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History of Pittsburgh Sports Owners · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to another informative and educational episode of Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your co-host, Steve Wirt, and I'm joined by I'm Tim Hannon, and we always aim to inform and educate.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um so on this uh on this episode we'll a a brief history of the owners of the Pittsburgh sports teams.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, kind of stole something from Stephen Hawking there.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: So on this episode, we're gonna like just look at some of the more memorable owners of the various Pittsburgh sports teams.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, some were cheap and uh some were just trying to survive, but you know, they all contributed to the uh Pittsburgh sports landscape, and uh, you know, it was either negative or positive, but hey, they they did more than me or you ever did.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: They owned a sports franchise, so good for them.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um just just as a note, this is not all inclusive.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure I'm leaving people out, but I just went with the people who I thought I remembered or people would recognize, so or that were at least memorable in some way.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody who uh me and Tim will probably never forget, and um that might not be a good thing, was um Howard Baldwin.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, our our favorite movie producer turned sports owners.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um he owned the team from 1992 to 1999.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he did win a Stanley Cup, but unfortunately the price of that Stanley Cup came at putting the team into bankruptcy.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Again, this is actually what, the team's second bankruptcy or third bankruptcy?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Second.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Second, okay.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or still we're if we get if we get to the third, I think we get some kind of special NHL designation at that point.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: We get a free prize from the federal government.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Stake knives.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so like Baldwin's special, like the way like Howard Baldwin would buy franchises, he would like buy them without investing his own money, which is I mean, that's a great way to do business.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he I they said it his initial cash investment was just a thousand dollars.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, in 1990, I think between the two of us, Tim, we could have scraped up a thousand dollars, right?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a great way to go through life, I guess.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could get cars and houses and boats and without having to spend any of my own money.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I kudos to him for pulling that off.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, we could have been owners of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we would have just out like invested like$2,000, maybe.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we could have outbid him.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: But uh the rest was assumed debt and capital, which I guess is where he got us beat because I don't think anybody's loaning us millions and millions of dollars.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: So um it it was uh bankrolled by a guy named Morris Bellsberg.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, that was a bad idea on all accounts.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we kind of went over this on the uh what app what podcast was that?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was the uh the goal that saved the penguins, yeah.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: He signed a lot of bad lease deals and like advertising and stuff like he really locked in the penguins to a no-win situation.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: He signed Mario to a huge contract and just made a lot of really bad deals that the team couldn't afford.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: So um he also um uh he had an American League hockey franchise in in Wilkesbury.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: He actually the Wilkesbury Penguins he created, so um when the uh guy that was financing all this, the Bellsberg left, he recruited a guy named Roger Marino who was even worse.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, they ended up declaring bankruptcy in November 1998.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um the upshot of that was uh the team ended up being sold to Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: There were rumors of what there were rumors of the team just being folded at that point, or you know, the I guess the stars being distributed around the league.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we had talked all about that.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Basically the book on Howard Baldwin was he was a big spender that didn't have the money to back it up, you know, the type of guy that I guess that's the way you make a movie, and unfortunately, the way you make a movie isn't the same way that you could probably should probably be running a sports franchise.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, um I mean he won us a Stanley, he got us a Stanley Cup, which is a lot more than a lot of other people on this list, but um I I at what cost at almost losing the franchise.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: So uh he's a pretty bad guy.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: He added those ridiculous seats way up in the rafters.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: So um any other thoughts on Howard Baldwin there, Tim?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the the ridiculous seats were Section F at the arena where he basically hung them off the roof, and I had season tickets up there uh at one point, and it was it was an experience, I'll say that.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was cheap too, so at least you could afford to get a point.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: I will say this, the view really wasn't that bad.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was well, yes, when you're literally hanging off the roof, it's definitely an interesting bird's eye view of what's happening on the ice.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but yeah, he he he just I mean, Steve, I don't know how you feel about um like I I used to there was a time in my life where I really believed that anyone who um has that much money, right, who's the head of a huge corporation or a self-made millionaire, billionaire, those kinds of people, I just always thought, boy, they must be so smart, they must have made so many great decisions, just so many skills that you know I or or the common person could never possess.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think now that I'm you know older in life, I I I feel like it's not necessarily true, and I think Alber Baldwin's a great example of that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I think there is sometimes like a little luck involved, and you do have to have some business acumen, but some people like it isn't like he inherited his money.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't I don't think.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, but some people just you know, the old what what is the line from Seinfeld fall ass backwards in the money and you know so I mean he I think he was kind of one of those people like we all have friends like that that just like for some reason they just kind of float through life and it's like oh look, I got another million dollars.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like wow, lucky you.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, and you're right.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: He had to he had to have had some kind of uh business acumen, and and you know, I I maybe the other thing to say about people like that is they're also risks risk takers.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's how they got where they are, and most of us aren't.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and maybe maybe it's not totally fair to just focus on the risks that failed, right?