Gabe Mazefsky stands for a portrait outside of PNC Park, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, on the North Shore. The longtime Pittsburgh Pirates fan wants owner Bob Nutting to sell the team. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
I’ve been a Pirates fan for as long as I can remember, but now I’m doing the rounds urging the public sector to push for the sale of the team.
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Bob Nutting, Managing General Partner
Pittsburgh Pirates
115 Federal Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Dear Bob,
All of my earliest memories of being alive are Pirates-related. Many of them are wonderful memories. I’m hoping for one more: A World Series game, at PNC Park, with my Dad.
That’s why I’m asking you, earnestly, to sell the team. And I’m asking our public officials to push you to sell.
I consider the Pittsburgh Baseball Club to be my first love. Seriously. I just turned 1 when we last played in the World Series, but years later my family’s 20-game ticket plan and a few tantalizing seasons gave me the fever.
A small sample of memories: The days I deliberately wore my Little League jersey to Three Rivers Stadium because it had my last name on it, then reveled in the comments from fans who mistook it for Mazeroski. The way one particularly loud fan would heckle “Daaaaaryyyyyl” when the Mets’ Daryl Strawberry came to town — a foretaste of the famous “Cueto” chant of 2013. The way Three Rivers Stadium stands seemed to literally bounce with celebration during the 1990s playoff years. For a kid, it was like riding a roller coaster.
I got it so bad, I’d sneakily listen to the games on KDKA Radio, on low volume, after my mom sent me to bed. Sometimes I’d drift off and wake later, postgame, to some talk radio host ranting and raving about the day’s headlines. Maybe that’s why I ended up serving in city government in my 20s and 30s.
As a young person falling head over heels in love with Manager Jim Leyland’s “Killer B’s” team starring Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla and Jay Bell, I didn’t entirely understand the words of caution I heard. “They can’t afford all of these players,” the old heads warned. “They’re bound to leave. So enjoy this.”
Indeed, they left. McClatchy Group bought the team in 1996, and PNC Park opened in 2001. Since that world-class ballpark opened, only one Major League Baseball team — the Kansas City Royals — has won fewer games than the Pirates. And at least the Royals won a World Series in 2015, lost another one and made the playoffs this year.
PNC Park has hosted five playoff games, total, in 23 years. Some of them have been glorious. When pitcher A.J. Burnett called for a blackout in the 2013 Wild Card series, the tears flowed watching the sea of black jerseys crossing the Clemente Bridge heading into the game.
But then there’s the other side of being a Pirates fan. It’s not just the relentless march of losing seasons — just 4 years in your 18 as principal owner have ended in more wins than losses. It’s the rhythm of hope (the arrival of promising talent), despair (the departure of that talent for better-paying teams) and envy (that talent playing in World Series games in faraway stadiums).
Now we have Paul Skenes, no less a generational talent than Barry Bonds was. And now I’m the one muttering, “He’s bound to leave. So enjoy this.”
I give Kevin McClatchy, you and your family my thanks that there is still a franchise in this town. I am grateful for that. But I’d also note that we, the public, own PNC Park, which some call the best ballpark ever built. In recognition of a financing plan in which more than 80% of the cost was covered by local and state tax dollars, the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority [SEA] is your landlord.
I and others appreciate your contribution to the ballpark construction costs. But we’re not blind to three realities.
One: The on-field performance of the team affects the financial return to the taxpayers. A perpetually tanking team doesn’t generate the economic activity and revenue that a winner would.
Two: Other ball clubs, with homes of similar vintage, are pushing the public sector for nine-figure renovations. I’m guessing you’re watching the half-billion-dollar process in Milwaukee, and waiting for the right moment to make your ask.
And three: Your lease isn’t perpetual. It’s up after the 2030 season. There’s a team option to extend for five years, but at that point the rent can be renegotiated. There is no contractual cap on rent after 2030. There’s no reason our public officials couldn’t use that moment to, in effect, hand you a bill for the millions of dollars in unrealized return on the taxpayers’ investment.
That’s why, earlier this month, I went before the SEA board and renewed some old acquaintances from my government days. During the public comment portion of the meeting, I warned them of the ask you’re likely contemplating, and highlighted the lease terms noted here. I emphasized the window we have with Skenes and told them: We have the opportunity of a lifetime, but the wrong guy is in charge. I urged them to take measures to convince you to sell.
Now’s the time! Somebody with a big bank account is bound to be willing to take a chance that Skenes can help put their name on a trophy. Somebody is willing, metaphorically, to do what Mario Lemieux did when the Penguins drafted Sidney Crosby: lace up his skates and leave it all out there.
I want to take a moment and offer my condolences to you and yours for the loss of your father, G. Ogden Nutting, last year. He and his partners took a great risk, when no one else stepped to the plate. It saddens me that he didn’t get to see the team he helped to save play in a World Series.
Fathers don’t last forever. Though I hate to think about it, I know my Dad won’t. I’ll be left with memories of those 20 games a year. I’ll cherish those special moments, like the evening Dad told me and my twin brother that we’d be attending our first playoff game when the team clinched the division in St. Louis and Bonds and pitcher John Smiley carried Leyland off the field, on their shoulders.
I want one more moment: with Dad, at a World Series game. If it takes carrying you off on my shoulders, I’m game.
Sincerely,
Gabe
Editor’s note: PublicSource reached out to the Pirates’ media team by email and phone on Oct. 16 and 23, inviting response to the issues raised in this essay, but received no response.
Gabe Mazefsky was the policy manager to former Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, and now lives in Forest Hills and can be reached at (412)725-4264.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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