't I bet their average attendance is less than 12,000 fans a game.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: I and and and they probably have uh almost as many losing seasons in between those two World Series championships.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: But you know, like we said at the beginning, right?
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Um there's always that one year or two years, you know, you would think if you just make enough halfway decent decisions, at some point you're gonna compete.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And that was true of every other team in baseball except the Pirates.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: So heading into the 97 season, you know, now that they've traded away these last members of the 90s, early 90s teams, they've slashed payroll to$9 million, which is nothing, and are projected to have just a historically awful season.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: But 97 is actually the one sort of bright spot in this streak.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: They actually put together a really interesting Cinderella story.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Um they have new ownership.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh so the team, when the streak started, the team was owned by a consortium of um Pittsburgh Corporations.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: They sold to a guy named Kevin McClatchy in '96.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, Kevin McClatchy was this young, kind of enthusiastic owner.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, always sat behind home plate during the games.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to compare him to Mark Cuban.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Mark Cuban's much more brash and in the spotlight, but that's the closest thing I can think to compare Kevin McClatchy to.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: He was he had a lot of energy and uh he didn't he did inherit his wealth.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: So he did.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: He did part of the McClatchy newspaper conglomerate, which is I think filed for bankruptcy.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: I said newspapers not exactly a moneymaker these days.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh but you know, he was he was it was kind of like, oh, we have some new blood and ownership.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: The new manager was Gene Lamont, who was uh an assistant coach for the Pirates for several years under Leland.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: So he kind of got promoted.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Then you had the like these young unknown players like Jason Kendall and Tony Womack and Jose Guinn, who people were comparing to Clemene.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: He was a right fielder who had an absolute rocket of an arm.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Um Al Martin, who was a really good hitter, if not you know, a little bit crazy.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Um he was the guy that that had multiple secret wives, and he was the guy that like would give interviews and and he would say, like, oh yeah, that I ran into the the catcher.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: That was like that time I tried to tackle Eric Dickerson when I played at at USC.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And then like they'd go back and USC said we have no record of him ever attending this university, much less, much less playing football year.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: So Al Martin was a little bit uh crazy, but he was a good baseball player for a couple of years.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: And and in '97, they actually compete with the Astros for the central division title.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, they don't they're still hovering around 500 most of the year.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, um, but the the division stinks that year.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And so they actually have a shot at winning the division.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: And the big moment of the season comes on July 12th.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: They're playing the Astros at Three River Stadium.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And uh Francisco Cordova, who was their kind of their ace pitcher that year, and Ricardo Rincone combined for a 10-inning no-hitter that ends on a three-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the tenth, and that's against the Astros, and it puts them into first place.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And so for a little, just a little short amount of time, it's it's exciting to be a Pirates fan again.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And Steve, I don't know if you remember that game.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: I we we couldn't get in.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: I I distinctly remember that.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: And then we got home, we're like, well, I think there was this great game, and we missed it.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, you should just be able to walk up the Pirates game and get to no problem.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: But that was a that was one of those weird sellouts, it was like 40,000 people were there.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: We were shocked when we walked up to the window and we we wanted to go see the game, and they said it's a sellout.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: We're like, sell out?
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Like that doesn't make sense.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: You have seats in the upper deck still, right?
15:34
SPEAKER_01: No, no, none of those, none of those left.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I and I remember I remember one of our one of our friends um said later, because we didn't hear what happened, and they I think they they didn't really know a lot about baseball, and they said, and they had heard what happened, and they said, Oh, is a no-hitter is that like a big deal?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh, you're kidding me.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we we were supposed to be at that game and we missed it.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Um so so yeah, people were excited in this town for for a little while.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, they ultimately finished under 500 and five games behind the Astros, but it kind of seemed like, oh, okay, maybe this is a new generation of players and ownership, and maybe there's a future here.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And then it all falls apart just as quickly as it started.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Um in 1998, 98, by the way, you know, which was this really memorable baseball season, that was the the Mark McGuire-Sami Sosa home run race.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: The Pirates lose 93 games and finish in dead last.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they actually finished the season losing 25 out of their last 30 games, if you can believe that.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: So um that's right back to just where they were.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh all the excitement, all the enthusiasm's gone.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh right after the season, there is one bright spot.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: So the offseason between 98 and 99, Cam Bonifay at this point is the team's general manager.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh um, and we'll talk a lot about him because he he doesn't make a lot of really good moves.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the good moves he makes right after the 98 season is he trades virtually nothing to Cleveland in exchange for Brian Giles.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Brian Giles ends up hitting 35 plus home runs and over 300 for the next four seasons for the Pirates.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's a that's a very you know great trade getting Brian Giles for, I think it was for Ricardo Racone, the reliever.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Um unfortunately, that's diminished by the fact that on over the same offseason, Boniface makes some historically awful deals.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, one is he trades away pitcher John Lieber to the Cubs for Brandt Brown.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Um Brandt Brown does nothing with Pittsburgh.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Lieber becomes a 20-game winner for the Cubs.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Um he also signs Kevin Young, the first baseman, to the richest contract extension in Pirates history.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Um to be fair, you know, Kevin Young he was coming off two very productive seasons for the Pirates, but he never again repeated that that same level once he got the contract extension.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Um but the real topper that offseason was signing Pat Mears.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Um Pat Mears was a 30-year-old shortstop who was a pretty good fielder, kind of an average hitter, um, had played most of his career for the Minnesota Twins.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: And by this point in his career, you know, 30 years old, teams thought he was on the downside.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: And the only team willing to offer him a contract was the Pirates, who gave him a one-year deal on the cheap.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Now that that made sense, right?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a guy that uh one of our previous episodes we talked about how getting a short stop when the Pirates signed Jay Bell, you know, getting a short stuff to kind of solidify the infield was a big deal.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And you're looking at a guy, he's 30, he might still have some good years left.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Give him one year deal, see what happens, right?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Makes sense.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, in spring training of that year, Mears injures his hand, so it gets off to a rocky start right away.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: But again, one-year deal, right?
