Lendale White, Terrel Owens, TJ Housh, Javon Kearse and Derrick Mason all know not to mess with the Terrible Towel. Cleveland Brown fans have learned not to run onto the field during a Steelers game. Hollywood Henderson learned that insulting the Steelers HOF quarterback was unwise. Yet some people don't subscribe to the axiom:

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

The latest casualty of Steeler's Karma after the jump...

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Neal Coolong in the ESPN house... Is there any bigger sports "publication" than ESPN.com? I think we need to celebrate another glimpse of the big show for one our very own staff historians.

Neal gets recognition from ESPN's AFC North Blogger Jamison Hensley on the latest Mike Wallace story here: http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth

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The Cleveland Browns? I don't want to lose Mike Wallace, but wouldn't this be about the best scenario we could ask for? Via ESPN's Grantland:

Pittsburgh Steelers

… to give up a first-round pick and take a shot at Mike Wallace. If we understand the rules right, a successful bid on Wallace would force the Browns to give up their selection — the fourth overall pick — and not the 22nd overall pick they received from the Falcons as part of the Julio Jones trade last year. Even with that in mind, such a move might be worth it. The Browns are reportedly considering Blackmon with the fourth pick, but wouldn't you rather have Wallace than Blackmon? Wallace will demand a higher salary and more money up front, but he's just 25 and has 3,000-plus yards of pro production. The Browns would also be taking away a star from their divisional rivals. If the Steelers match the offer, then the Browns have taken away all of Pittsburgh's cap space and can just go ahead and draft Blackmon (or whoever else they want) at no. 4.

If the Browns successfully pry Wallace out of Pittsburgh, then the Steelers would have the no. 4 pick and would be able to grab Blackmon, Claiborne, or USC left tackle Matt Kalil. They could also alternately trade down and grab multiple later picks, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for an organization that drafts and develops talent as well as the Steelers do.

Feeling froggy? Then jump.

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The Pirates have not had a very good track record in terms of developing talent. I can attribute this to several possible factors:

1. There has been no talent to develop
2. They’ve been unfortunate with injuries
3. Their player development philosophy is poor
4. They don’t coaches and staff that excel in teaching and motivating young talent

Assign blame wherever you like, the fact of the matter remains that it seems like we don’t do much with the little talent we have. Furthermore, no organization bats 1.000 with their top prospects. If you take Keith Law’s top 100 prospect list you can be sure that a minority of them will have significant impacts on their organizations. It’s foolhardy to presume that we’ll have significantly different results in developing talent than the rest of the league. It’s foolhardy to think that we’ll have significantly different success rates than we have in the past.

We get so excited about the success of Jeff Karstens’ success. His breakout campaign (arguably unsustainable) gave him a WAR of 3.0. Which for a low-paid pitcher is okay, but considering he’s at best a 4/5 starter this is hardly reason to start making october playoff reservations.

On offense we have one player that is significantly above average (WAR) from last year, Andrew McCutcheon (5.5). After that we have Neil Walker at (2.5 WAR) who is just marginally better than league average – at least he didn’t have the precipitous dropoff of Karstens and we can assign some confidence that he’ll continue to be a league average player. Everyone else was well below league average.

Now these three players are all performing above their contracts and therefore this would give just about any organization some flexibility to invest in free agents to improve the quality of roster. But we’re not going to bring in ANY difference makers via free agency because: a. we don’t try to bring in players that would make a difference at PNC; and b. they don’t want to come here anyhow.

Now I agree that Prince Fielder isn’t going to work for PBC because we can’t afford his salary and also, we need to invest all we can into amateur talent. But players like Oswalt and Jackson would serve the bucs immeasurably. First by bringing out baseball fans that on occasion deserve a little better than a AAAA ballclub. Second by bringing guys that have succeeded before that can teach the rest of the team how to do it (Oswalt in particular). And most importantly by growing the farm system – because come July Oswalt will look VERY attractive to several teams vying for contention or experiencing an injury to a SP. At that point in time, we’d be able to pick one or two high-grade prospects to add to our stable of cheap talent that hints at the potential future of multiple all-stars and post-season glory (dovetails nicely with PBCs “plan”).