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because those are obvious and easy to criticize.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there's that that factor as well.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't look into what I mean.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: He must have had a couple successful movies elsewhere or something.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean well he did make sudden death, and I think that won at least four or five Oscars, if I remember, right?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think he owned the the Hartford Whalers, and he did keep them afloat until they weren't, you know?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean he is kind of a Like at least in Hartford, Connecticut, he kind of has a mixed reputation.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like he did some things right there and a lot of things wrong.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, he also had that investment in the in the Moscow hockey team, the Russian penguins.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: With with the cages in the basement or right, right.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's where they put the bad players.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you had a bad game, you can go down and sleep with the cage.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: That whole story was interesting, and that actually was a huge success for a while until until Russia got all Russia with it, and we did a whole episode on that, too.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a really fascinating story.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But so yeah, he again, he was a risk taker, and sometimes you need you need to take risks, and sometimes they'll blow up in your face, but other times, you know, you won't get anywhere if you don't.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we kind of have another guy that's kind of like that on this list, but I think he was a little more upstanding citizen than this guy.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember I couldn't find a clip of it, but I remember uh Beano Cook bet him that he would leave town within like two years or like something like that.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I forget what the exact bet was, but Beano Cook ended up being right.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: So um next up is uh person we probably we've discussed before, but maybe we don't really you might not know him, is a gentleman named Gabe Rubin.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: He was the owner of the Pittsburgh Pipers and Pittsburgh, later Pittsburgh Condors.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he actually won a ABA championship with uh Connie Hawkins.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um he owned a basketball team in Pittsburgh.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, after winning said championship, and that was was that one here or was that in that was in New Orleans, wasn't it?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was in New Orleans.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was it yeah, yeah, I know it was against New Orleans.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where the game seven was, but I know it went to seven games and they beat the New Orleans Buccaneers, the team with the goofy logo, is what I remember from our previous episode.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so I mean they win a championship, so how do you you know capitalize on that championship?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you moved the team to Minnesota to a city that had just totally not you know supported the team that had just folded.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the high-heady days of the American Basketball Association, so this is like what late 60s, early 70s.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I mean then they did come back and you know the Pacific Arena was empty because you know, you literally ditched Pittsburgh for a year to come back.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And they they had solid attendance before the move, but then after the move, they're really they didn't have people didn't care about basketball anymore.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, it's uh and and finally in the spring of 1970, uh this this Ruben guy sold his uh team to a corporate owner, Haven Industries.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they they eventually folded.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think the team eventually folded after like two or three more seasons with with that company.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, this guy was kind of like another risk taker and just didn't not not a good decision and it would have nothing to do with like money or basketball, just like he I think he just wanted to move the team to Minnesota.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's not really a good reason why he did, and it just totally, you know, alienated his fan base and you know it's that was a poor decision.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Speaking of taking risks, Tim, why would I I don't understand why you would and like how did he market that in Minnesota?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome your champion, you know, Minnesota Pipers.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just Yeah, I I I mean if you look at the trajectory of the team we just talked about, the Penguins, they they were barely surviving for years and years, and then when they started winning, you know, then they started building this incredible fan base, but you needed to win first and then and then wait for that fan base to come.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when the Papers were in the ABA finals, I mean that was a big deal, and people were coming to the games and they were they were excited, the whole city was excited about it, and you had all this momentum, so why not carry it into at least one more season?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I could see if you go into the next season and maybe you have like that championship drop-off, and then people you know aren't interested anymore.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: But man, I why wouldn't you you've just given it one more year?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, Steve, you made this point in the episode we did about that, where you said, um, you know, given where the the Penguins were at the time in the late 60s, early 70s, we could have had because the ABA eventually merged into the NBA.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Indiana Pacers, the Spurs, the Nets, all those teams got folded into the NBA, we could have been at NBA City.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I it's kind of like an interesting what if.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if like he keeps the team here and they build a fan base and they're successful?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are the Penguins the team that folds and doesn't make it?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And Pittsburgh is like Cleveland with a basketball, football, baseball instead of how Cleveland ha yeah, that's how Cleveland is, instead of hockey, football, baseball.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting the what-ifs, but I mean I I I kind of at the end will kind of list like who I think the best and the worst of this is, but I I kind of like label him as the guy who killed professional basketball in this range.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I agree.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and and the penguins, you said they declared bankruptcy twice.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: The first time was I think in 75 or 76.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was middle.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, if let's say the the condors or pipers or whatever they were they finally settled on name are here and successful, Like people are like, yeah, whatever, who cares about hockey?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then imagine a Pittsburgh Cleveland rivalry in football and basketball.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: That would be that would be wild.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Even though, I mean, even though we both have baseball teams, we're just we don't play each other that much.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: So right.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and then I mean you could go on down the line of what if then where does Mario end up?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Mario ends up in like Montreal.
