By Dejan Kovacevic | 12:40 a.m. Tuesday
Points of order before the annual gushing of gratitude ...
I will be gone from the coverage -- from this plane of existence, really -- until a week before the Winter Meetings. It is a weird job, the one where you pretty much go around the clock for 10 months, then shut it down for the other two, but there it is. Chuck Finder will handle any news that materializes in the interim, and there will be blank blog postings here to sustain the discussion
Also, 2010 will be something of a strange year for me: My editors asked me recently to cover the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and, surprised as I was, I happily accepted after figuring out a way that we still could cover the Pirates. The Olympics take up most of February, so I will miss the first 2-3 weeks of spring training. Again, Chuck will be in Bradenton until I get there about the first week of March.
I very much enjoyed covering the 2004 Games in Athens and look forward doing the winter edition for the first time. There is no sporting event on our planet comparable to the Olympics in terms of scope, impact or drama, and I hope it makes for some compelling stories.
On to the gushing ...
To the sky above Downtown, for holding still for this image on July 18.
To Drs. Patrick DeMeo and Edward Snell, as well as strength coach Frank Velasquez, for their help this past spring with the back. It is 100 percent now, and their attention and advice had much to do with that.
To Chuck Tanner. Take care of yourself, and we will see you in the spring.
To Bob Nutting, Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington, for putting trust in me for accurate and fair coverage even when they do not like what I write, which I have a feeling was a large percentage of the articles in the past year that was so miserable for the major league team.
To John Russell, for always -- and I mean no exceptions -- finding the time to explain every decision, often in great detail. Those decisions might not always have been popular, but you never read these two words next to his name: "No comment."
To Joe Kerrigan and Perry Hill, for bringing instant credibility -- and class -- to their positions.
To Rene Gayo, for showing me the new heart of baseball in the Dominican Republic.
To Kyle Stark, for answering every email in ... oh, 30 seconds or less.
To Paul Maholm, Zach Duke and Ross Ohlendorf, the team's only full-year starting pitchers, for moving a lot of games along at a nice pace. (And for being good pitchers and people, of course, but some of us really value the fast game.)
To Jeff Karstens, a funny dude, for being admittedly stupid enough to wear a Chargers jersey to Heinz Field the other night. That's two Ls in one day, if you're scoring at home.
To Charlie Morton. If the Pirates were a movie in which you could hear and see everything, you would pull for Morton harder than anyone. Tell him he pitched a fine game, and he'll tilt his head as if he's never heard such a thing, and say, "Thank you!"
To Jesse Chavez, your forgotten rookie. Smiled when the Pirates won. Down when they lost.
To Matt Capps, for speaking after all six blown saves.
To Joel Hanrahan, for enduring 111 total losses with his sense of humor intact.
To Andy LaRoche and Lastings Milledge, for beginning to prove many people - myself included - wrong. These things take time, and he is young. Milledge started changing my mind even before getting to Pittsburgh.
To Ryan Doumit, for from-the-heart honesty.
To Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones, for becoming National League rookie of the year candidates through a high level of talent and an even higher level of enthusiasm, on and off the field. How odd to have two spots that bright -- three, really, with Ohlendorf -- amid the historic losing stretch.
To the many other new trade acquisitions, who, despite the awful atmosphere they entered, never acted above it. (As a point of contrast, Eric Hinske twice in interviews referred to the Pirates as "they" before asking out.)
To this remarkable group of Bradenton Pirates playing this summer in the Gulf Coast League, maybe my best experience all year. (Well, that and getting an email from Rinku Singh yesterday in which he called me "sir" again.)
To Nate McLouth, Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez, John Grabow, Doug Mientkiewicz, Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett, for staying in touch even after they were gone. That always is welcome in this job. People just zip in and out of life and, without this extra contact, it's like they just stop existing.
To Jim Trdinich, Dan Hart and Brian Warecki, who have the toughest jobs in sports: Public relations for the Pirates.
To my editors, Jerry Micco and immediate supervisor, Donna Eyring, for full support on the baseball beat in a time when so many are cutting.
To the copy editors on the print side, plus Liz Gray, Willa Kindle, Matt Kennedy, Dan Gigler and now Seth Rorabaugh on the Web-publishing side. They got lots of emails with lots of corrections.
To Jen Langosch, Rob Biertempfel and John Perrotto. We compete to bring you news about the Pirates, but I am proud to call them friends.
To Chuck Finder, for helping to make this job as easy as it can be.
To you, above all. And, if you don't know why after tolerating the season you just saw, then you're not as crazy as I think you are. From the warm wishes you shared during the bad time in the spring, to the many of you who have approached in person, to long-time reader -- and blog contributor -- John Toperzer for the handwritten letter that you left with the security guard on the morning of the home finale. Just blew me away.
I will be checking email at dejangl@yahoo.com. Be good.
Linkage to the general coverage ...
> Main story: The final piece of the season's coverage addresses 10 ways the Pirates might create a successful 2010, all things being relative.
> Key dates: Baseball/Pirates calendar for the next few months.
> Opinion: Bob Smizik assails Huntington's approach for 2010.
> Chat: The transcript from yesterday.
> Poll result: The readers deem the Pirates 'hopeless.'
And from other realms ...
> Still 'the same old Pirates,' writes the Associated Press' Alan Robinson.
> Baseball America's Ben Badler applauds the Pirates for approaching Andy LaRoche about second base.
> Perrotto pushes the Pirates to keep Hill.
> Jason Bay prepares for the playoffs.
> The statistical site FanGraphs chooses McCutchen as National League rookie of the year.
PHOTO of young Dominican player: Dali Kovacevic
PHOTOS of the rainbow, of Milledge, of the Bradenton Pirates, and of Morgan and McCutchen in Minneapolis: Me
Posted
Oct 06 2009, 12:40 AM
by
Dejan Kovacevic
Filed under: Andrew McCutchen, Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, Ryan Doumit, Freddy Sanchez, Paul Maholm, Doug Mientkiewicz, Frank Coonelly, Jeff Karstens, Ross Ohlendorf, John Grabow, Andy LaRoche, John Russell, Zach Duke, Bob Nutting, Matt Capps, Nyjer Morgan, Jack Wilson, Jesse Chavez, Joe Kerrigan, Garrett Jones, Sean Burnett, Perry Hill, Charlie Morton, Lastings Milledge, Joel Hanrahan