Comparison: Football and Baseball in Pittsburgh

Pictured: Yinzer Nation Preparing for "Drive for 45"

This week Yinzer Nation is going into ultra-hyper-uber-drive for the "Drive for 45". Our area of the country is nothing but football focused as the Super Bowl is around the corner. As such, and seemingly anytime a professional team makes playoff success, the question is raised as to why the Pirates cannot do it. Most arguments are made by, well idiots, that have no understanding of history, nor the way that baseball works versus football. The two sports are different animals all together in many ways and the Pirates have a history that many do not understand.

I bring this up as comedian Bill Maher took to his HBO show to compare and contrast the Steelers and Pirates. In Maher's view the sharing of wealth allows for the Steelers and Packers to compete. In addition the writers of the book, Scorecasting weighed in with NPR on the subject as well. They concluded that the concentration of wealth, along with the season length and playoff format make the difference. A similar view was espoused by Dayn Perry for Fangraphs.

Starting with the Pirates history we can easily recap. Big stars leave for bigger money. Poor drafting. Poor financial management. Poor field management. Poor performance. Poor players. And yes even bad luck. Essentially the only things that went right in the past two decades were the building of PNC Park and the hosting of two All-Star games. Everything else is poor management and bad luck on scales of which have never been seen before in sports.

In reality, the problem is not just money. The NFL's "Any Given Sunday" mentality is due to the fact that they play only 16 games. In such a small sample size there are too many incidents where a random occurrence, injuries for example, can affect greatly the outcome of the season. Add to that the one and done nature of the playoffs and you get a Seattle, the only losing team to make the playoffs, hosting a playoff game and winning it.

Baseball has a much longer season. leading to the better teams, whether purchased or developed, winning more often. The playoffs are longer and tend to weed out the small sample size as best can be done in a playoff format.

While this week provides good fodder for many to poke fun at the Pirates' plight, they are doing so in a misguided way. Yes the Pirates have been a disaster on the field, which is the main reason they have not made the playoffs, but to say that the Steelers and Pirates compete in leagues that are apples to apples the same is far off base. The small sample sizes of the NFL allow for anything to happen, while baseball is a slower more nuanced fight to the finish.

Pirates from the Past: Don Hoak

Tiger Hoak was a key member of the 1960 team.

Patricia Wettig: "I like baseball. I just don't memorize who played third base for Pittsburgh in 1960."

Crystal, Kirby, and Stern (simultaneously): "Don Hoak"

Forever immortalized in the above exchange in the movie City Slickers, Don Hoak is more than an answer to a trivia question. Hoak, living a short life, lived a rather varied one.

Hoak was born and raised in Roulette, PA, up in Potter County. He joined the Marines in World War II and after the war started a career in baseball. Legend has it that, in his one professional stint in Cuba, Hoak faced a rather wild Fidel Castro.

Hoak came up with the Brooklyn Dodgers, playing along side Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. Hoak played thrid and was a platoon player for Brooklyn, hitting .245 and .240 respectively in his two seasons in Flatbush. In 1955 Hoak appeared in 3 of the games in the World Series against the Yankees, starting in place of Jackie Robinson in Game 7, as the Dodgers beat the Yankees in 7 games.

After the '55 season, Hoak was dealt to the Cubbies who used him as a their regular third baseman. He would only hit .215 that season, earning him yet another trade to the Cincinati Reds after 1956. Now 29 it looked as Hoak might be a baseball afterthought. But something in the Queen City re-enegrized him and he broke out as an All-Star. Hoak would hit .293 with 19 home runs and 89 RBI.

Hoak would miss some time that next season in 1958, appearing in only 114 games. He would hit .261 in that season. Then at the end of January in 1959 Hoak would be involved in one of the best trades in Pittsburgh Pirates history. The Reds would send Hoak, Harvey Haddix, and Smokey Burgess to Pittsburgh for "The Original" Frank Thomas, Whammy Douglass, Jim Pendleton, and John Powers.

In Pittsburgh Hoak would become a leader in the clubhouse, earning the nickname Tiger. One story has Hoak playing with a stiched foot, only to have the foot start to bleed during the game, leaving Hoak with a bright red sock after the game. Hoak shook it off as nothing.

In his 4 seasons in a Pirate uniform, he would hit .281 with 41 home runs, and 253 RBI. In 1960 he would hit .282 and hit 16 home runs while finishing second in the MVP voting to Dick Groat. Hoak was a fan favorite in Pittsburgh, but he would leave the Steel City in 1962, as he was dealt across the state to the Phillies. Hoak would play one more full season and then get released in May of 1964.

After his playing career Hoak would return to Pittsburgh to be an announcer with the club for two seasons. He would then start a managing career with the Phillies organization in 1967 then come back to Pittsburgh 1968. In 1968 he would help the Pirates affliate in Salem, VA win the league championship. He would then move up to AAA in Columbus and lead them to the championships.

