–Gains and Gleanings–
She’s not of my generation, nor understanding, but Olivia “Livvy” Dunne is a “social influencer,” with a now wealthy online portfolio. An Instagram and TikTok star, she’s an LSU gymnast.
She’s a pretty young athletic girl – something guys of all generations can understand as far as her catching on goes – whose presence and drooling flood of followers has forced her school to hire added security.
I did say LSU, though, hence the Pittsburgh connection. Livvy Dunne is the girlfriend of former LSU, now rising star Pirates (future Dodger, Astro, Cardinal or Yankee) pitcher Paul Skenes.
Skenes is a once-in-a-generation starting pitcher with innovative movement on his pitches and an arm made, apparently, of top-secret SpaceX material. He has shown the ability to throw a baseball consistently above 100 mph, as in, with more frequency than any other pitcher in the majors.
The Pirates have the chance right now to do what the Penguins did when Mario Lemieux ended up on their draft board in the 1980s.
Remember, back then, if a Pittsburgher was buying cereal and one box had four Pens tickets and the other one had a 3-inch plastic Frisbee, they took the flying disc.
The Pens stunk.
But they didn’t stay that way. They took advantage of Mario’s arrival, built a team around him, and started winning Stanley Cups.
The Pirates won’t do that.
It comes down to business philosophy. Owner Bob Nutting bought the team to field the Bad News Bears every year and collect 25 or so million dollars in “revenue sharing” – meant to help teams improve – as pure pocket profit.
And it’s worked magically, for a long time now. When Major League Baseball got rid of real commissioners and put in figurehead toadies beholden to the owners instead of the Grand Old Game (starting with an actual owner, Bud Selig), the fix was in.
Owners could now do what Fay Vincent wouldn’t let them do – treat their team as a noncompeting low investment/high return transaction for their fiscal ledger.
I don’t want to ever see the Pirates leave, but being without an MLB team would be better for the City of Pittsburgh than the current setup.
Last week, as the Pirates’ thin bench and AAA-level support role players completed this year’s season’s annual hara-kiri, eyes were watching from coast to coast.
Many baseball aficionados were watching Skenes unscroll his magic, only to watch the B-movie bullpen lose the script and give up a 7-run lead after Skenes was pulled.
Many, many more eyes were watching Livvy Dunne online sharing her joy from the stands as her man brought fire and more than enough to earn a win in his column through his time on the mound, smiling and sharing her thoughts online.
Those same eyes watched her disheartenment as Skenes’ achievements on the day didn’t result in a win, and the sad-sack Pirates showed her (and Skenes) why Tyler Glasnow, Joe Musgrove, Gerrit Cole and prime-era Andrew McCutchen couldn’t wait to get out of Pittsburgh. (Cutch, a shadow of the player he once was, is back for a retirement tour.)
Having the best pitcher in the league, and his immensely famous girlfriend staring out, dejected and disenchanted at the inevitable results of a Nutting-cheap season across the internet and airways isn’t good for Pittsburgh.
The message is the same as it’s been for all the accidental/draft luck phenoms who come up here. This is AAA+ baseball, not major league. There are no rings ahead here, no parades, no glory.
In other words, despite the dusty City of Champions moniker, this is Podunksville. Might as well be playing for the Durham Bulls – except that you get to actually see Major League teams across the field in the other dugout.
Nutting could change that. Or sell to someone who would. But he won’t. We’re his suckers, wearing Pirates jerseys and buying tickets to see a team we care about more than the owner does.
The message it sends, however, when Livvy Dunne’s college-age followers see the horror on her face and hear her say she can’t wait for Skenes to be eligible to leave for a real team is one of how Pittsburgh is a small town that once punched above its weight, but now is in its rightful place as another Toledo. Or maybe Steubenville.
That ain’t good for a town with an aging population that needs to attract young talent to the area.
That’s why Bob Nutting is bad for Pittsburgh.
Rev. James Hogan is a native of Stowe Township and serves as pastor of Faithbridge Community Church in McKees Rocks.
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