Winning spurs rise in Bucs' popularity
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates have become more than relevant.
They're downright popular.
Whether it's media attention, fans in the park or interaction through Twitter accounts, the Bucs have become an “in” thing to do in the 'Burgh.
“This is what we've been waiting for,” said Seneca Valley graduate Dan Hart, the Pirates' manager of media relations, now in his 12th year with the organization. “It's more work, but it's more fun.”
The Pirates have gone from 18 consecutive losing seasons to being above .500 at the All-Star break for the first time since 1992. They are one game out of first place in the NL Central, the closest they've been to the top spot this late in the season since 1997.
With Andrew McCutchen, Joel Hanrahan and Kevin Correia in Phoenix for the All-Star Game, the Bucs have three representatives in the midsummer classic for the first time since 1992 — when Bobby Bonilla, Barry Bonds and Neal Heaton participated.
“Our research has definitely picked up this year,” Hart said. “We've been doing a lot of that ‘first time since' stuff. And people are using it.
“We'll see something we researched appear as a note on Baseball Tonight or on the MLB Network. That's always neat to see.”
Pirates media relations director Jim Trdinich said that the number of media members taking part in manager Clint Hurdle's pregame meetings with the press has drastically increased.
“I counted 27 people at Clint's media session recently ... and that's three hours before the game,” Trdinich said. “Last year, we usually had three media members talking to the manager at that time.”
As for Baseball Tonight and other national baseball programs, Trdinich and Hart no longer have to pitch story ideas in that direction.
They're now on the receiving end of such pitches.
“We used to call those national shows and let them know, ‘Hey, McCutchen looks like quite a player' or ‘We have a reliever doing this,'” Hart said. “We almost had to beg to get any kind of air time nationally.
“Now those shows are calling us with interview requests and story angles. We're just not used to that.”
Hart added that he may get postgame player interview requests from five radio stations “when we used to just have to worry about our flagship station.”
When it came to air time or print coverage, Trdinich didn't care much for it — before this year.
“It got to the point that I'd get home after a long day and wouldn't even pick up a paper or watch the news,” Trdinich admitted. “It was all going to be negative, all derogatory comments about the players, management or ownership.
“I love baseball and working for the Pirates, but when it's the second inning and you're already down 5-0, it's easy to get a little down.”Not this year — so far.The Pirates drew 1,613,399 fans to PNC Park all of last year. They surpassed the million mark in attendance halfway through this season.The Bucs averaged 19,919 fans per home game in 2010, an increase of 400 over 2009. They're averaging 23,400 fans per home date so far this year — an increase of nearly 4,000 over last season.The Pirates have sold out five consecutive Saturday night home games and 10 games overall thus far in 2011. That's the most sellouts in a season since 2001, PNC Park's inaugural year, which produced 19 sellouts.“The team's success this season has reminded everyone what we have known for a long time, Pittsburgh is a great baseball town,” said Cranberry Township resident Brian Warecki, Senior Director of Communications for the Pirates.“We are up 17.6 percent in attendance over last year and park merchandise sales are up some 23 percent as well.”Warecki said the increased following goes beyond the ballpark. TV and radio ratings are up, as are the visitors to pirates.com and conversation on Facebook and Twitter's @BucsInsider.“We'll put something out on Twitter and there's 40 or 50 re-tweets in a matter of minutes,” Hart said. “It's pretty amazing.”Warecki added that the demand for insider access through social media channels “is greater than ever ... and fans utilizing these channels of communication have been extremely positive.”Trdinich described his approach to the 18 straight losing seasons.“You have to ride the wave good or bad,” he said. “It has to turn at some point.”So are the Pirates ready to host postseason baseball?“We successfully hosted the All-Star Game, we're equipped to host a playoff game,” Trdinich said. “We've still got half a season to play.“It's July, we're selling out and we're in a pennant race. I'm just enjoying that.”