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, at the end of April, Mears is activated off the disabled list, and Boniface inexplicably signs him to a four-year,$15 million extension.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: So the guy's played for you for 15 minutes, he has an injury, and you give him a four-year huge extension.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Then Boniface goes out and tells the press that Mears is, quote, the type of player that can help make us a championship team, you know, despite the fact that he's 30 years old and certainly had never been that player for the twins.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, just two weeks after signing the deal, Mears has to have surgery on his hand and basically misses the rest of that season.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: And then really that that continues to be the story for the remaining four years of his contract.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: He barely plays, he hits 238 when he does play.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and then to make matters worse, um, things just keep getting uglier between Mears and the team.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: In 2002, he's still under contract, hasn't been playing at all.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, the Pirates say he's not healthy enough to play.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Mears says, I am healthy enough to play, and he files a grievance with the union, which his teammates all get behind.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: They erect a shrine in his locker to protest management.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Management's too weak-willed to take it down.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: It's just a whole mess with Pat Mears, probably, Steve, the worst signing in the history of the team.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's tough to argue with that one, and it went on for four years.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: It really it just drug on, drug on, drug on.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: And I I I don't even know what to say about this, except for like this is like to just let it drag on for four years was probably the bigger mistake.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like you said, like why do you sign him for that that extension?
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, after like I could see, like, oh, he like showed some promise, he hit 300, didn't commit any errors, and in August we signed him to this extension.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, we thought he was gonna be, but just he hadn't shown anything at that point.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure what Cam Bonifay was doing at that point, and that was uh that definitely kind of was probably um nail in the coffin for for good old Cam there.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was he the guy he built the early 90s pirates though, right?
21:12
SPEAKER_01: No, that was that was Sid Thrift.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: That was Sid Thrift.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: That's right, yeah.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: And then and then Larry Dodey was the GM during that time.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: So he's the one that kind of made like the the deadline deals and things like that during those years.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Um and granted, Boniface didn't have a lot to work with.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So so let's let's just let's be fair to to these guys.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: They don't have a lot to work with, they have smaller budgets, but like you said, Steve, if Mears is playing lights out in August, okay, fine, we can forgive a four year extension.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: But why, why in April, when he just came off the DL, would you sign him to a long term deal when he's 30?
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's I it's too going back to Kevin Young.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: I remember Kevin Young, I don't think could hit a curveball.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: I think he was like, he was uh what they was.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's Serrano.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Like he was either that or he was a no, maybe it was the opposite.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: He was it was a curveball, not a fastball here.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: But he couldn't hit one of those two pitches.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: And like I think once the like it's kind of one of those things, once you've gone through the league once or twice, like they figured pitchers figure you out.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: And if you have like a glaring weakness, yes, Serrano, you're not going to see a fastball, okay?
22:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, you might want to pray to Joe Boo, you know, to help you out there.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: But uh, but besides that, Kevin Young was great.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he wasn't that he wasn't horrible, he wasn't as bad as the Mears.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: The Mears deal was much worse.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, John Lieber turning around, it happens, but but definitely the Mears like thing was definitely a self-inflicted wound because four years and just to a team that really doesn't have that kind of money.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Like the Yankees can make a mistake like the the Yankees have made bigger mistakes like this, but it doesn't affect them because their payroll is so big, they just kind of absorb it and move on.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Whereas the Pirates, now that's like that's really$15 million that they don't have the sign other players.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: So that definitely uh hurt their hurt them, probably set them back at shortstop for a couple years.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Indeed.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, July 4th, 1999, uh Jason Kendall, who who probably by this time is the team's best all-around player, uh, who's you know, really aggressive catcher, kind of kind of Pete Rose-esque the way he plays baseball.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: He breaks his ankle, one of the most gruesome injuries that you'll ever see.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: He's running to first base.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: And um, do you remember that, Steve?
23:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the bone kind of came out of his leg.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I remember like Mark, like Gene Lamont like broke down like in tears at like the the press conference, and like Mark Maddenweth was like, he thought like you know, Jackie Kennedy handled the the death of President Kennedy better than Jolene Lamont hand uh handled that.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: But uh that was it for I was Jason Kendall, I don't think he was really all that great after that.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: He was a singles hitter.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: He was a catcher that got beamed a lot and was a singles hitter.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he he did okay.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: If you look at his stats, he does okay after that.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: He came back.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: I think he made the all-star game the next year.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the things he could do was steal bases, and I don't think he ever really did much of that afterwards, but um he, you know, he came back as best he could, but that was just gruesome and ugly.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think he was one of those guys, too, that was more like a um like a piece, like not like uh he's not like a franchise.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: You don't build your franchise around Jason Kendall, and they tried to do that.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: Like maybe Brian Giles, you could, but like Kendall always seemed to me like he was more of like a role player than a than a you know even star that was gonna carry your team, but still a good player, you know, in that that was a bad injury, and kudos to him for coming back.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree with you.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: He he was not a he was not a franchise centerpiece, but uh definitely a good player.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Um in 2001, the Pirates opened PNC Park.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you listen, if you go back and listen to our most reviled Pittsburghers episode, we we talked about the whole mess and getting the new stadiums and and the the the deal with the politicians and the ugliness there.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Um but I mean at the end of the of the all that the pirate pirates really came out as the winner because they got this beautiful ballpark that a lot of people were calling the nicest baseball stadium in the country, right there on the shore of the Allegheny River.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a lot of excitement.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: People are coming out to the new ballpark.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, just just everything, you know, is really favoring the Pirates.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And how do they respond?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: By losing 100 games in the opening season of PNC Park.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, good news for the fans was that they raised ticket prices for the next season.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: So they gotta pay Pat Mears.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Pat Mears needed that money.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Um there's there's also a game that season, June 26th.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: They're playing uh against the Brewers.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh Kendall is running to first base and he's called out on a close play.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And Lloyd McClennan at this point is the manager.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Lloyd McClennon was a role player on those early 90s teams.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: He's now the team's manager.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: He goes out and starts to argue with the umpire, which you know happens all the time in baseball.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And McClennon loses the argument, which managers often lose those arguments with umpires.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: McClennan pulls first base up out of the ground and walks away with it.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh so that was kind of a funny, memorable moment that year.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, seeing Lloyd McClinnon walk off the field with first base tucked under his arm.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Lloyd.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: He was fiery.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: He was fiery.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, he was another guy, like Leland.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: He was like a Jim Leland kind of, I don't know, like mentor, mentee.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, disciple.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he was really a protege of Leland, but he definitely he was under, he worked with Leland the law.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, and he played for Leland too.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I'm sure a lot of his influence was from Leland.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: I think he was on the team too in Detroit that won the World Series with Leland.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Or got the World Series.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: I I know Leland often hired, you know, Andy Van Slyke was one of his coaches.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: I know he he often hired, you know, players that had played for him on the Pirates, so that might be the case.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, also in 2001, the Pirates trade away Jason, uh pitcher Jason Schmidt.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, now Schmidt, he had he had mostly underachieved with the Pirates.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: He was having a good season that year, but they traded him to the Giants.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He becomes their ace, goes to three All-Star games in the next four years.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Twice he finishes in the top five for the Cy Young Award voting.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: So another disastrous give up on a guy and then watch him go do great things elsewhere.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, they also let go of another pitcher that year, Bronson Arroyo.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to have success elsewhere.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we we talked earlier about the Boston Red Sox.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when they win the 2004 World Series and they finally break their 86-year curse, two of their starting pitchers that year are Tim Wakefield and Bronson Arroyo, who, you know, had been with the Pirates.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: So you can talk about okay, the Red Sox have way more resources than the Pirates.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: They can, you know, like you said, Steve, afford to make mistakes that we can't.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: But like you just handed them two of their starting pitchers for nothing because you cut them.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: So that that's I think I think as we move into this next section, too, you're gonna see like, and I remember like thinking that I looked down at some of our notes, but I remember like starting to think like at least they're still producing talent.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: You'll see that like when well, not to go the go on with the next point because you you'll I'll make my point then, because you'll see like the talent totally dries up.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: And that was, I think that was the scariest part of the next part of this losing streak.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Is for four or five years ago, this team that this organization had nothing.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: They really it was the cupboard was literally bare.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yeah.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: So so so what happens next, Cam Bonifay is fired uh late in the 2001 season, and he's replaced by David Littlefield, who manages to somehow be even worse than Bonifay.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And in my comparison, if you remember a few years ago, the Cleveland Browns went one in 15, and everybody said, Oh, what a horrible season, one in 15.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't possibly do any worse than that.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: And then the next year they went 0-16.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: So to me, Cam Bonifay was 1-15, Dave Littlefield was 0-16.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, Littlefield's first draft, because the Pirates had lost 100 games, like we said, his first draft, the Pirates own the number one overall pick.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: So he's already starting in a pretty good spot, right?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, so so let's yeah, let's stop and talk about the draft for a minute because you know the the baseball draft doesn't get the fanfare that like a football draft gets, but it's pretty important to building a team, especially for a franchise like the Pirates that can't afford big name free agents.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: So the Pirates at this point, you know, they've sucked every year for almost, well, yeah, now for a full decade at this point.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: And and when you are one of the worst teams every year, you get one of the highest draft picks every year, which you would think would help them have to rebuild by this point.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really work out that way.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh the team um at this point going into the 2002 draft had had 11 uh first-round picks, mostly high first-round picks, and five of those picks failed to even make it to the majors.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Five more fail to play above replacement level.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Probably the the best pick of the bunch was Chris Benson, who they drafted number one overall in 1996.