DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The middle finger

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The middle finger

[Music] You know, in all honesty, there isn’t anything left to say. Um, not going to pretend otherwise. There’s nothing left to say. The alleged sports franchise that you follow just gave you the finger. I can’t think of a more delicate way to phrase that. They just gave you the finger. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning from Dublin, Ireland. I’m Dan Kvajovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. If you happen to be into either of the two teams in Pittsburgh that actually care about winning, that care about their fans, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. I would highly encourage you to give those a try if you haven’t already. The Pirates pretended to announce that Don Kelly was having his contract extended yesterday, even though literally everybody, including Donnie himself, knew he was going to be extended, knew he was going to continue to be the manager. I’ve been telling you that for months. But what I’d also been telling you for months was that Ben Cherington was dead man walking. I used that term multiple times. And the reason that I used that term and I shared this with you as well again and again and again was that I had heard from everybody all the way to the top that they were immensely dissatisfied with his performance. They were dissatisfied with some of the things he was saying in public. And it wasn’t just the principal owner, the chairman of the board who felt this way. Remember, there are minority owners as well. Repeating it was everybody all the way to the top. And yet, they kept him. They hit it in like the ninth or tenth paragraph of the press release announcing Kelly’s never needed to be announced extension because you’re stupid. That’s what they think and you’re not going to pay any attention to this. There was a statement in the press release from Bob Nutting and that’s as far as anything would go from him because he didn’t even bother to show up for the press conference that I don’t know they were pretending somebody wanted to see. All they did all they did was find a way they think to get you off their backs as it relates to the GM. And you know what? Maybe they did. Maybe they did. Maybe everybody just gets mad today over Nodding’s cheapness, the lack of a salary cap. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s been documented a hundred billion different ways how brutal this general manager has been at his job, and it had no impact. People were canceling their season tickets. They’re still doing that. They’re saying that they’re done with the franchise. That’ll probably persist and nothing changes. Nothing changes. The owner himself, the principal owner, the chairman of the board thinks this general manager was doing a bad job. He kept this general manager on this job. That, my friends, isn’t about sports. That isn’t about competing. That isn’t about trying to win. It’s not about sports. Something else influences that decision. I don’t know what it is. And honestly, at this point, I really just don’t care. You want to know why? because my lifelong job has been to cover sports except when it comes to these clowns. That’s when everybody wants to know, you know, how much money are they making? Who’s doing this? Where is it being, you know, reaportioned or embezzled or wasted? And I’m just I’m done. I’m done. I’m tired of it. when they fired, well, when Nutting fired Derek Shelton on May 9th and they allowed Cherington to stand in front of the room by himself and tell everybody that he had fired Shelton. That was a baldfaced lie. I met with the owner at his request in a room at PNC Park. Nobody else in there. Spoke for nearly an hour back and forth. Nothing off limits in either direction. I just wanted to find out what it was that he was thinking. I wanted to have at least what I felt was the closest to reality to be able to form the fullest possible picture for you as someone who listens to this show or reads my columns. And what I heard that day, you’d never bring this GM back. You’d never even consider it. I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about on that date. He’d have been gone like this. But he wasn’t. He was kept around, hamstrung, told what to do, made to be extra careful at the deadline, and nothing changed with the actual team’s performance. The only thing that changed was some of the verbiage. At first, Nutting said, and he had told me this several times that day in that meeting, that everything was going to be about 2025. This season was not about to go to waste. He needed to keep everybody focused on the task at hand. 2 months later, 2025 started changing into 2026 and all of the dialogue that came from the GM. Why? Because the team’s performance wasn’t appreciably better. Don Kelly did as well as he could under the circumstances. I’ve told you all along, I’m fine with Kelly being the manager. I think he’s more than earned a shot to prove himself. If he’s not going to get it in Pittsburgh, he’s going to get it somewhere else. Good for him. But overall, nothing really changed for the team. It’s not like there were other moves or other events that occurred. So, this was very obviously pre-ordained. This was something that the owner was going to go through with unconditionally. Why? Two more years on his contract. I mean, I guess that can be part of it, but he put $17.2 million into firing, Frank Counley, Neil Huntington, Kyle Stark, and Clint Hurdle. Everybody, all in one pretty much fell swoop back in 2019. $17.2 million. Now, I’m sure he recouped it in some other forms by keeping payroll low or whatever, but he did that and he could do that again. So, I don’t buy that it’s two extra years of a GM’s term. It’s something else. And I don’t know what and I going to say this again and it’s no fun for me as a born raised Pittsburgger. I don’t care. I just don’t care. when we come back to J1Q. [Music] If you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for Steak on a Stone. Enjoy your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you, where you ensure each piece is cooked to exactly your liking. or try their rotating selection of entre, hot sandwiches, salads, and burgers, all while enjoying the ambiance dedicated to the great players and history of the Pittsburgh Pirates all around you. Come see why everyone’s talking about Northshore Tavern and Stake on a Stone. It’s Gun Storage Check Week. Help prevent unwanted access to your firearms. No one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident, a suicide, or a crime. Use lock boxes, safes, and locks to secure your firearms. Learn more at gunstoch checkck.org. That’s gunstoch checkck.