Still crazy after all these years

... and Pirates' fans should boycott Seven Springs Robert Nutting has demonstrated one point during his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates: He is more concerned with his bottom line than he is with whether or not he wins baseball games. As a businessman, he has a right to make money. However, we as consumers can decide whether we want to buy his product.  Last year, he saw the fans thumb their collective noses at him. Some numbers that I sawindicated that the tv numbers were down 23 percent last year. The fans also stopped attending the games last year, dropping below two million for the first time in years. Suffice it to say that things will be much worse this year. The trades of former National League MVP Andrew Mc Cutcheon and pitcher Garrett Cole demonstrated to fans that Nutting is focused only on unloading players with big contracts. Forget about winning. Just bring in cheap players.  That means that the team is going to be relegated to the cellar for the forese

From Jan. 2013 with some 2018 edits Growing up in a family with a mother who cared little -- and knew less -- about sports was challenging at times.  However, my mother never learned the true story about why I did not want to return to Lilly on Dec. 23, 1972, for Christmas. Ordinarily, I would have left work that Friday and would have tried to spend as much time at home as possible for Christmas. I was working and living in the Williamsport area, about two-and-a-half hours from my hometown of Lilly, Pa., and I was off work from Fri., Dec. 22 until the 26th. Even though I was off on Saturday, I told my mother that I would not return home on Friday because I "had some things to do." My mother was clueless about the real reason for my staying in Williamsport: I could watch the Steelers' AFC playoff game against the Oakland Raiders on television there, but not at home. The Johnstown (WJAC) and Altoona (WFBG) television stations, the only two that we could re