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Benson's never really a great pitcher, and certainly a bust when you consider the fact that he was the number one overall draft pick, but he was at least a capable Major League starter, and that's sadly more than you can say for most of the other guys they picked during that era.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Um it was just a complete mess of a scouting department.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, 2001, Boniface's last draft, they have the eighth overall pick, and they use it on the country's leading home run hitter, a guy named John Van Benchgoten.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: So this guy is a great college baseball player and hits a lot of home runs.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh and great, we get him eighth overall.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: So what do they do?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: They convert him into a pitcher.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Instead of being a home run hitter, he's now a pitcher.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: He has a putrid three-year career.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: He goes two and thirteen as a starting pitcher.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: And and they said the reason that they converted him into a pitcher is because the the guy that was the scouting director for the Pirates had seen was worried that his swing was too similar to Michael Jordan's, and thus he would never be a good hitter.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, Michael Jordan was a basketball player, as everybody knows, that tried to play baseball.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: John Van Benchgoten was actually a good baseball player who hit home runs, a lot of home runs, and they turned him into a pitcher.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're dealing with here in terms of the front office.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just a complete mess.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's like this is when things I think this is the lowest moments here.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Is like, like I said, because I just remember at some point it's like, like at least like you had the Bronson Aurores, Jason Smith's, you know, there were teams teams that were kind of like there were players that are coming out, you're like, oh, this team's producing some talent.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: It got to the point where like they're not even like producing talent that other teams want.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's scary.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: That's that's getting scary.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: That that means there's like something seriously wrong.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: And in defense, like the baseball draft is very different from the NFL draft.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Whereas the NFL draft, you're drafting people that are two to three years out of high school and have experience playing at some sort of like semi-pro level, which I would call college football.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: Whereas this, these guys are a lot of these guys are coming out of high school sometimes.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: You're still 18 and 19 and haven't played a full college career.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: So it's much more of a crapshoot with the baseball draft, I always thought, because it's you're drafting younger players that haven't jumped up in their level of competition yet.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: So that that's another reason that you can, you know, really swing and miss on these baseball picks.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: And they have like two different drafts.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: They have one for like 18-year-olds and they have another one for I at least they do now for like players coming like three or four years later.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: It's the baseball drafts are really weird process.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I and it doesn't seem like like I don't know.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: The pirates eventually figure it out and get some players out of it, but it doesn't seem like I don't know.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't seem like you get like much.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: It's like the NFL where you can really build through it.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: I I'm and the only reason I can come up with is because the players are so young and immature.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: You just it is just so much, you know, it's just so much harder to project what an 18-year-old's gonna do than like maybe like a person that's played like some college and stuff and is 22, 23, a little easier.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's fair.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll say this about everything we're gonna we're talking about.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, missing on a draft pick or two is totally understandable in baseball because of what you said.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Letting go of a player that didn't do anything for you, and oh, they they happen to have success elsewhere, that that happens.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: It's just the shocking consistency of that those two things happening over and over and over again for 20 years that really just sets the pirates to another level.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you miss on so many draft picks?
34:40
SPEAKER_00: How do you let go of so many guys that could have served you well and watch them go on to other player other teams?
34:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just amazing how many times it happens repeatedly.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: So back to the 2002 draft.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh again, David Littlefield's first first draft as DM.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: So the Pirates are on the number one pick.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: On the board are future Major League stars Zach Ranke, Prince Fioder, Cole Hammels.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Also one of those people, yeah, he probably wouldn't have gone wrong with.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And also on the board is is BJ Upton, who everybody's saying is the surefire number one pick.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Um instead, the Pirates select a pitcher named Brian Bullington.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and people aren't aren't very, you know, they're they're just a little curious of a pick.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: And so Littlefield goes out and does an interview and says, we feel comfortable projecting him as a number three starter.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: A number three starter for the number one overall pick in the draft.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: So you seriously drafted a guy that you projected as a number three starter.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's you know, everybody right off the bat, Littlefield inspires zero conference confidence with that statement.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, Bowlington fails to even live up to those paltry standards starter.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh he pitched a grand total of 18, wait for it, years, games, no innings.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: 18 innings of baseball.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Two games.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Two games of baseball.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Two games, two whole games of baseball for the Pirates uh after being the number one overall pick in the entire draft.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: So I wonder, I wonder if too, like the the um the money thing came in, they didn't want to.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: I bet all those guys were expensive and they probably didn't want to pay.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: So we'll we'll talk more about that for coming up because that absolutely factors into decision making and and into the draft.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And too, I don't think like if Scott Boris, the if people don't know, he's like a super agent who always seems to get like tons of money.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: You got Garrett Cole, that big contract.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: I think the pirates, like anytime anybody was linked up with him, they would just like nope, not even dealing with them, not even gonna deal with them.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: So right.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: That that that definitely is is playing a role in this.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, whether it's whether it's at this point or with future ownership, well, let's talk about that.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: In 2002, uh the Nutting family becomes part owner of the team, and Bob Nutting is named chairman of the board.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, officially, McClatchy still owns the team, but at some point between 2002 and 2007, Nutting becomes the plural or plurality owner.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: And then in 2007, McClatchy kind of formally steps down as the team CEO.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: So there's this handoff.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not clear.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: The pirates are a uh a private um entity, and so it's not really clear who's calling the shots at this point.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think, Steve, to your point about you know trying to run things on the cheap, definitely when the nuttings come into the picture and when Bob Nutting is the chairman of the board, and then ultimately the the you know the formal owner of the team, um, decisions are definitely starting to made to be made that are you know um geared in that direction.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: There seems to be more of a story there over five, like how did they push McClatchy out and why?
