Tomorrow I have one meeting and then lots of time in between the meeting and the flight home. As luck would have it the Pirates are playing a spring training game in the same town that I’ll be in for the meeting so it looks like I may go and watch their opening spring training game. It should be interesting since I have never seen a spring training game before. If I go, I’ll be blogging about the game at my other site The Pittsburgh Lumber Company.

And now for Freddie Sanchez, This is a guy who started the season as the utility player not on the All-Star ballot and worked his way into the starting line-up and is leading the NL in batting average. It’s a great story. IIRC we also picked up freddie in the trade that send Bronson Arroyo to the Red Sox. At least this makes the trade a wash for Mr. Littlefield.

In spite of being happy for these two I am now ashamed and embarrassed for the team is somethign that I saw on Honest Wagner’s site. According to Dejan Kovacevic’s weekly Q&A on the Post-Gazett’s website the Pirates actually had their employees stuffing the ballot box. Not only for Jason and Freddie but for putrid, free agent pick ups the likes of Jeramy Burnitz! I would understand that if the team urged the fans to vote for their favorite players (they did that in spades), that all the teams do – and it’s the fans doing the voting. But to have the employees actually going and filling out the form at mlb.com just so the Pirates can attempt to save face by having a player in the starting line-up (as Marci suggested to me this morning) is just the nadir of stupidity.

This team and organization has become a joke both on and off the field. There needs to be major change from the owner all the way down to the Manager.