• 13:44
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Canadians six cups later, you know.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like they would have had him and Patrick Waugh at the same time.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: They they'd have been all right, Tim.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: I you or me could have coached that team and we would have won a Stanley Cup.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and then and then I would love to do the what if on the NBA side.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So so let's just say that they absorb Pittsburgh in instead of like San Antonio, like bigger city.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then Pittsburgh is the team with David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, do I gotta deal with Greg Popovich?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh well, I guess for a couple NBA championships, yeah.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I love the pens, so I I'm not regretting that, but it just it, you know, for him personally, he could have been really at the forefront of something big, and yeah, it was a weird decision on his part.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he regretted it because he moved the team right back.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's just it's just so stupid.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I don't know.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know what he was thinking.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: I it'd be great to like read.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: I I think the guy is dead.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think he's alive anymore.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, um moving on to people that probably should be changed.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um Bob Nutting.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, uh the owners keep getting worse, Tim, don't they?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um he he bought out Kevin McClatchy in 2007 to become the principal owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um under him, at least the Pirates have had three wildcard appearances and one wildcard win.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: So um, hey, that's something, right?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of it's kind of better than somebody, another pirate owner that I have listed on this list.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: But um four winning, only four winning seasons since 2007.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um he actually sold his ski resorts.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Did you know that, Tim, in 2021, and now he just owns the Pirates.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: More time and energy for him to focus on, making the team worse.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's wonderful.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, he's the type of owners that other owners love.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know why?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't make waves, he just kind of goes along, signs off whenever Scott Boris in the Union wants, and whatever the Yankees and Dodgers want.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's an easy win for the other teams in the league, and you know, they get a nice nice cut of the TV profits from Pittsburgh, I'm sure, and um hey, it all works out for everybody except for the fans in Pittsburgh, and who cares about those people?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, baseball still doesn't understand that they're not competing against the Pirates, they're competing against the Steelers.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe someday the ownership of the Dodgers and the Yankees will figure that out, but that day is not today.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, will he ever sell the team?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't know.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh probably not.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: It just seems like he doesn't want to spend the necessary money to field a winning team.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so the only way I ever see the Pirates winning is unless the team gets lucky.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: And even then, just like we saw like two or three years of success.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: You'll never see sustained success out of this franchise.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I mean, I guess Kansas City kind of went through that where they were good for a little while and then they stunk.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: But Tampa has had sustained success and were pretty good last year until their one guy got convicted of like crime.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean I I I don't know what to say about this guy except for he's not a very good owner.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: He kind of in the you know realm of who's the guy that owned the Clippers for years?
• 17:18
  unknown: Sterling.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or like uh Brown and the Bengals.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I don't know whatever happened.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Mike Brown like woke up and started like doing things better over there in Cincinnati.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: But well he's yeah, that's who I always compared him to, uh nighting is Mike Brown.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because Mike Brown inherited that team from his father.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he hung on to Shula for how long?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: David Shula and Oh yeah, well, and Marvin Lewis was our coach for like 38 years too through a lot of mediocre seasons.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: He he he At least Marvin Lewis was mediocre.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: David Shula got awful.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean he he ran that team on the cheap for about 30 years.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: But like you said, something something clicked at some point, and maybe it's somebody else is running it now.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, I think he's still running it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I wonder if there's just like you get to this point later in life and maybe you have all the money you could possibly want.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, ri if there's one thing I don't I can't claim to know the minds of billionaires, but I uh I one thing that I that I think sometimes happens with some folks like that is they get kind of like uh I want to do something on a whim kind of thing, or not even on a whim, but I've done everything there is to do.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do something different.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like Elon Musk, Elon Musk playing Twitter, I think is a good example of that.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if Mike Brown just decided, okay, I'd like to actually win a Super Bowl here.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he he's done really good things with that franchise.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say, I've I've ripped Bob Nunning on the show many times, and and I don't like Bob Nunning, and I I hate what he's done to the pirates.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I will say, at the time we're recording this, he's made some really good moves the last couple of years.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: They drafted that Skeens kid who, you know, that's a guy they wouldn't have drafted 20 years ago or or 10 years ago.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: They would have passed him up because he would have been too much to sign, and then they gave him a big contract, you know, and then they they they locked up their two best players for multiple years.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think he's actually making some decent moves.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, definitely not Dodger type moves, but you wouldn't expect that from any owner of of the pirates.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: But just be happy with Tampa Bay type success.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like and that and it's not like Tampa's like in a like we're in like a much better situation.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think competing with the Cardinals in Chicago is easier than the Yankees and Red Sox, and Tampa seems to pull it off every year.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think he's got again, I think he's at least trying to do something a little bit different.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh maybe that's just me wishful thinking.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if Mike Brown could, after 30 years of running the franchise into the ground, if Mike Brown can turn it around, maybe Bob Nunny can too.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, we'll see.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't hold out much hope.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: You never know.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and then sustained success is tougher to come by, but it it is, but I would take like those three years of of being in the playoffs, I would take that again.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that seems to be like you said, if the moves they do pan out even half, like a guy, their best player, got hurt last year.
