DK is (exceedingly) fond of being impartial, but part of what makes him great is that he “says without saying.” He pounded a message, it’s just that the message wasn’t his, per se. He was not unfair to DL, it’s just the DL’s record was so poor there wasn’t a whole lot to balance the negative facts. DK stayed in the box and relentlessly presented the facts surrounding the state of the org. So you’re right that DL did himself in, but the actions and inactions of an oily GM can easily go under the radar if not for beat writers like DK.

And to add to Vlad’s mention of Paul Meyer, I’m sure you can go find some Smizik columns where the point was, ’it’s the players fault, not the GM’s.’ Umm, helloooo…

Seems to me I’ve dropped bits and pieces of it here from time to time, anecdotes that I remember. It was the ‘83 team. It wasn’t a FULL beat — we didn’t travel to the West Coast, and other guys on the staff got to take some of the trips — but I did spend two weeks at spring training and saw I don’t know, maybe 100 games that year.

I mainly remember stuff that happened off the field, but the one game that sticks out was late in the season against the Mets. The Mets were terrible, and the Pirates had them beat in this afternoon game. Tekulve was pitching to close it out and Rusty Staub was batting, and Rusty was slower than most dead people, so when he hit a grounder to Jason Thompson the game should have been over. Instead Thompson dribbled the ball once and then managed to throw it to first so high that even Tekulve, as tall as he was, couldn’t reach it. The ball ticked off his glove and went into the dugout.

Eventually, with a couple runners on, one of the Mets smacked a ball toward left center and Joe Orsulak tried to make a diving catch and missed. The tying run scored and the winning run headed for the plate. I started to mark my scoresheet, figuring the game was over, but when I looked up the ball was flying like a lazer to the plate and the runner was out by 10 feet. It was the greatest throw I never saw.

I asked somebody what happened and learned Orsulak, who had a great arm, somehow got to the ball in time and threw a bullet. I was astounded.

Anyway, the game went extra innings and the Pirates lost, and that pretty much killed their pennant hopes.

The Pirates clubhouse was death. Not even the reporters wanted to say anything, but they gathered around Thompson’s locker. And while Dave Parker raged in the background (“Leave the man alone”) Thompson, who never said much anyway, said, “I fucked up. Print that.”

I did. I mean like “I f***ed up, print that.”