Is Bob Nuttings’ Silence Healthy for the Pittsburgh Pirates?
By Tom Smith
Bob Nutting: Where Are You?
We watched 60 Minutes last night about the Green Bay Packers’ owners, of course, you realize that is the fans. One of the comments was made after Scott Pelley asked a fan-owner if he felt he was missing something not having a big, millionare owner…the fan said, no, it’s great not having someone who doesn’t know anything about the game.
The main concept behind the story was the sensitive Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. It spent most of the time showing how Rodgers is a great quarterback, but college scouts failed to offer him a footballscholarship.
Green Bay is one of a kind in the NFL. An ownership like this is in direct violation of the rules, due to a stipulation that states a team is limited to 32 owners with one having a minimum 30% stake. Of course, the Packers were grandfathered in and it’s also cool that the Packers are the only American major-league sports franchise to release its financial balance sheet every year.
I guess I should stop dreaming of the Pirates being owned by the fans and face reality.
So just what is Bob Nutting waiting for?
How healthy is it for an organization to lumber along after the majority owner makes comments that allude to the fact that changes are coming? It has to be a strange workplace on Federal Street, probably has been for awhile, but this certainly heightens the strangeness. I don’t think fans expected an investigation of Freeh Report levels, but damn, a follow up of some level was needed after the team fell off the map again down the stretch.
It’s come to the point that most decisions that have been made since the end of the season from coaching changes, to roster moves are being followed up with: Does Nutting Approve? How sad is it that a #WhatWouldNuttingDo hashtag seems inevitable?
The real difficult part for me to grasp is this silence from the ownership has come down to the wire. General Managers meetings begin in 48 hours, so one could assume that an announcement of sorts will be forthcoming today or tomorrow from Nutting. It’s hard to believe it has taken this long, but Nutting is a methodical owner–or at least that is what he wants us to believe.
So there are two scenarios: Nutting makes some changes. It would seem unlikely, but it’s happened in the past. The second scenario is the more likely one, nothing changes. It was all just smoke from Nutting.
Either way, the owner has to stop smelling the roses and just say something. There is work to do.