• 20:29
  unknown: Right.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like if that's gonna happen, but like if if half their moves pan out, they're at least I think they're at least gonna be competitive.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: And with the expanded playoffs, there's a good chance they're gonna make the playoffs again one of these years.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if that Skeens is anywhere close to what he's I mean, he's he's one of those once-in-a-generation pitching prospects.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Pitching is such a crapshoot, you never know.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is, but I mean, it's he's like that, you know, like that Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, like that once in a generation kind of guy, you know, uh Connor McDavid, he's like that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and so if that pans out, that you know, that could work.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's a staying success.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: They could have the pirates could have still done that after 2015 if they would have tried.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: They just didn't.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: They just decided, well, that we've spent enough money and we're gonna go back to the old way.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so uh it's possible, and like you said, other teams have done it.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely the the it's stacked against you the way baseball's set up, which is ridiculous, but it's possible, like you said, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, other teams have done it, San Diego, so it's possible.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'll see.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um moving on to owners that were very successful and then were successful later in life.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that would be Art Rooney Sr.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we did a whole podcast on him.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we'll just kind of go over it.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: He founded and was chairman of the Steelers from nineteen thirty three.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: To 1988.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: He oversaw, and I'll put this in very big quotation marks, oversaw four Super Bowls in the team of the 70s.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: It really was Dan who ran the team.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Which we should probably do a whole podcast just on Dan Rooney, because that that guy's the legend.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: But from 1967 to 1970, he he was part of the owner.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: He was part owner of the Penguins.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: He used influence to get the Penguins here.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he was there in the bad days of the Steelers.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um quote was the biggest thrill.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't winning on Sunday, it was making the payroll on Monday.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um just, you know, a founder of the NFL and Pro Sports in Pittsburgh, two successful franchises he kind of helped spawn.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um probably a better person than team owner, but it was nice later in life.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think everybody, he was such a good person.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody was really happy to see him win a couple Super Bowls.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, everybody in Pittsburgh loved him and the team loved him.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, good, good, good for him.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: He seemed like a good person that deserved it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Art Rennie is obviously a legend in this town.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, probably doesn't his Dan really is the is the glue.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Dan really deserves the credit for all the success the team had, but the team wouldn't even be here and wouldn't have been kept afloat all those years if not for art, wouldn't have the identity it has, if not for for art.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, again, deserving, deserving legendary figure.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and I just, you know, good guy and great person to like read his biography and you know, just just the way he handled himself and dealt with people, and you know, just uh quality individual.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um moving back to baseball, um, an owner who people might have heard of, John W.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Galbraith.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: He owned the Pirates from 1950 to 1982, and uh in that span, the Pirates won three World Series, 1960, 71, and 79.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And actually in the 70s, they had a really good team.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: It just they played in the uh same league as the Cincinnati Reds.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: So and the Cincinnati Reds were really good in the 70s.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, the two best teams of the 70s in the National League were Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, wouldn't you say, Tim?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's one of those it was kind of like it was never gonna happen again.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, that's true.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of like what was happening in football with like Pittsburgh and Oakland and Pittsburgh and Houston.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: You had sometimes the best teams were fighting each other just to get out of the same division or the same league, and that that was really tough.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, John Galbreth made a fortune in commercial property development.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: He built skyscrapers, uh, both in the United States and overseas.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um he actually bought in 1946, he had bought a 20% stake in the Pirates.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: I guess there was a four-man ownership group, and then in 1950, he finally bought them out and became the majority owner.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um the partners way back when in 1946 was one Bing Crosby.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: He would sing you a song.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if he still was an owner in 1950.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he was because you know um he was the first owner, owner to break the so-called million dollar mark when he signed Dave Parker in '79.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Look at that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: The Pirates spend the money, Tim.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he also uh was head of the team when they drafted Roberto Clemeni on the on a Rule 5 draft.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, the Brooklyn Dodgers were really smart to let him go.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: What are they gonna do next?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Move to California?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, the the team fell apart in the mid-80s.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: He had to sell to a corporation called Time Warner.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: And he was just doing that to keep them afloat.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then we we played on the one podcast a whole like uh Adam Lynch segment about the pirates moving, and it's a great segment if you get a chance to listen to it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um threatening to move the team to to to New Orleans of all places.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: I guess they were gonna play baseball in the Superdome, I guess.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um he was just very successful owner until I I don't know if the family just ran out of money and just dis or just decided they were spending too much money on baseball and decided to get out of baseball, and that that's kind of what the Galbreaths did.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: They they got out of baseball, sold the sold the team to a uh what was it, like a public-private partnership group of like local businesses.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: They used to they always used to use the word consortium.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's an official term or if that was just what they called it, but but Mayor Mayor Caladori got together all these big Pittsburgh companies, and they all basically co-own the team for about 10 years.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I it just just like I said, I think he's very successful, one of the more successful owners of the Pirates.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess he's oh, there's another guy on here that might be a little more successful, but it's just very successful and um good ownership.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, well well done by m by the Galbreths there.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh moving on to the next person that we've definitely heard of and talk of, talked about before, Eddie DeBartolo Sr.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: The late Eddie DeBartlow Sr.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: He owned the Penguins from 1977 to 1991.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: They got a Stanley Cup win in 1991.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: He also owned the Spirit indoor soccer team.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: He owned that team from 1981 to 1986.