37:57
SPEAKER_01: And I've never seen anything written about that, about the change.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: It just like you said, it just kind of like secretly just kind of happened.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: And I guess the pirates are so bad nobody cares.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: I've always wondered that too, because you know, typically when a new owner comes in, it's a it's a it's a handoff, you know, it's a okay, this guy's the owner now, and it's a very um formal kind of handoff.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh and it doesn't take like five years.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: It it just kind of happened gradually.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: It was it was odd.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to I'd love to dig more into that too, Steve, to be honest.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't know the full story there either.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, I just know that the nuttings coming in certainly didn't help anything.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Um 2002, spring training is when Operation Shutdown happens.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Again, go back to our our most reviled episode.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: We talked more about that, but just a quick summary.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: The Pirates had signed a veteran named Derek Bell.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Um he he was gonna get challenged for his job by a younger player, and Derek Bell said, I I should have the job outright, nobody should challenge me.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And he initiated something he called Operation Shutdown, where he just didn't play and uh went out on sailed on his yacht.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's literally what it was.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's still in effect.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's still in effect because Derek Bell has never played again.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: So 18 years later, Derek Bell is still still running Operation Shutdown.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: I think the pirates will cave and give him that right fielder spot he went.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens, right?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: They should do that as a joke.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: That would be awful.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: Just like called Dragon, hey, you want some free publicity?
39:33
SPEAKER_01: Give me a you know, free hot dog or something.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And have him like park his boat in the river and like walk in, you know.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we own the pirates someday, Steve, that's that's the first thing.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Have them walk in off his boat, like it's over.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: He could sail right up to the stadium, it'd be perfect.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, July 9th, 2003, there's an embarrassing moment in Milwaukee.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, in Milwaukee, during the seventh inning stretch, they do this like sausage race.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know what that is, people put on these like costumes, they dress up as like sausage or killbasa or whatever, and they do like a race.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the first baseman for the pirates is Randall Simon, and he clocks one of these um poor sausages with a baseball bat.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: It was this poor girl, and he like knocks her over.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he actually gets like arrested and suspended by Major League Baseball.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't brewers just being idiots.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: That was Milwaukee just being jerks.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: Come on, have you seen the highlight of this?
40:35
SPEAKER_01: He literally like holds out his bat and she runs into it.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean it sounds it well, it didn't like wind up and take a practice swing.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: It the bat was moving like barely above, like, I don't know, me tapping you with it.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: He literally tapped the hat, which there's the head isn't even in that part, and she fell over and skinned her knees.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: And the district attorney who must have had re-election on his mind in Milwaukee decided to charge Randall Simon with it.
41:04
SPEAKER_01: It was just the most overblown stupidity I've seen in sports.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I agree.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we what it sounds worse when we describe it like he hit her with a baseball bat, it sounds pretty bad.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: It was he was being he was trying to be like funny, playful, yeah.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't done in like a means, like you could tell, like if he was like, Oh, I'm gonna swing, and you know, yeah, it it's still it still kind of looks bad, and you know, uh, you know, but it's it was overblown for sure.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: But it's still just another knot in the belt of you know, pirate pirate lowlights, unfortunately.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: And and then of course it's like on every like Good Morning America show the next day, you know, it was everywhere.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: So just again, more embarrassment for the pirates.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll post a link to that video on our website.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: It's Pittsburgh Sports Memories.weebly.com.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you'll see, like Steve described, it's really not as bad as it sounds.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, later that summer, Littlefield uh makes another bad deal.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: This time he gives the Cubs uh Aramis Ramirez, who, like so many guys before him, go goes on to have much better success with his new team than he does with the Pirates.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Cubs are in a pennant race that year, and Ramirez um immediately contributes.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the guy the guys the pirates got back.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Do not uh in 2005, Littlefield, now this isn't verified, um, but it's it's it's supposedly what the story is.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Littlefield reportedly turns down a trade offer from the Phillies.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: They want Kip Wells.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: Kip Wells was a um mediocre to bad pitcher for the Pirates, and they're offering a young prospect by the name of Ryan Howard.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: The Pirates say, no, no, thanks.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: We we love we love us some Kip Wells.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh Howard, of course, goes on to set numerous franchise records for the Phillies.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he leads them to the World Series uh in a few years later, he becomes the fastest player in Major League history to reach 200 home runs.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: But you know, we ended up with Kip Wells, so there's that.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, we had Kip Wells going for us.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: You don't trade Kip Wells for like, you know, major league home run hitter, yeah.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: You certainly don't want an all-time great player when you can have Kip Wells.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Especially like when it would cost all that money and you wouldn't be able to like, you know, go to seven springs and add new snow machines and yeah.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, well, and and at this point though, like, and that's the thing, because yeah, so you're not certainly not the pirates would have never been able to trade for Ryan Howard after he became Ryan Howard.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: But at this point, like he's an he's an unknown prospect.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the only reason the Phillies are even dangling him because he's a prospect.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And and that's the other amazing thing.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Like when you trade guys, the pirates were always, you know, when the trade deadline came, the pirates were always on the side of trading away veterans that could help teams.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: And and when you do that, you're supposed to get one of their best prospects back, right?