And that brings me to AJ Burnett, he of dynamite stuff and dolomite brain. He’ll challenge Morton and McDonald for the guy with the most electric stuff that can’t seem to keep it together for 3 consecutive starts. Or most 5 inning 110 pitch outings. Burnett is certainly a decent ML pitcher but carries a prohibitive pricetag. According to the latest reports, Pittsburgh could be a destination for Burnett (exciting tattoo parlors on the southside) with the NY Yankees eating significant portion of his cumbersome salary. The sticky wicket in the deal is the Pirates reluctance to include Garrett Jones in the deal. Now I like Garrett Jones and he fits the mold of Pirates 1b/RF combo talent with guys that can certainly hit the long ball (chicks dig the long ball) if and when they connect. GFJ is serviceable in either position but he’s never going to be confused with Keith Hernandez at 1b (I’m Keith Hernandez) or Roberto Clemente in right – wow that sounds blasphemous. In any event, Jones is a 1.2 WAR and not someone that appears to have the skillset to become much more than a league average player. I mean when have the bucs ever given up on a player and he turned into a great player (besides one of the most feared sluggers in the American League Jose Buatista). Seriously, how can they hold the deal up for GFJ?

I don’t enjoy it, but this all points to the continued and long term futility of the PBC. And before anyone can reply, yes, sale the team.

No blinking from this Ravens team

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Here we go Steelers, Here we go.

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Per ESPN http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5502866 Stephen Strasburg has a ligament tear in his elbow and requires reconstructive surgery.    He'll be out 12 - 18 months. 

As a baseball fan, this is ridiculously bad news.  Strasburg was a great reason to go out and see the Nats play.  And as we watched him pile up Ks and awesome performances, I couldn't help thinking that this is the greatest rookie pitcher performance since... Kerry Wood.  Wood lasted longer, unfortunately, under the tutelage of renowned shoulder/elbow assassin Dusty Baker. 

As a Pirates fan, this is especially troubling.  The Nats are not a small market team.  But the state of their organization is similar to ours - new stadium but bereft of talent.  The Nats have drafted aggressively, albeit relying more on ML ready talent.  Can you imagine if Strasburg had been drafted a Pirate?  It was a very real possibility with our new commitment to drafting the best available talent and our penchant for finiishing with spectularly bad records.  For the Nats this is a terrible, terrible loss.  For a team like the Bucs, with smaller margins for error, this would have been catastrophic.

Best wishes Stephen and I hope that he returns to form sooner than later.

Dodgers just acquired Octavio Dotel for two minor leaguers -- Lamb and McDonald.  I don't have details or analysis of the players involved.  But I think (if these guys have any value) this is a good move.  Dotel doesn't do anything important for this franchise and any return we get for him is soup.  I had thought that this would be the eventaulity for both him and Donnelly when they were aquired this offseason.  I'd say a good investment (again if the prospects are worth anything).

Goodbye doc ock, we hardly knew you.

There's been a great deal of chatter here regarding Nutting v LeBunkle.  The Nutting apologists have said that a billionaire owner would be no better than Nutting, because "owners don't pay for players out of their own pockets".  Then, contradicting themselves, they say that Tom Hicks did it and look where it got him.

Well the Detroit Free Press writes today that Mike Illitch will dip into his own savings to try and lure Johnny Damon to Detroit...link  The article goes on to explain how Illitch has done so with several MLB players as well as key players for the Detroit Red Wings.  I'll add that he seems to accomplish fielding exciting competitive teams and putting fans in the seats, while growing the value of his franchises.

This is the biggest reason why tortured PBC fans are so excited about LeBurkle, Mark Cuban, Alex P Keaton or Scrooge McDuck buying the team.  Not because of the superiority of one plan over another.  But because when the PBC does get into playoff contention (we can all dream a little), the fans would rather see a billionaire at the helm.

Many of you have mocked the LeBurkle excitement and to an extent you have valid points - the Pens were bad too, the Pens got lucky with Crosby, the Pens operate under different rules.  But what if LeBurkle did buy the squad?  What's preventing them from starting PSN (Pittsburgh Sports Network) that generates a far better return for the LeBurkle sports group?  Why wouldn't they "stay the course" and continue with Coonely and Huntington?  The only difference would be an owner with more financial wherewithal to get the team over the hump.

Okay gentlemen, start knocking down the strawman.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/pirates/s_658484.html

Especially the all decade team...  I'm going to spend some time looking at the decade and see if I can find anything better...  Not sure I can find it.  At the very least, there were some memorable events worth highlighting.  Seriously though, if I can't do better than Laroche as the decades best 1B I'm going to need therapy.

