Greg Fulton: A Christmas wish for Pirates fans

It’s almost Christmas, and on the wish list for many Pirates fans in western Pennsylvania and elsewhere is that the team makes it to the World Series in 2022. It’s the same thing they have asked of Santa for many years.

Being a Pirates fan can be painful. Most of us did not choose to be Pirates fans — we were born into the tribe. Just like that relative who can drive you crazy, though, you still love them. Every season starts with a level of optimism based on hope more than anything else, but then reality sets in as the season goes on, and optimism is replaced by disappointment, frustration and then anger.

Fans have become restless. We now measure success by whether the Pirates have a .500 season or not. Many fans just don’t show up. The average attendance for home games in 2021 was 10,611, which is almost half of the league average. If not for fan giveaways, fireworks nights, honoring of past players and, frankly, fans of opposing teams attending, the number would have been less.

It’s been 42 years since the Pirates have been to the World Series and 30 years since the Pirates won their division. Thank goodness for the league opening the playoffs to wild card teams, or Pittsburgh would not have even been in a playoff series for that same period. Of the four playoff series during that time, Pittsburgh only won one of them. They hold the dubious distinction of being the major league team with the longest current drought since being in the World Series.

To give you a better sense of how long it’s been since the Pirates were in the World Series, here are a few facts from 1979, the year of their last appearance: Jimmy Carter was president. Gas was 86 cents per gallon. VCR players were still a new technology, and Sony had just released its personal cassette player, the Walkman (costing $200). The average cost of a new car was $5,000. “Three’s Company” was the most popular sitcom on TV, and “The Deer Hunter” starring a young Robert DeNiro won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

While the Red Sox and Cubs attributed their long World Series droughts to curses such as the Sox trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees, there isn’t a particular event that triggered the Pirates’ drought. Unfortunately, the Pirates have been cursed with something worse: poor ownership not willing to spend the money to put a competitive team on the field.

The Pirates have had some great players over the past 30 years, but the ownership has not been willing to pay to keep those players or sign top free agents. It has become a revolving door, where younger players with talent get signed away or traded as soon as they are eligible for free agency. Fans don’t get too attached to players because they realize the better ones will leave at the first chance, and players themselves see little hope of ownership investing enough in the organization to compete for a World Series.

Many speak about “money ball” and how teams have used this system to build winning teams. The Pirates’ ownership appears to have developed its own scheme, “small-change ball.” The team payroll for 2022 is the third lowest in the major leagues, and a third of the average team payroll in the league. The payroll is a whopping 84% less than the highest-paying team, the New York Mets.

The Pirates’ predicament is not lost on those in the know. Currently Las Vegas gives the Pirates 100 to 1 odds of winning the Series. Those aren’t dark horse odds; they are more like the horse isn’t even on the track odds.

Some will note that the problem is that Pittsburgh is a small market and doesn’t have the funding or resources that larger market teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have. However, one only needs to look at the NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks, a small-market team that made the investments to be a top contender.

While we can hope someone like “The Natural’s” Roy Hobbs shows up from nowhere, or that some poor Pirates fan sells his soul to the devil, becomes a baseball great and leads the Pirates to the promised land, neither is likely.

The Pirates’ ownership must step up and make the necessary investment in the players and the organization to build and keep a continuing competitive team, one the city and its fans can be proud of. The fans will come back, but they need a reason and some sense of hope.

The fans of this storied franchise and the people of Pittsburgh deserve better. If the ownership isn’t willing to do so, then Major League Baseball’s commissioner should step in and seek to force a sale to a group that would be willing to make the necessary investment.

Unfortunately, my guess is Santa will leave a similar note as in the past for Pirates fans: “Wait until next year.”

Greg Fulton is a New Castle native living in Denver.