43:52
SPEAKER_00: And and then rebuild with that.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: And again, for 20 years, they're in this position of being able to get other teams good prospects, and they just bought.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: On it every single time.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Or if they get the prospect, like like in Aramis Ramirez, then they turn around a few years later and get rid of that guy.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where they just were, unfortunately.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, at this point, so so we're around 2005.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: At this point, the the pirates are kind of in another rebuilding phase, another five-year plan, like they used to say.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, they've traded away guys like Kendall and Giles.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, they they they do make again, Littlefield is awful, and there's hardly any redeeming moments during his tenure.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: I will say, um, you know, during this time, he makes a few decent moves.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: He gets Jason Bay in the Giles trade.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, Bay ends up being the National League rookie of the year in 2004.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: Um now, granted, the Pirates actually wanted somebody else in that deal.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: That was a trade to the Padres, I think.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: And the Padres said, no, you're gonna take Jason Bay, and the Pirates said, okay.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: But it worked out.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: It did work out.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: So again, trying to be fair to Littlefield.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: And then he also drafted uh Neil Walker and Andrew McCutcheon uh during this era.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: So you can't fault him for that.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: So again, want to point out that Littlefield, you know, um, made a couple of decent moves.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Um in 2006, they compile a 13-game losing streak during which they they allow an average of seven runs per game, which is you know a lot of runs per game, if you know anything about baseball.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, they also have the fourth overall pick that year, and they tick they take a pitcher named Brad Lincoln, who never amounts to anything.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and if you look at that draft, 2006, if you they wanted a pitcher at four overall, the pitchers picked right behind Brad Lincoln are Clayton Kershaw, Tim Linekim, and Max Scherzer, who those three guys combined for eight Cy Young awards, and that's so far.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: So two of those guys are still playing.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: So the Pirates took Brad Lincoln instead of eight combined Cy Young awards.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: Um again, to be fair, you know, Lincoln was a highly touted prospect.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like other teams might have not made the same mistake.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, however, the following year, uh, there are no such excuses.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: So the 2007 draft, um, you know, to me, that's that's kind of a point in history where um, you know, things, things, any any hope that you had, any any thoughts that you had that the pirates were actually trying to win, it really evaporated in the 2007 draft.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: So that year they again have the number four overall pick.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: And this time, um uh the guy that's fallen to them at number four is a can't miss prospect.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a catcher named Matt Wheaters.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Matt Wheaters had a very celebrated college career.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, Steve, you talked about how sometimes these guys are coming out of high school and they're crapshoots.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: This guy had played college baseball um and and was well known as a great college baseball player.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Um he was a catcher.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: He's a guy that could anchor your team literally for years to come.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: And the Pirates pass on him and they take a relief pitcher, a relief pitcher named Daniel Moskis, who, number one, wasn't even projected to go in the top 10 by anybody.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: And then number two, pitches a grand total of 24 innings in his very, very brief Pirates career.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh Wheaters was represented by Scott Boris, who Steve had mentioned earlier as a super agent.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: He tends to get guys a lot of money.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: And so the Pirates just said, yeah, we're not gonna, we're not gonna try to negotiate and have to pay this guy.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: We'll just draft a relief pitcher instead.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: And drafting a relief pitcher instead of a franchise catcher, probably the the closest equivalent I could think to would be like drafting a punter instead of a franchise quarterback if he had the number four overall pick in the NFL draft.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to even draft that position was ridiculous, but to pass up a guy that could be a franchise player and was a franchise player for the Baltimore Orios who ended up picking Wheaters next, um, there's just no excuse other than we don't care, we want to save money, we're gonna run the team on the cheap, and to hell with what the fans think.
48:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how how else can you say it?
48:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what other conclusion can you draw from that draft?
48:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh that was this definitely them avoiding Scott Boris and that thing.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what Wheat Ears did.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: Did he uh do you say he went to Baltimore and did okay?
48:27
SPEAKER_01: Or I don't know.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: He made four all he made four All-Star games.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Um he played you know over a decade for the Orioles.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: He was he was a very good player.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: I remember he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at one point, and I forget what the title was, but it was something like the you know, the new the new prototype for a catcher.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, catcher, catcher's an important position in baseball, right?
48:49
SPEAKER_00: It's it's that guy that kind of you know, he calls all the pitches.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a little bit I I don't want to compare it to a quarterback in football.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the apt comparison is, but it's an important position.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: And if you can get a franchise catcher at the number four pick, it's just a no-brainer.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: And and they just didn't do it only because of who the guy's agent was.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's a terrible way to run a sports team, and it just it just kicks all your fans right in the gut.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: But they would they definitely weren't like it definitely was money.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: Money definitely was the motivating factor at this point and not paying people.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: So Littlefield catches a lot of flack for that in 2007, and the pirates continue to suck in 2007, and everybody's really down on management, on the ownership, on on Bob Nutting.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: Littlefield makes a really curious decision at the trade deadline that year.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like he wants to prove everybody wrong, and he makes this just really, really bewildering trade.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: So at the 2007 trade deadline, um, the Pirates, who are way out of the playoff hunt, I mean, they're they're bad again, um, they they trade young players to the Giants for a pitcher, Matt Morris, who was seven and seven, wasn't having a great season, um, and who was on the hook for$10 million through the next year.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: So they traded for an expensive veteran pitcher.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: Why?
