The Official Site of Pittsburgh Pirates: News: Pittsburgh Pirates News

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Huntington writes us a letter: Russell is manager
Published 11/5/2007 by Cory Humes at Pittsburgh Lumber Co.
From the mothership: Dear Pirates fans: I am extremely excited to officially announce today that we have hired John Russell as the new manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. John’s hiring is another significant step in the process of changing the culture of this organization to a culture of pride, passion and excellence. etc., etc. Love, Neal Huntington. It seems as if our new general manager is fond of communicating with the common yinzer—something I appreciate. Huntington is taking steps to repair the damage that’s been done to the franchise over the past 15 years. Sure, he’s gone a bit overboard with the open ...

The Griddle: The little press conference that nobody loved ...
Published 11/5/2007 at The Griddle
Ended up introducing John Russell as manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The article identifies Russell as the "38th manager" of the Pirates. For some reason, there's been a trend in putting ordinal numbers in front of managers now. As if they are presidents or popes or some other job with a lot of responsibility. And teams that switched leagues early in their history don't seem to want to count those managers. The Pirates aren't counting their years in the American Association from 1882-86. That drops their total from 46 to 38. I have no idea why teams like the Pirates and Dodgers and Cardinals don't count their American Association years. Is it for convenience? Do they think the teams were ...

Pirates Name Russell as Manager
Published 11/6/2007 by Red Hot Mama at Red Hot Mama
The Pirates finally ended the managerial suspense today when they named John Russell as the next guy to try to right the ship. From the press release : The Pittsburgh Pirates today announced that John Russell has been hired as the 38th manager in team history. The announcement was made by senior vice president and general manager Neal Huntington. Russell, 46, spent the last two seasons as the Triple-A manager in the Philadelphia organization. He was named the International League Manager of the Year after guiding Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to the Northern Division title in 2006. Russell, who served as manager at the 2007 International League All-Star Game, managed Ottawa last season. There’s also a ...

John Russell Press Conference (And A Pet Peeve)
Published 11/7/2007 by Andy Smith at Bugs & Cranks
As expected, the Pirates formally introduced John Russell as their new manager yesterday. His press conference was about what you’d expect as far as these things go; a lot of smiles and back patting and inspiring words about how the Pirates can be competitive in 2008 and that “we will not be out-worked and out-prepared.” Really, I’m just excited that there were no references to the 2004 Los Angeles Dodgers. Somewhat surprisingly, the backlash among the media and fans hasn’t been as strong as you might expect to the team deciding to go with a member of the maligned Lloyd McClendon regime. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that Russell wasn’t exactly a prominent figure with the ...