Pirates legend Andy Van Slyke is honored to call himself a Pittsburgh Pirate but has an issue with today’s team, along with the current state of baseball.
“Listen guys, I’m a Pirate, I started my career here,” Van Slyke told the PM Team after they asked if the St. Louis native would be in red for Opening Day. “Gosh darn it I’m a Pirate, I went over to Pittsburgh, they were terrible, we got some good players and we were really good and we brought fans back into that stadium.”
But when it comes to today’s team, he believes they need to do more to show they are trying to win.
“It’ just hasn’t been there . . . there hasn’t been a consistent effort, it’s been disingenuous to the fans that the Pirates can do everything in their power to put the best team on the field as possible, keep the best players that they can and spend a little money and give the fans what they deserve because Pittsburgh is a great sports town, they got the best stadium in all of Major League Baseball and it would be a party every night I think for the fans if the Pirates would just be consistent about putting a Major League Team on the field.”
To be fair to Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington, he has done everything he has said he would do since becoming the GM a few years ago. He has invested in the team’s future by transforming their farm system into one of the best in baseball.
“I will say this about Andy, you have to respect what he says about baseball because of how hard he played the game and how well he played the game and how well he played the game,” said Andrew Fillipponi. “I’m sure there were things that got said by Andy there that the Pirates would disagree with, but I will say this about that, you have to respect the guy’s passion and how much you can tell he cares about the team. He wants the team to do well.”
Listen as Van Slyke talks about what the Pirates need to do, starting with keeping Bryan Reynolds, what’s wrong with the MLB as a whole and what small things the Pirates can do to start to turn it around.