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, so so if you're in the if you're in the playoff hunt, right, you're competing for a division or a wild card, you know, you you would potentially take on a seven and seven pitcher because he's a veteran and you could stick him into your rotation and maybe he helps you.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: And that's what teams typically do who are in the playoff hunt.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: But the pirates weren't.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: Pirates were a have not, and and they took on a$10 million salary.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: So they won't draft Matt Wheaters because you have to pay him a lot of money, but then they go out and trade for no reason for a veteran pitcher.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, Matt Morris makes 11 starts for the Pirates.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: He goes three and four with a 6.10 ERA, which is bad.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Um and then he didn't get any better the next year.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: He started off the season the next year, uh, 0-7 or sorry, 0-4.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: Um before they cut him.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: They just cut him at that point.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: So, so they for$10 million, they got three wins and eight losses and a 7.04 ERA.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: And why?
51:18
SPEAKER_00: Why like it just made no sense whatsoever?
51:21
SPEAKER_00: It was just seemed like a reaction, like, oh, you think we don't want to spend money?
51:24
SPEAKER_00: Here what?
51:25
SPEAKER_00: We'll spend money.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it that's ugly.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: That's just ugly.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: And uh obviously leads, like you said, that leads to Littlefield finally getting fired that year.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he September of that year, he's mercy fired.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, Neil Huntington comes in.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, Neil Huntington at first doesn't do much better.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously, he he has some success a few years later.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of his first moves is to give up on Jose Batista in 2008.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they trade him to the Blue Jays for a minor league catcher.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, Batista, of course, becomes one of the most feared power hitters in baseball.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: He makes six consecutive All-Star games.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: He has that infamous uh bat flip in the 2015 playoffs where he hits our own running, flips the bat.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: Everybody got mad about that.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Um but all this is another one in the Pirates defense.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think he was on his third, the Pirates were his third team by then.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: He was actually on his second stint with the Pirates too.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they hadn't he never like he hadn't completely like rounded into shape yet to the Joey Bats that he became.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: So there were a couple other teams that passed on him too.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: So I again I go back to that the Jose Bautista thing by itself in a in a vi in a vacuum.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: What you said makes perfect sense.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: But then it's like every single move they made fits that description.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: So at some point when it becomes a pattern, it's it just turns into I don't think these guys know what they're doing at all.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: At all.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: And and Bob Nunning, around that same time as when Bob Nunning um had that famous quote where he he called the front office, quote, the single best uh management team in all of baseball, maybe in all of sports.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
53:17
unknown: Wow.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: So so they they continue to lose.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: Um 2009 to me is a real banner year for the Pirates.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: So in 2009, if you don't remember, here's what's happening around the Pittsburgh sports scene in 2009.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: In February, the Steelers win Super Bowl 43 on a dramatic last second touchdown.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: In March, the Pitt basketball team enters the NCAA tournament as the number one seed.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: In June, the Penguins win the Stanley Cup.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: In November, Pitt Football posts its best record in the past 40 years, still to this day, their best record in the past 40 years.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's what's happening in Pittsburgh.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: A lot of really good, exciting stuff.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: What do the Pirates do?
53:58
SPEAKER_00: They lose 99 games, and this is the year that they they set the record.
54:02
SPEAKER_00: They they passed the 30s and 40s Phillies for the most consecutive losing seasons in the history of North American pro sports.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: So kudos to the Pirates.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, that year, you know, every other team in Pittsburgh is competing or winning championships, and they set the record and lose 99 games.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: I think that was uh that was that after the one Stanley Cub the Malkin said, uh pirates, it's your turn.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: And that motivates.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: No, no, that motivated them to go out and lose 99 games that year.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, I mean, this was things just keep getting worse.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: This is by this time the manager is John Russell.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, he's just an awful manager.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, none of these guys were good managers, but John Russell, he used to do like cutting-edge things that he thought was cutting edge, like he would bat the pitcher eighth instead of ninth.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, that'll really throw the other team off.
55:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you do that in little, like little league, having coached little league.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, you'll instead of batting like your worst batter like ninth, you break it up, you bat him like seventh or eighth.
55:16
SPEAKER_01: Because like they probably won't come up with people on base, and then you can like rotate your order.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: Like you at least have somebody like that can make contact or get a walk, you know?
55:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think I think like Tony LaRusso, I think there was like legit managers that that tried stuff like that too.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: It just it just any time anytime the pirates did it, it just didn't work because that's the way things went during these 20 years.
55:40
SPEAKER_00: Um 2010, so they lose 99 games in 2009.
55:43
SPEAKER_00: 2010, they get worse.
55:45
SPEAKER_00: They they lose 105 games that year.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: That's their most um that's their worst season since 1952.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, the the April 22nd of that season, they lost a home game to the Brewers by the score of 20 to nothing, which is which remains to this day among the five most lopsided shutouts in Major League history, which is you know hard to believe given how many games have been played uh since the the 1800s through today in Major League Baseball.
