Laurels & lances: Pirates & pizza

Laurel: To an upside. It gets hard after so many truly dismal seasons to find a silver lining in the black-and-gold storm cloud that is the perennially underperforming Pittsburgh Pirates.

It can be even harder when we started the 2024 season with uncharacteristic hope over rookie Paul Skenes and holding onto Andrew McCutchen. Let’s be honest: Anyone with World Series dreams was hallucinating, but it was theoretically possible for the Bucs to not be embarrassing this year. But somehow they always manage to disappoint.

But as baseball in Pittsburgh ends for the year, there is a bright spot. The Pirates fed a lot of people this year.

No, not the ones in the stands. PNC Park donated almost 30,000 pounds of food from the ballpark concession stands to 412 Food Rescue this season.

“Being able to reduce food waste and keep it out of the waste stream is an essential part of the Pirates Sustainability program,” said Nick Long, manager of the team’s ballpark and event operations.

Keeping that food out of landfills is a great pitch. Putting it in the stomachs of people in need? That’s a home run.

Lance: To a roller coaster ride. On Sept. 9, Delmont’s Ianni’s Pizzeria got a brush with online fame when Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy showed up and ordered a pie for his “One Bite Pizza” review YouTube channel.

On Sept. 13, the review posted. Portnoy — a notoriously rough reviewer — gave the pizza 7.7 score and deemed it “shockingly good.” Pretty solid assessment when Portnoy only tastes plain cheese offerings and not the selection of gourmet specialty pies that make Ianni’s well known.

Then, on Sunday, the pizzeria’s building suffered extensive damage in an early-morning fire that required crews from six fire departments to extinguish.

It’s the kind of bad news that is all the more devastating following a real boost.

“It had been the first time things seemed normal since covid and this crazy economy,” management posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “This is the absolute worst time for us to have such extensive damage to our building.”

Plans are to reopen as soon as possible. To steal Portnoy’s assessment, that’s shockingly good news.