At the very least, I hit Bradenton in March 6 times in the decade.  And that, is a treat regardless of the Bucs' record.  Many fond memories at McKechnie field.  And despite the hopeful attitude of spring training in Florida, one of my favorite memories was jawing at Littlefield, "Have a great season Dave and by the way, how's your resume looking these days?".

Cheers (and go bucs!)

The NYM currently have about $54 Million in annual salary sitting on the DL (Wright, Beltran, Reyes, Delgado, Putz and Maine) and that's before their ace Johan Santana (just a hair under $19Million per) makes his inevitable trip to the dl with elbow pain (gulp).  When the Bucs started the season they were at just under $49Million.  Since then they've shed approximately $30Million - I'm not sure what their current salary is or how much salary they paid of their "traded assets".  But it's interesting to note that the Mets have greater than the bucs annual ML budget on the DL.

I'm sure this isn't the place to rant, but Alvarez, Sanchez, Lincoln and all of the bodies they got in return for their trades could end up being great.  But the fact remains that we would only be competitive for a season or two, before they got too expensive to keep.  With the Pirates record of player development, I just don't see them catching lightning in a bottle and putting together much of a string of great baseball.  I think at our absolute acme, and that would require a top down reconstruction of our budget, farm system, scouting and player development (NH could be doing it as we speak) - we would be the Florida Marlins.  Winning a WS in '97 and '03 - once a decade with completely different teams.  Maybe that's a bad example because both teams had their share of high priced free agents, but they did have a nice core of talent that was homegrown - okay, really just '03.  Nevertheless, they have seen some success as an expansion team and have won some big games.

Would it be too hard to recreate the Bucs of '79?  Just off the top of my head:

C:  Sanguillen/Ott?

1b: Stargell

2b: Garner

3b: Madlock

SS: Foli

RF:  Parker

CF:  Moreno

LF:  Milner? Bill Robinson?

SP:  Candrelaria, Blyleven, D Robinson, Bibby

RP:  Tekulve

So their core of homegrown talent was:  Stargell, Parker, Moreno, Candrelaria, Tekulve... not sure on several others.  Foli, Ott, Garner, Milner, Bibby and Robinson would all be moderately priced free agent aquisitions.  Madlock was a mid-season addition that didn't cost much from what I can tell (Al Holland and Ed Whitson).  Blyleven was part of a blockbuster ('77)that saw the Bucs lose HOF talent Al Oliver (not nearly enough press for Scoop), but they also landed John Milner too!

Now does our current squad or farm have Talent Matching Stargell, Parker, Moreno, Candrelaria and Tekulve?  Alvarez certainly appears to be a fit.  McCutcheon (don't say which one) is too.  For arguments sake, lets call them Stargell and Parker (lite).  Moreno was good defensively but not an incredible bat, I don't think he'd be hard to replace, I'd say talent level of our former CF Nyjer Morgan.  Candy Man?  Would anyone buy a Brad Lincoln argument?  No?  Charlie Morton?  Maholm?  Duke?  Alderson?  Bueller?  anyone?  Let's pass on a Candy Man comparison.  That leaves us with the scarecrow and his polarized shades... While Tekulve is forever in my heart, I think any closer outside of Mo Rivera is easily replaceable (refer to Capps, Matt or better yet, Williams, Mike).

So really we're just a homegrown #1 starter away from a core similar to our last WS team.

Okay, now everything falls apart though.  The landscape of the game in 1979 was far different from today.  I'll have to do some digging to find salary data for that decade.  But I can say with confidence, the spread between the have's and the have nots (large/small markets) was not so drastic.  As of last week, each division leader was also the highest spender in terms of ML salary.  And yes, every year an A's, Rays or Twins hit the playoffs but they have to go through a combo of Boston, NY, Anaheim to get to the WS...  Just not feasible.

So what's the point?  Much like following the Bucs, there is no point.  It's a silly fascination with my childhood favorite, flying in the face of logic and common sense.  Nevertheless they're my team and I'll continue to support them, drinking all the kool-aid along the way.

Cheers.

Hard hitting journalism from ESPN Insider Chris Mortenson...  I wonder how much it costs to send his bus, crew etc... around the country to visit training camps. 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/trainingcamp09/columns/story?columnist=mortensen_chris&id=4390354

I'm sure Mort had a 300 word limit on his post, otherwise he might answer some more burning questions like:  Ben is good.  Or, Casey Hampton is big.

If you're seeking ANY sort of insight into what's going on in LaTrobe, don't hold your breath...