56:14
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the five most lopsided.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: Um the thing I remember about that game, I I um it was an afternoon game, and I work um right across the street from PNC Park.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: And so when there's an afternoon game, I'll listen to the the game on the radio to try to get out before the the try, you know, before everybody's leaving the park at the same time, or wait till after, you know.
56:36
SPEAKER_00: But I'll kind of listen to the game and I turned it on, and they're they're talking about the pirates being down 20 to nothing, and I'm like, well, like 20 runs to nothing?
56:44
SPEAKER_00: Like I it was weird to to think that they could actually be losing a game 20 to zero.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: Um and and the announcer, the radio announcer for the pirates is a guy named Tim Neverett.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: Tim Neverett sounded a lot like Bob Euchre.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: Like he had that voice that sounded a lot like Bob Euchar.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: So another major league reference.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: I just remember when the last out, you know, was made, Tim Neverett just sounded like, well, final score, folks, 20 to nothing.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: And I just pictured Bob Eucher going, you know, post-game show is brought to you by, oh, to hell with it, I can't find it, you know, like he did in Major League.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was just, I thought it was pretty funny.
57:18
SPEAKER_00: Um so that was a pretty bad game.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: Um also that season, uh early in that season, the the Nuttings own a website called piratesreport.com at that time, which is a, you know, which is one of those, you know, sort of like team kind of rah-rah websites, fine.
57:37
SPEAKER_00: They post an article about the penguins.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: And the the article is titled, like Bucks, Penguins Still Have Work to Be Done.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Penguins had won the Stanley Cup the year before, and they post an article um, you know, making comparisons of like the Brian Bowlington draft pick.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: They compare that to the Penguins drafting Marc-Andre Fleury.
57:59
SPEAKER_00: People just I like it seems like a minor thing, but people really got upset about that.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: They actually had to pull the article off the website.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: People just thought the gall of the nuttings trying to trying to criticize the penguins, you know, when they stink.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, especially because they never would have signed Marc Andre Fleury.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: If they would have got the number one pick, they never would have signed Sidney Crosby or Molkin.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: And the Penguins had to wait a year to get Mulkin out of Russia.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: Like the Pirates never would have done any of that.
58:28
SPEAKER_01: And you can see that perfect example.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: They just passed on if it was gonna cost them too much money or they didn't want to pay that player, they just didn't pick them.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's it would this this is definitely like outside of Walker and McCutcheon, this is definitely the low point in their rock bottom.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Like you said, 105 games.
58:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, it it's it's bad.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: It was bad.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
58:53
SPEAKER_00: John Russell's fired, and that's when things really start to turn around.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, Clint Hurdle is hired as a new manager.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, the next two seasons, um, they still lose, but they show a lot of promise.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, those two seasons, 2011-2012, are marred by just massive collapses.
59:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, both of those seasons, they're competing, they're actually competing.
59:14
SPEAKER_00: They're definitely, they're definitely, you thought, are at least going to finish over 500.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people think they're they're gonna be in the playoffs, and they collapse both times.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: Um the the the also in that 2011 season, they have the game in Atlanta that goes into the 19th inning.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I I don't want to sound like a homer here because I really don't care all that much.
59:36
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that important of a game.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's the worst call in the history of sports that I've ever seen.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: Where they where Jerry Meal's the umpire, the Braves player is attempting to score, and the catcher just totally blocks the plate and tags him out, and Gary Meal says he's safe in the bottom of the 19th inning.
59:53
SPEAKER_00: It it just I don't know how else to say it.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: It's the worst call I've ever seen.
59:57
SPEAKER_00: It's not the worst in terms of impact, it wasn't a playoff game, it wasn't, you know, one of those things.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: But just in sheer, like, how do you miss that?
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: How do you call that safe?
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, just sort of again, once one of those things emblematic of just the way things were trending for the last two decades for the Pirates.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: It led to again inner internet meme, like Meals, Jerry Meals says it's safe.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, people really put, you know, can I eat like this expired cottage cheese?
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's like Jerry Meal says it's safe.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it did.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: It was it was it ended up being pretty humorous.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, because again, most of these things, like the Randall Simon thing and everything else, if you couldn't laugh at it, you all you could do is cry.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: So one of these things you just had to laugh at.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: Um and then, you know, finally in 2013, uh the Pirates did put together a memorable playoff run.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: They broke the streak.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: We did do an episode about that, so go back and listen.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so finally 20 years of losing comes to an end.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, whether or not we'll see 20 more years of losing in this current era, who knows?
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't seem promising anymore.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but boy, uh what else can you say?
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: Just terrible decision after terrible decision.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, just just um people can't even say there's bad like I mean, is there really I mean besides the Jerry Meals thing, which like you said, they still had like a month of baseball games after that.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I don't know.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: They just there's a lot of it, it was a lot of bad baseball for a long time.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: And you know, you get what you pay for sometimes.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: That's probably kind of what happened there.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: Indeed.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, again, all you can do is look back and and just shake your head and laugh at some of the things and wonder what could have been.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, I hopefully here's the another 20 years of losing.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, we won't be doing this episode again in another 20 years.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, please check us out on Facebook and Twitter at Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: We also have a website, Pittsburgh Sports Memories.weebly.com.
1:02:15
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1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: Please leave us a review if you felt led to do so.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh tune in next time.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, everybody.