Even during an offseason going relatively well for them, the Pittsburgh Pirates just can\u2019t seem to avoid the stream of fiascos that seems to plague the franchise. <\/p>\n
The latest public relations blunder to haunt the team stems from the decision last year to remove commemorative \u201cBucco Bricks\u201d<\/a> purchased years ago by many fans to honor family members who loved the Pirates. <\/p>\n Those bricks in a PNC Park sidewalk were removed without an announcement or an opportunity for fans to retrieve them and then were unceremoniously shipped to a recycling center and destroyed. <\/p>\n Amid a public backlash, the Pirates said a new exhibition displaying messages would be built and they offered complimentary bricks to fans as an apology.<\/p>\n A friend of one of those fans recently messaged KDKA-AM radio host Colin Dunlap<\/a> with a story that would almost be unbelievable if it did not involve the bedraggled Pirates. <\/p>\n Dunlap called it the \u201cmost hilarious\u201d text he\u2019d ever received. <\/p>\n It seems the fan had purchased a Bucco Brick \u2014 named for the abbreviated Pirates nickname, the Buccaneers \u2014 years ago in honor of his grandfather that was destroyed. He received an email from the Pirates asking him what was written on the original brick so they could look in their files and have a replica made. <\/p>\n The fan responded, \u201cunsure but it had William Bradford\u2019s name on it,\u201d reported Dunlap. <\/p>\n So, the fan recently received a new brick emblazoned with, you guessed it, \u201cunsure but it had William Bradfords name on it.\u201d <\/p>\n Oh, boy. <\/p>\n Dunlap said he talked to the Pirates, and they said a third-party company was handling the orders for commemorative bricks and they were working to address the situation. <\/p>\n This latest blunder was just the latest faux pas for a franchise that has been active this offseason in acquiring players to try and overcome its reputation for not doing enough to improve the perpetually losing team. <\/p>\n Last season, the Pirates had a string of embarrassments<\/a>, besides the Bucco Bricks controversy, including fans heckling the team on Opening Day and calling for owner Bob Nutting to sell the team, a fan falling from outfield seats<\/a> and severely injuring himself and an employee whipping a customer<\/a> with his belt after the fan spit on him. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even during an offseason going relatively well for them, the Pittsburgh Pirates just can\u2019t seem to avoid the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4662,1423,23789,73,75,74,15268],"class_list":{"0":"post-80624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-national-league","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news","14":"tag-professional"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}