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: They never won any championships, but I think they made a few playoff appearances.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Andy owned the Maulers, the first iteration of the Maulers that folded after one season, not the second iteration of the Maulers that just folded after two seasons.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're a Pittsburgh Mauler, I'm sorry, your team is just doomed to get folded, I g I guess.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: They they were they bought the um Penguins in 1977, and I think they added stability to the franchise.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And how uh Mr.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Debartolo made money was he built malls, which were very popular in the 70s and 80s.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: So if you ever went to Century 3 Mall, you went to a mall that Eddie Debartlow uh was in charge of building.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how he made his fortune.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: He did that.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, at least in Pittsburgh in Ohio, he did that in a lot of different places.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: So um in when they won the cup in 91, a fun fact, um his uh daughter, Denise D'Bartolo York, um they they got uh she was the president of the team.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Did you did you know that?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: She during the championship season, so and she was uh president and she was the third woman to serve as a president of a Stanley Cup winning team.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, the following year in '91, being the smart businessman that he won, he sold the team to Howard Baldwood, unfortunately.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: But hey, I I guess he got paid.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um D Bartolo said at a rally after the first win um of the uh Stanley Cup uh possibly the happy happiest moment of my life.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: And just to follow up on Denise Bartolo York, um, the name should sound somewhat familiar if you're a sports fan, because her brother, Eddie D'Bartolo Jr., owned the 49ers.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the 49ers were sold by Eddie.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: He had some sort of he was getting in trouble with some sort of politician, so he sold the team to his sister, and his sister now has transferred ownership to Jed York, who now owns the team, and that's how Jed York.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's still in the D'Bartolo family, just under uh Eddie D'Bartolo Jr.'s nephew.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: So would that be nephew or great nephew?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Not just nephew.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, just like I said, he's he's definitely a a state uh he's like one of those guys.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think he's the guy, like you're talking about Tim, like he was more smart with his money, and he definitely had some some business, more business acumen than Howard Baldwin, but he did some things that were successful, like the Penguins, and he did some things that weren't successful, like the Maulers, and he did some things that were kind of in between, like the Spirit, like where they were successful for a while until they weren't.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, you know, he he he knew he knew what he was doing, and uh, I think a good owner overall.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: Good owner, brought a championship to the penguins, kept the penguins in town, you know, supplied it some thrills with other teams, but um, you know, what say you about Mr.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: DeBartolo Sr.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely definitely a good owner.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you could say, well, very fortunate to get Mario Lemieux in the middle of all that, but you know, one player doesn't make a team.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then his daughter, like you said, Denise to the DeBartolo York.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be interesting to delve further into her at some point because they don't win a Stanley Cup until she's running the team.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So is it like an art rainy danriny kind of situation?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: You you have to wonder that.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then her name is is the first one if you look at the Stanley Cup from 1991.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Her name's like the first name on the Stanley Cup for the Penguins.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So she was, you know, we're we're gonna talk about all men owners probably in this podcast, but she was a a pretty integral part of ownership and uh still co-chair of the 49ers today, which, you know, as you pointed out, is a pretty successful franchise as well.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, this is the place where DEI goes to die.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ownership of sports teams usually is.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I I just I I I kind of respect this guy.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I think Denise York, the Bartolo York, still they still live in Canfield, Ohio.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: I she's in her 70s.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: I actually looked it up.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: She's in her 70s, and her and her her husband was some sort of cancer research doctor.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: They have like four kids, so Jed is only just one of the kids.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: I guess he was the only one interested in running an NFL franchise.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: If I had like three other siblings, I'd be like kind of fighting to be in there.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: But kind of like uh, what's her name?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um Jeannie Buss for for the Lakers.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, how how she you know helped run the Lakers there after Jerry Bus died.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: So uh moving on to a guy who like I'm not sure, like he kinda has a mixed legacy, or maybe I'm giving him too much credit here.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: That would be one Kevin McClatchy.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he owned a team.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: He buzzed the guy that bought the team from the consortium.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: He owned the pirates and he bought the pirates from that consortium of what would you call businesses, local businesses that had owned team.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean he owned the team in 1996, he definitely bought the team, but we're not quite sure when he transferred ownership to Bob Nutting.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I have 2005, maybe.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we think that's when it's happened.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason we don't know is because the Pirates are a private company, and so they can do whatever they want with their ownership and don't have to tell us who.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: As is their right.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely they're right.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing that they're a private company and only do things with private dollars, never use public taxpayer funded anything.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're totally private and they deserve to just keep all their business to themselves, right?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that's kind of what happened was uh he was the big guy, he was the guy that got PNC Park built with public money, and that was his big push.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: How he made his money is he did inherit his money.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's part of the McClatchy group that I guess they own newspapers across the country.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I wonder how that business is going.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's a newspaper?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, really.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so he's not doing uh it see Tim, they were these things that people used to buy to line the uh birdcage with, or if your dog peed on the floor you'd put it down.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: It worked really for that.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I wouldn't think there'd be that big of a market for that, but good for him.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it had words on it, but mostly people used it for yeah, whenever your dog went to the bathroom.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know why we just didn't use paper towels, but yeah, newspaper seemed to be a better, better choice.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I hear people in movies always also used to use it too.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um hide behind in certain scenes.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pretending to be.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Or like this, they would spin and like give you like a plot, they would advance the plot.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, uh, yes, that's another good use of those things.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: Steve and Tim's podcast goes big time, yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: But um getting back onto the thing, um at some point, we don't know when we think it's 2005, um they sold to Bob Nutting, who knows?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like such a mess.