After the 1969 season, Hoak thought he would be a contender to be named the new Pirates manager, though it instead went back to his old skipper, Danny Murtaugh. In a strange turn, later in the day Murtaugh was named manager, Hoak died of a heart attack, after chasing someone stealing his brother in law's car. His widow, the singer/actress Jill Corey said the Hoak died of a broken heart after not getting the Pirates' job.

He may not have been the most talent player in Pirates' history, but he may be one of the toughest playing ones. He added character to a championship team, while also providing great play. Surely one of the more memorable Pirates in history.

The Numbers Game

Will he be the closer or a setup man for $1.4 M?

It does not seem all that long ago that there seemed to be a huge chunk of the Pirates roster that was going to be arbitration eligible. You had a rather long list:


Joel Hanrahan
Lastings Milledge
Andy LaRoche
Delwyn Young
Jeff Karstens
Ross Ohlendorf
Wil Ledezma
Zach Duke
Ronny Cedeno

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you see things, many of those players were let go by the team before we could talk about salaries for this upcoming season. The only ones to remain were Hanrahan, Karstens, Ohlendorf and Cedeno.

Karstens ($1.1 million) and Cedeno ($1.85 million) both agreed earlier this offseason. Today it was announced that Hanrahan agreed to $1.4 million for this upcoming season. I'd say that was pretty much what both sides could have expected and it locks up an integral piece of the bullpen for this coming season.

It will remain to be seen though if the Pirates are going to pay Hanrahan $1.4 million to be the setup man or to close. It seems that it is still in limbo as the Pirates brass cannot decide on who to use, between Hanrahan and Meek. To me I would simply use both of them, playing them to each other's strength or going with the hot hand, but baseball managers like things to be set in stone (less thinking I assume). So we have more than a handful, Who Will be the Closer?, articles coming this spring.

At any rate is good to not have to go to arbitration, but the jury is still out for Ross Ohlendorf as it has been reported that he has asked for $2.025 million and the Pirates threw out $1.4 million as their number. It should be interesting to see how valuable a 1-11 starter is.

Adding Power?

In the offseason, one of the many goals of the Pirates was more than likely to add more power to a rather punch-less lineup. I would not say that they added a ton of power with their free agent acquisitions, some, but not a ton. Perhaps the players from last season will look to add the power that was missing from the lineup.

It appears that Jose Tabata is one player that is looking to add some more power, as the Trib reports that the young Venezuelan added a good deal of bulk this past offseason. Tabata says that he had been working out everyday to add more power.

It would be interesting to see just how much power he can generate. In over 2200 professional at bats, Tabata has 33 home runs. If Tabata was to hit double digit home runs this season, it would raise a few eye brows. Heck if he was able to hit 6 home runs, that might raise some eye brows.

I have to wonder if management told Tabata to bulk up more in an effort to supply more power. I would see no reason to have him get in peak physical condition, but with the thought of adding more power? I hope that he does not pull a Willie Mays Hayes and try to change his game completely.

What Tabata did last year was great. I would like to see him build more on that skill set, then to try to develop a whole new one. It seems Tabata understands that, "...I have to be careful not to let it change my swing. Sometimes, when you want to hit home runs, your swing gets real long. I can’t let that happen."

Time will tell if the work adds more power. An increase in raw power and power numbers, would be great to see from Tabata.

Mini Camp Begins

There has not been a lot of Pirate related news happening until now when the team is going to start it's mini camp. It will probably be the first time a lot of the players get to meet Clint Hurdle in person to see how he is going to run the team. From what Neal Huntington is stating it is going to be different than it has been in the past few seasons:

"We want it to be more of a conditioning and team-building type camp than a pitching camp," general manager Neal Huntington said. "It's a chance to get to know people and put names with faces. And it's not just for the players; it's for our staff, our trainers, our strength group, our front office."

That quote seemed to be a little odd, as the team has used the mini camp, at least as long as I can remember, as a pitching camp more than anything else. I wonder why the change for that. Huntington says later on in the article that he is focusing more on conditioning than on a small bullpen session, which seems to make some sense, but then again these are professional athletes. Should they not already be in shape?


Most of the team will be in attendance, but the noticeable absences of Ryan Doumit and Paul Maholm are a little eye opening. These are two of the supposed leaders in the clubhouse and are not going to be making the trip. Granted it might be awkward for Doumit as the team tried and tried to trade him this offseason, but for Maholm there were no huge trade rumors that might make it awkward. If anything it would be nice to have him there to help with all the younger arms that will be there.


Again these guys can make their own decisions and are not mandated to be there. Hopefully we will get some stories coming out of the mini camp that will hold us over until the real spring training begins.