Are These Pirates The Real Life ‘Major League’?

During the late 1980 ?s and early 1990 ?s, you probably noticed (or didn ?t) Hollywood releasing a lot of baseball related movies into theaters. Kevin Costner initially cornered the market with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, two classics in the genre. Then you had Eight Men Out, which told the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox and their infamous Black Sox scandal. A League of Their Own finally gave women a feature in the genre, and maybe one of the best lines in any baseball movie by Tom Hanks. There ?s no crying in baseball!

But the coup de gr ce of this period and possibly the greatest baseball movie of all-time, the 1989 comedy Major League, captured all the wackiness of a major league baseball team. With Charlie Sheen and Wesley Snipes amongst the cast of characters suiting up for this fictionalized interpretation of the Cleveland Indians, viewers witnessed a ragtag roster find a way to overcome the enormous odds in front of them, which was mainly caused by the shrewd business practices of their owner. Hmm, where have I heard this story before? Obviously I ?m comparing Pirates owner Bob Nutting to the fictionalized owner of the Indians’ Rachel Phelps. And though it is easy to point out the similarities between these two owners for the last five years (which I will do in a second), the Pirates performance in July has some in this town comparing the group to those outmanned Indians.

What stands out most in the similarities between Major League and these Pirates goes back to the offseason prior to this season. In the movie, Phelps cuts her entire team and fills out the Indians roster with washed up and cheap players in order to move her franchise to Miami to get out of their run down stadium. An ex con, a voodoo priest and a guy who ran like Mays and hit like…, well you know, filled out a roster that was designed to fail from the start. But somehow someway, the roster that was supposed to be the worst in baseball was able to win their division after a classic game vs the New York Yankees.

Unlike that group, the nucleus of the Pirates roster has been in place for some time now. Guys like Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison have been in place for years. Looking from the outside, you would expect this team to compete for a division league if they add a significant piece or two. But the shrewdness of Nutting, like Phelps with making her team as bad as possible, the Pirates owner remains dedicated to his lack of spending on his team. The man chose to put a limit on the amount Neal Huntington could spend on this team. You wanna know why the Pirates have had to use so many rookies this season? Well yeah, this is due in most parts to the suspension of Starling Marte and Jung-ho Kang not being allowed in the country. But before and after this all happened, the front office could not add any depth on their bench due to his restrictions on spending. Not to beat a dead horse for the hundredth millionth time on the subject, but what the hell kind of business man does not effort in a business to make it a continuing success on the field? Well, like Phelps, results don’t matter, profits do.

The funny thing with both owners, though I am just speculating with Phelps, is they seem to have a significant amount of cash flow to invest into their team if they want to. And technically, both inherited their wealth. Phelps was a former Las Vegas showgirl who became owner of the Indians following the death of her husband Donald (I always imagined their relationship to be like Anna Nicole Smith and the really old guy she married). Nutting didn’t have to marry into his money, he was born into it. Thanks to his great-grandfather H.C. Ogden, Bob eventually took over the family business of Ogden Newspapers, which operates a multitude of newspapers around the country. As we know, he expanded his enterprise to include ski resorts and obviously the Pirates after he bought the team from Kevin McClatchy in 2007. In his decade as owner, the players, at least publicly, have not spoken their feelings about how Nutting runs his team. The Indians, as we know, rebelled against Phelps by mid-season. They culminated their frustration in Phelps with a cardboard cutout made up of individual pieces that eventually exposed her nude body after the team clinched their game with Yankees. Though I ?m not calling for the Pirates to do the same (sorry for giving you the imagine of a nude cutoff of Nutting), if the Pirates haven’t privately rebelled against their owner at this point, it needs to happen now.

Obviously, the one who should lead the rebellion is McCutchen. All Cutch wants to do is remain a Pirate the rest of his career, something Nutting should support since he is the face of the franchise. He tried to have Cutch traded in the offseason. The interest fell through and McCutchen is still here, but there were rumors swirling even last week that the Pirates could still deal the former NL MVP. Though it is now reported that the team will not trade either Cutch or Harrison, the fact that an owner would consider trading a man who has been the cornerstone of your franchise only weeks after having his first child is downright deplorable. I understand it’s only business, but a company wouldn’t move an employee halfway across the country right away after he or she had a child, at least not in principal. You know this is still in the back of Cutch ?s mind, and with everything that he has gone through already in the past year, I would be most insulted by this. Cutch needs to start a silent protest against Nutting, nothing bad, just essentially ignoring him when he crosses their path. Obviously this isn’t the best approach with the guy who writes your checks, but a message needs to be sent to this guy even if it’s subtle. Maybe it would work, who knows. But overall the chances the Pirates season ends in the same fashion the Indians did is slim, but if they want to finally get some help, they need to finally take a stand with Nutting.