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um McClatchy openly in 2006 speculated about resigning because the team had been so bad for so long.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, they didn't do anything besides get P and C Park built, which was a really big thing because I guess the pirates were threatening the move.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, he they stayed in town.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean so on 2007 it was finally announced that McClatchy would step down as CEO.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um I don't know if he even owns anything.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if he owns any of the pirates or he's just like a minority owner, or you know, I think he stops in and sees a game now and then more than Bob Nutting does.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, totally inept ownership.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't find them as cheap as is they just didn't know what they were doing.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um but they got PNC Park built, and that's that seems to be what this team did well is getting the game day experience right.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Everything that wasn't on the field, they did right.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And everything that was like related to baseball, they did wrong, which is just I I don't know.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know how else to put it.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so yeah, you're right.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: McClatchy has no there's nothing to really celebrate there.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll do my best, Kevin McClatchy apologist, um little diatribe here.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think probably what he did well was he he tried to set the team up for success and it just didn't work out that way.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you remember he signed Jason Kendall to a really long-term contract, he signed Kevin Young to a long-term contract, he made the trade for Brian Giles and signed him to a long-term contract.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he he thought kind of probably hopefully not similar to what I was just talking about with Nutting and the current team, but they tried to lock up some guys that they thought could give them a good future, and then getting PNC Park built, it was like, okay, not only do they have these guys locked up, but now they're gonna have more revenue coming in and and maybe really be able to build something.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, none of that even remotely worked out the way he planned it.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um the other thing that I remember about Kevin McClatchy is he was so young, I think he was in his 30s, Steve, when he took over as the Pirates owner.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was this very young owner, like you said, he inherited his his fortune, so that's kind of why.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it, you know, there was a season or two, we talked about that in our freak show Pirates episode about the 97 team that almost made the playoffs.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: Almost broke 500 team.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, they were an under 500 team that missed the playoffs by three games.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: But but at the time it was like, boy, he he used to sit behind home played, he used to get real like into the games, roll in motion.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's kind of like a Mark a Mark Cuban a little bit.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I remember at the the dual, the dual no-hitter.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Cuban just sold the Mavs, the Mavericks, or right.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: But that's that's who that's who he was kind of, he was like a poor man's Mark Cuban.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, I don't know, it just didn't work out.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like it wasn't like he was totally um, like you said, cheap or or trying to sink the team.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think like you said, there were some things he did that that on paper looked like oh, maybe this team's gonna rebuild, and then it just it didn't happen.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I now we're gonna switch gears to probably one of the most successful.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, it's between him and Galbreth, who's the most successful owner of all time.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: And um Barney Dreyfus, he didn't like cheap home runs.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: We know that.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: And owner, I guess we're staying with owners who built stadiums for 200, Alex.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh um, Barney Dreyfus, he owned the team from 1900 to 1932, and that's because he owned the team called the Louisville Cardinals, and he just basically moved all their players to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um he has uh two World Series and six NL pennants, and the only reason he only won two World Series is because the other pennants were won before the World Series existed.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: So he probably had more World Series if 1901, 1902, 1903 counted as World Series.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know who was playing in that darn American league, but we would have beat them too, right?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: Honest Wagner boys.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, technically he won four championships because that at the time that's that's as much as you could win.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that I mean, at the time, that was celebrated as they won a championship.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: So a very successful owner.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not only that, he decided, hey, I'm not I'm not done doing this.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm going to uh build a stadium, and I'm going to name it after one of the heroes of the French and Indian War.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: And uh John Forbes.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we all know that guy, yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: We all love John Forbes.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yay, John Forbes.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh he purchased some land in some little far-off suburb of Pittsburgh called Oakland.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: At least it was at when did they build Forbes Field 1908?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was the university.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the university was there, right?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, the university was there when they built it.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Had they built the cathedral learning yet?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but he caught a lot of flack for doing that.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, you didn't have cars.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you had cars, but you didn't have mass transportation back then.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And people thought that was crazy that you would build it all the way down to Oakland.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: You'll never make it there.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, again, like today you would think you know.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's no parkway, there's no anything.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there were trolleys.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Trolleys, maybe, horse and buggy, I don't know.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Streetcars.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the street the streetcars.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right now you could from downtown Pittsburgh to Oakland's about a five-minute drive.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh 15.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I guess it depends on traffic.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, but you know, he um he caught a lot of fleck for doing that.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing he did, Steve, I don't want to steal your thunder on this if you already have it, but all the stadiums back then were made of wood.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he built this out of steel.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which cost him a lot more money.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, he built this.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't get the taxpayers to build it like they do now.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he actually built a more expensive baseball stadium because he wanted it to last.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: What's funny is the people in charge politically back then were the Republicans.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: They uh they ran the state and the uh city, so the Republicans would have laughed them out of town.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not even sure Pittsburgh, I think Pittsburgh had annexed everything, you know, because cities just annexed other cities back then.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know how that works or why that works, but I don't know if like, you know, this the residents had to like fight each other when they got annexed, and then the loser maybe they played each other in a baseball game and the loser got annexed.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that would be more fun.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um well and you you also said he named it after General Forbes.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was another thing that people said, well, you build it, you you spent extra money to put steel on it.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: You should name it Dreyfus Field.