By Dejan Kovacevic | 12:30 a.m. Friday
OK, been a while ...
Even if the club has done little more than tinker with the 40-man and talk about trading the shortstop, there are many issues worth discussing in advance of the Winter Meetings, and the green light is back on for whatever you have. For starters, there is the commenting area below, though that hardly went dormant while I was gone. There also is the Q&A, for the old-school among you. Click on this form to send a Q, and the sessions will run Tuesday-Friday, as usual. (No chats until people begin swinging bats in anger.)
And then, of course, there is the regular old coverage.
That begins today, online and in the newspaper, with an update on a slew of things from Neal Huntington, not the least of which is the news that John Grabow and Ronny Paulino are involved in trade talks just as much -- maybe more -- than Jack Wilson.
And it continues this weekend, as an insert box in that article outlines, with a three-part series on the Pirates' work in the Dominican Republic. That begins Sunday. I made the trip this month with my wife, Dali, who took all the photographs and videos that will run with the package (including the kid in the Pirates cap you see up there), and I can tell you it was the experience of a lifetime. The baseball experience of a lifetime.
Much, much more about that as the series unfolds.
Linkage to the general coverage ...
As noted, there is the update piece for today. There surely will not be a news story every day from now until the start of spring training, by the way, as your club is not exactly noted for making lots of news in the offseason. But, for the newcomers among you, this is the place to find whatever Pirates-related stuff happens to be running in the print version of the Post-Gazette each day.
And from other realms ...
If the Pirates' recently signed prospects from India can pitch as well as they blog, they will be Cy Young candidates.
As awful as these 16 years have been for the franchise, there have been some pretty compelling storylines along the way. And, if anyone was to make a top-five listing, surely the tale of Kevin Polcovich, grocery-boy-turned-shortstop, has to be among them. Here is a catch-up from a newspaper in Auburn, N.Y.
Bill Plaschke, venerable columnist of the Los Angeles Times, questions some rather striking comments from Dodgers ownership about prioritizing our nation's economic troubles over paying tens of millions to baseball players. Something to think about, perhaps, when considering whether or not Wilson might end up there.
For anyone who might have missed these, here are links to two earlier reports I cite in the article above, one from Fox Sports about the prospects the Pirates are seeking from the Dodgers, the other from Yahoo! about the Dodgers wanting the Pirates to swallow some of Wilson's salary. As I mention in the article above, the Tigers likely will want that, too.
Finally, I have been eager to thank Billy Abraham for his tireless searching and publishing of the links in the comments section every day I was gone. To that end, you still will be able to find his collection of the best from the blogosphere in that same spot.
PHOTO: Dali Kovacevic/Special to the Post-Gazette
Posted
Nov 28 2008, 12:30 AM
by
Dejan Kovacevic