Pirates' long-running tragicomedy continues

True story: While doing some Googling this week to research this story on Pittsburgh's baseball woes, the first citation that came up was from the Boston Globe entitled, "Huntington's Pirates plumbs depths of burlesque humor."

Ah, must be another rip job on the rebuilding efforts of general manager Neal Huntington, right?

Well, not quite. The story was actually a review of the Gilbert and Sullivan play "Pirates!" put on by the Huntington Theatre Company.

But such has been the outcry over the latest, and most dramatic, housecleaning by the perpetually retooling Pirates that it well could have been about them.

They have became an industry punch line after trading off virtually every name player on the roster, including shortstop Jack Wilson, who landed with the Mariners, along with former 14-game winner Ian Snell.

But Huntington, who is enduring the same sort of local backlash that greeted his former Cleveland boss, Mark Shapiro, when he dealt Bartolo Colon and other prominent Indians players in the early 2000s, finds no humor in the situation, burlesque or otherwise.

He rightfully points out that he's not exactly breaking up the '27 Yankees. More akin to the '62 Mets, ad nauseam, in fact. The Pirates are well on their way to their 17th consecutive losing season, which would break the North American professional sports record for futility. Right now, they share that dubious distinction with the 1933-48 Phillies.

However, with a 45-65 record and a depleted roster, they have no chance to reach .500 this year. Huntington is banking on the new cache of young prospects to finally lead them to the promised land — 82 victories, for starters. But long-suffering Pirates fans have been hearing that since 1992, when the team let Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek walk from a three-time division champion and started their never-ending slide.

"It's tough for the fans, tough for the players," Wilson said when he arrived in Seattle. "I went through so many years of watching our best players go. I could give you an All-Star team of guys that have left the Pittsburgh Pirates in my nine years."

He's not exaggerating. There's Jason Schmidt, Jason Kendall, Aramis Ramirez, Mike Williams, Jeff Suppan, Brian Giles and Kris Benson, for starters. This year alone, they've dealt center fielder Nate McLouth, left fielder Nyjer Morgan, left-handed reliever Sean Burnett, first baseman Adam LaRoche, Wilson, second baseman Freddy Sanchez, reliever John Grabow and starters Tom Gorzelanny and Snell.

They've made six deals since June 2, leaving catcher Ryan Doumit (from Moses Lake) and injured pitcher Tyler Yates as the last of 17 players that appeared on opening day in 2008 — the first game for Huntington and team president Frank Coonelly.

The team that is left is very young and very cheap — pitcher Paul Maholm, at $2.5 million, is the Pirates' highest-paid player. By contrast, the Yankees have 15 players earning more than $2.5 million.

Huntington says the Pirates are done trading off players, that it's time for them to "break the cycle of losing," and this is the group to do it.

"We need to break the cycle of being in a situation where we're making trades every year," he said. "We have the pieces in place to build something."

They will try to do so with players like outfielder Andrew McCutchen, emerging as a potential star; young starters like Garrett Jones, Lastings Milledge, Delwyn Young and Charlie Morton; and up-and-coming prospects like Pedro Alvarez, Tim Alderson and, they hope, Jeff Clement.

Wilson believes it's possible. One person who has known the shortstop since he joined the Pirates organization in 2000 described him as "just a really, really good person, almost childlike in his enthusiasm for the game and his naivete that every year would be the year that the Pirates were going to finally break through and win."

Said Wilson, who was traded after negotiations on a contract extension went nowhere: "You take it personal, because you work hard to try to win. In the offseason, you're busting your butt trying to win. Two months into it, your season has pretty much gone astray.

"Fans in Pittsburgh, they've been true. We were lucky enough to have the Steelers and Penguins helping us out. Ease the pain, I guess you can say. They're going to get their winner, eventually. They deserve it more than anyone."

For now, however, burlesque humor rules the day.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com