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he wouldn't do it.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: He refused.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm not gonna do that.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want I I guess that's just what kind of guy he was.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like he didn't want all this glory and like name things after him.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: He just wanted to build a nice park and he wanted it to last for generations after he was gone, which it did.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and one of the reasons he built it in Oakland is because and we've talked about this too, Exposition Park down on the north side would get flooded because it was near the river.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: That was that story where the chief almost drowned in Exhibition Park.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean he like it was seven acres of land near the library, adjacent to Shenley Park, and uh actually Andrew Carnegie assisted him, and it was reaction to uh uh the owners of the Philadelphia Athletics, Ben Scheiben, some guy named Connie Mac.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: You might have heard of him, but um, they built a stadium and that was I guess that was uh Connie Mac Stadium or Shy Park, which lasted in Philadelphia until the early 70s, which I actually have a piece of Connie Mac Stadium somewhere around here.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Nice fun fun times.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um it's uh it was a big stadium for the time.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: It ended up hosting one of the first World Series.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um it saw what two other World Series?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Three?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Three yeah, twenty five.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: twenty seven and sixty, yeah.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, they they uh he was a good owner.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: He won a bunch of games, built a stadium with his own money, imagine that.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um kept the Pirates in town and competitive for until 1932 when he sold the team.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: So um good for Barney Dreyfus.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yay, for him.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know much about him except for he didn't like cheap home runs.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's why it was like 450 feet to dead center.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: That was the old story they used to leave the uh batting cage out in out in center field because nobody could sit it out that far.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean how big was it too in Oakland too?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like like I know the wall is by like so home plate, I'll try like home plate is like where?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's in a restroom somewhere, isn't it?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, or in a it's in it's in one of those buildings.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's down there, yes.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you can you know go see that.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing to think like how far how much of an Oakland that field took up.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: Probably a better use of the land than whatever's Pitt doing with it engineering school or whatever there.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: So so Steve, I have two I have two other notes on uh Arn Barney Dreyfus that I I just I think we talked about this in our um Ed Dohaney episode, but but one is you know the other contribution he gave to baseball was he's the father of the World Series.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, right, yes, that's why the World Series exists, is because he had this idea of hey, what if the two leagues played each other?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: Rather in the Yeah, him and I forget there's another guy from the American League kind of from the Red Sox.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and they they literally decided this in the middle of the 1903 season.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: This wasn't like this big meeting of minds, and everybody sat down at the end of the season, let's play each other, okay.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, literally, yeah, uh yeah.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Henley Henry Kaleya is the Red Sox owner, uh, and and you know, they say, and and everybody agrees, hey, I bet that would make some money, and uh and they agree to do that.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing um that is worth mentioning is in this era of baseball, you had the the owners were despicable.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: They they were like the Henry Frick kind of cheap and union breaker, the Pinkertons on them, yeah.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, like workers were cattle, yeah, and and baseball players were no different.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and yeah, people always talk about um you know the the the the Black Sox scandal and oh that was terrible.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: How could they throw those games?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's hard to blame them because because I mean, yes, was that wrong?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but the White Sox owner literally made them pay to uh launder their own uniforms.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I mean that laundry isn't that water isn't free and labor.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's the era we were living.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: That these players are.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: I will not let you defame the late Charles Komitsky.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and and Barney Dreyfus was by all accounts, you know, pretty uh well liked by his players.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think in that 03 World Series, he gave them a larger share of the whatever the profits were from playing that.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff like that.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, it players were cattle back then, workers were cattle, and and Barney Dreyfus seemed to be above that.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that was another thing that's worth mentioning about him.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, here the nice thought in 1909 when the Dreyfus actually stood outside and shook hands with the fans as they entered through the gates for the inaugural game.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Notting would probably do that.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I don't know.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: He does that at his own risk, at his own peril.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Better have some security there.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, on from Barney Dreyfus to a more modern owner that definitely isn't American.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh that would be one Mario Lemieux, and we're just gonna cover his stint as an owner, not as a player.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, although I guess some of this is him as a player, too, which is just confusing.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um so 1999, he still kind of owns the team.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna give him credit for three Stanley Cups as owner.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: He saved the team from leaving Pittsburgh and got a new arena built in Pittsburgh, which seems to be a big thing to do as an owner.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: Building a arena.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: I guess like building anything is expensive as the you know anything from the pharaohs to the Romans to good old Mario Lemieux and Barty Dreyfus found out.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: So um Lemieux's plan, um, actually, like he when he took over the team, the team was bankrupt because Howard Baldwin.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um so um what he did was he like said, okay, I'm gonna declare chapter 13 and uh pay everybody like cents on the dollar, right, Tim?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, you're you're you're all out of luck, you're all screwed, you shouldn't have done business with Howard Baldwin.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what he didn't do.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well actually what he did do was he actually paid everybody the full amount that he was owed, even though he didn't have to.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, that's just one of those things, like sometimes you get some really quality people, sometimes you get the uh, you know, the Bob Nunnings of the world, and sometimes you get the Mary Lemieuse, and he paid everything, uh, him and Burkle ended up owning the team.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um one kind of like darker thing was when they didn't get the they they tried to get the the arena built for basically free by getting the Isle of Capri to bid on uh gambling, which they would have used gambling money to build the arena, but you know, Ed Rendell didn't like that because I guess he didn't have enough control over the project.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that gave to Bardin, who basically did nothing with the casino.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so to get his new arena, like Mario had to start threatening the team, move the team to Kansas City.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: I remember him going to Kansas City and visiting, you know, and Kansas City had a new arena, and I mean I wonder who plays in that arena in Kansas City.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: They they built it, right, Tim?
