Bob Nutting is making Pirates a developmental team for MLB

It was with interest that I reviewed the list of the “Top 100 Major League Baseball players” as shown in Sports Illustrated’s Feb. 26 issue. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the Pirates were the only National League team without a single player on that list. I believe that if similar lists were compiled for our other two major sports, the Steelers and the Penguins would each have multiple players on such lists for their respective sports. What’s wrong with this picture?

The Steelers and Penguins are doing their best to provide their fans with championship teams now, not years down the road, and are doing everything possible to retain the championship talent they have. And the Pittsburgh area fans show their appreciation by filling both venues time after time.

I don’t want to disparage our current roster of Pirates, but maybe Bob Nutting should be up front with us and admit that the Pirates are really a developmental organization for the rest of Major League Baseball. He’s evidently more interested in buying newspapers in West Virginia than trying to make the Pirates a championship team.

It was very telling that when asked what the Pirates were going to do with the $50 million windfall from Disney’s purchase of BAMTech, Mr. Nutting said he didn’t have specific plans for that money yet (Feb. 23, “Nutting Wants ‘Steady Window of Performance’”). Huh? I have to guess that if one were to ask Dan Rooney or Ron Burkle and Mario Lemieux what they would do with $50 million showing up in their team coffers, they would have a laundry list of specifics to discuss, with most if not all of them relating to building and maintaining championship organizations for their loyal fans. BARRY PILE Cranberry