Big Lead Sports Bar

2/21/2007

Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Worse...

...the Pirates were treated to a motivational speaker. Let's see if you can guess who Team Tracy OK'd to address the group.
Tony Robbins? Wrong. Lance Armstrong? Nope. Bill Cowher? Not even close.
The correct answer is Dick Vitale.


That's right, the schtickiest announcer of all-time brought 15 minutes of in-your-face energy to the Pirates' pitchers and catchers on Tuesday afternoon. He covered a wide range of topics, including Duke vs. North Carolina, North Carolina vs. Duke, the ACC, Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Tyler Hansbrough, Roy Williams, Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and Michael Jordan.
OK, so he didn't go into depth about Duke-UNC. But he did speak from the heart in an emotional discussion that he volunteered for.
Vitale said: "How many guys feel sorry for themselves ... and pout ... and sulk ... and quit? You can't do that! Do you have any idea how many people would love to be where you are as major-league ballplayers?"
Apparently, Dick doesn't watch much Pirate baseball. We've seen players feel sorry for themselves, pout, sulk, and quit since 1993. In fact, I thought that was the Pirate motto at one point.
That was a nice gesture by Dicky V. But I'm just a little jaded on Pirate optimism at this stage of the game. However, if his talk actually inspires Salomon Torres, Humberto Cota or John Grabow to a great season, then I say bring him back every year.

4 comments:

Dirty Sanchez said...

Too bad this wasn't done when Kendall and Giles were here. Could you imagine their reaction to hearing this guy give his high school pep talk after they'd suffered through 5 or 6 straight years of getting stomped?

Unknown said...

Does anyone have the final stats on the number of times he used words "awesome," "baby" or "awesome, baby"? I need to develop a drinking game for the next time I watch a hoops game he does for ESPN 1) so I save my friends from 2 halfs of Dickie V by getting them drunk enough to pass out by halftime and 2) hammered is the only way to take a dose of Dickie V.

San_Erino said...

Maybe we'll finish 4th in the NLC this year. Possibly even win 80 games!!!
This is painful.

Unknown said...

Who cares about the Pirates anymore? The Penguins are a million times more interesting than this sorry sack. Ooooo we got LaRoche! Big deal...The Penguins have the three best players 20 and under. I am just waiting for the Pirates to be in "Major League 4 Back to the Majors, Barely." And those red third jerseys are just awful. I would rather use those terrible futuristic jerseys every team was forced to wear seven years ago. Stupid Pirates