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they just have concerts there.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good question, actually.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's Taylor Swift concerts all the time and Travis Kelsey hang out in that empty state.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it wouldn't be empty if Taylor Swift's there.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it would be very crowded.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think everybody knew that was like necessary grandstanding.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't remember too many people being angry with Mario for doing that.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I feel like any other owner threatening to move, people would be like, go ahead, leave.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need you.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think everybody kind of knew that Mario needed to do that, and I think everybody blamed the politicians at that point because they had, like you said, they had that plan to build an arena without any taxpayer money, and and our uh state government in all its wisdom shot it down.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: So well, it's w it's wise when you're not getting your pockets lined.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: So uh in November of 2021, uh a group called the Fenway Sports Group who owns uh the Red Sox.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's the Red Sox again coming up in this podcast, and Liverpool in the English Premier League.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um they actually became majority owners of the Penguins.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think Lemieux has a small minority stake, but it doesn't seem like he has much involvement with the team besides just being like a spokesperson.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but overall, save the penguins.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: Very good owner.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um I decided do we want to do a best and worst owner on the list?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, why not?
• 51:54
  unknown: Sure.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let's start with the worst.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Bob uh well we'll start.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know who's worse, Bob Nutting or Gabe Rubin.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm going with Gabe Rubin.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: He killed a whole sport in Pittsburgh.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: There's we're still gonna play baseball in Pittsburgh for the foreseeable future.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: In a vacuum, it's Gabe Rubin, but the the Pipers weren't the institution and and and didn't mean anywhere near as much as the pirates did, too, all the the people at Pittsburgh.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you could you could factor that in as well.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: I also put Kevin McClatchy and Bob Nutting.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's amazing.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're all pirate owners except for Gabe Rubin.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: He was the only one that could crack the worst worst owner list.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: As for best owners, uh definitely Art Rooney Sr.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um the Bartolo is kind of like I think he's in the middle.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: He like definitely said, I think I don't think he was a bad owner, and he he's a good, he's not like up there with Mario or Art, but he's definitely kind of like slides right in there.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: Did I miss anybody else?
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I Barney Dreyfus.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: Barney Dreyfus definitely into the good owner category, up there with Mario, brought invented the World Series, you know, basically like established the Pirates, but for me, I think it's Mario and then Art, and then probably like Dreyfus and Debartolo in the good owner list, if you're right.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Calbury's Galbraith, too.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Galbreth.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it it's just you know, at least there's some two good owners.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, like when you have a good owner, you can see the success, and the team isn't as unstable, and when you have a bad owner, boy, the team almost like packs up and leaves down.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of crazy, huh?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it ownership means everything.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you look across sports, you can you can tell which franchises are run well and which franchises aren't.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and the ones that are run poorly might have a good season here and there, but overall it it's just not good.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and the ones that are run well are consistently competitive and and make the right moves and treat people the right way, seemingly.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, ownership is huge in sports, and we've had some good ones.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: And some bad ones.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean the culture of any company probably it well doesn't.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: It starts at the leadership and you know trickles down, and if you have bad leadership, then probably gonna have a poor culture, and that leads to poor results.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: But there you go.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's my TED talk on how to run a business or and or spirits franchise.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as usual, uh thanks for tuning in.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we appreciate everything.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh don't worry, the ownership of this podcast won't be changing anytime soon.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right, unless someone wants to make us a big offer.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just saying.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm keeping my ownership stake of 50%.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, you know what?
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's uh I owe 49% and Tim owns 49%, and the other one percent is owned by our pets between the two families.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: So they they are the they are the vote, they have their own little votes.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: So many, thank you for tuning in.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh keep uh the likes coming, uh keep looking us up on all the podcasts and uh all your distributed podcasts, check us out on our website.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you very much, and uh, we'll catch you next time.