WE WILL: Protest

Seeing how I am three days late on this post, its as relevant now as what Marv Albert was jailed for... remember that? exactly my point.

I believe I definitely qualify for the term "die hard Pirates fan". I am a partial season ticket holder and watch approximately 80% of the games each season. That number would be higher but I coach a boys baseball team and I'm married... two things that get in the way of anything I want to do. Just re-reading those last 3 sentences makes me believe I am a masochist. That's a topic for me and Dr. Phil to work out... back to the topic at hand.

Ah yes, I love the Pirates. I have been an upbeat Pirates fan too. Teh 14 years of losing have not gotten me down for I tried to hold out hope. The first round selection and subsequent lies, er, spin that came out of the front office changed all of that. I now wanted blood and the protest that occured last Saturday seemed like it was the answer. I thought it was dumb to pay for a ticket to protest that you are done paying for losing, but I was angry!

"Let's make ownership pay!"
"They should know we are angry"

But the more I thought about it, and the more in depth my discussion about it got with Petey Pab, I realized that a protest was stupid. The obvious "protest" here is to stop buying tickets. My response to that is I love the Pirates and should not have to stop going to games because ownership sucks. Petey Pab and I debated this back and forth and finally came to the conclusion that there is no good protest for the real fans.

Then he hit me with a moment of insight that only Bob Walk (who was referred to as a "baseball genius" by a caller to the DVE morning show this very morning) could have thought up. Baseball is entertainment. It is no different than a movie, a play, or a concert. When you buy a ticket for one of those events, you know what you are getting and you can not protest if a member of the band didn't play that night due to illness. You enjoy your show.

At that point it was clear any protest is out of the question. I still stand behind those who walked out for doing something to demonstrate to ownership we are unhappy. I was very confused by how many green shirts never got up. I was even more confused by how many people booed those who did leave.

At the end of the day the protest was successful for one reason. Nut job showed it respect by going on camera and answering questions about the team's success and his commitment to success. Sure, it was the same old spin, but it elicited a reaction from the ownership. It showed ownership was willing to listen and respond to its fanbase.

Let's see if they do that where it counts, with the check book.

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