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the firearm industry trade association. Hey guys, if you’re planning to see a Pirates game, use the Game Time app to get your tickets. You can snag new ticket deals before anyone if you set it into app alerts. The app is easy to use. No surprise fees at checkout. You can see your seat view before buying. And you’re getting legit tickets delivered on time. Now, if you’re not much of a planner, you can get lastminute deals on tickets right up to the start of the event. Lowest price guarantee or game time will credit you 110% of the difference. Download the Game Time app and enter the code DK Pirates in your app profile for $20 off your first purchase. [Music] Today’s J1Q a little bit more of a sampling, a reaction. Wilbur says, “It’s my firm belief, for what it’s worth, that Bob Nutting plans to slash payroll and wants someone around to do it, who he’s confident will do what he wants and lie to the fans about what they’re up to. Baseball plays no role in these decisions.” Wilbur, I know you’ve followed this team intensely for a lot of years. I’m not shaking my head at anything that you just said there. Makes as much sense as anything else I’ve tried to put together. Andy says, “You know, I could take or leave the Pirates and baseball in general, but I really feel bad for the diehard fans that are left. There is really no hope for that franchise.” Ratz says, “All of Pittsburgh’s teams have been losing and falling short in my opinion. All three have been failing. The Pirates most of all, the future looks bleak for Pittsburgh Sports.” Rats, yours is going to be one that I responded to because there’s a massive difference between what the Steelers and Penguins do and what the Pirates do. Steelers and Penguins are trying. They have a plan. They care. They have real cultures based on real achievements that don’t date to prehistoric times. Pardon me for this one, but they have fan bases that are far more demanding than what the Pirates fans are. Pirates fans, they get mad. They wag a finger at the owner. They say he’s cheap. They’re correct to do so on both counts, but that’s where it stops. That’s where it stops. It’s not it’s it’s not anywhere that’s simple, but that’s where it stops. And that’s how they get away with it. That’s how they get away with six years of gross mismanagement of baseball operations from top to bottom. We can talk about payroll all day, but the team that just finished the Major League Baseball season with the very best record is based in a market that is 2/3 the size of Pittsburgh and a payroll that isn’t much bigger than the Pirates. Other than being based in Pittsburgh and wearing the same colors, there is no commonality between the Steelers and Penguins and what the Pirates are doing because they’re not even a sports franchise. They’re a business enterprise. They’re in this principally to make money. That’s it. And you can rest assured that whatever reason there is for keeping Cherington on board somewhere in there very significantly so is money. John says, “I’ve never seen anything like this in all of major sports. While I do think that Nutting is not a smart person, and I really mean that. It’s not just a pot shot. He’s also shameless. What a 1,000% loser. John, to your point about not having seen something like this in all of major sports, it’s because it’s not a sports story. They’re not a sports entity. Not at the top of the list. They’re in this to try to make money. Anything else that happens along the way, well, great, whatever. But it’s not motivated by sports. It’s not centered on sports. The final one here comes from Todd who says, “The whole reason I’m here on DK Pittsburgh Sports, listening to your shows, reading your columns, is for the Pirates coverage. I’ve followed you since your post gazette days. But if you dropped the Pirates, I wouldn’t blame you and I wouldn’t leave. I can still keep up with the Steelers here.” Well, Todd, I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know what’s going to come of this. I’m still in Ireland. I’ll be flying back to Pittsburgh later today, and I’ll be focused hard in something of a I’d call it a 6040 split between the Steelers and the Penguins. The Steelers are in full swing. They’re 3-1 heading into their by-week. The Penguins are about to open up their season in Manhattan. But if you do the math on that, the 60 and the 40, there’s nothing left. I’m not interested in this. This doesn’t push my buttons anymore. This doesn’t get me going. And the reason for that, at the risk of being repetitive, is that it’s not about sports. It’s not about sports. The name of our company is DK Pittsburgh Sports. This whole storyline isn’t about sports. I’m not a private investigator. I’m not a CPA. I’m not somebody who if they threw all their books in front of me, I’d be able to pick apart decimal points. And every time I do try to just focus on the baseball, I’ll get and will get as a company derided for being part of the scam. I’m not making I I could show you who knows how many correspondences in this vein. Why are you doing this? Why are you legitimizing what they’re doing? Now, I could come back tomorrow morning and say the exact same thing. I could come back on Thursday and say the exact same thing and Friday and then say, “Hey, we’re going to come back on Monday and we’re going to keep talking about this.” But I don’t have it. I don’t have it. I’m going to take a break from this. I have no idea where it’s going. I’m trying to figure out what to do with the coverage in general, but this this what we’re doing is a waste of our time, of our resources as a company. Not to get into too much detail here, but it’s very, very, very expensive covering baseball as much as the other two teams combined, whereas they account for the overwhelming majority of our revenue between the Steelers and Penguins. So, what are we doing here? What are we doing? They’re taking enough people for dummies. They’re not going to take me for one. I’m going to say this again from earlier in the program. I would ask you nicely, politely, respectfully. Check out the other two shows. Check out the other two teams in town. They aren’t perfect. My goodness, the Steelers weren’t perfect here over the weekend in Dublin. The Penguins haven’t made the playoffs in a while. They had a young man, first round pick last night, who shined in Detroit in a preeason game. Real life skill coming along. He’s still a teenager. I can promise you that everything I’ve put into this show, I will put into those two shows. But what I’m not going to do is spend who knows how many months coming up just saying the same thing every day. And I’m not going to pretend that what’s happening isn’t happening. I appreciate you. I appreciate everybody who’s been with Daily Shot of Pirates all along. And if you have anything you want to say, I’m not like nutting. I’m not going to go running and hiding from you the way he did yesterday. You can email me directly at dkdsittsittports.com. This is not me trying to sell you something. This is me leaving the door open for you to say what you’re going to say. But this isn’t going to be like the last time. This isn’t going to be like May. I just don’t have anything new to offer on this subject. And I am really, really, really done with it. [Music]

Bob Nutting gives Pittsburgh the middle finger.

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