From the Trib, via Rum Bunter and BTF :

Relievers Sean Burnett and Jesse Chavez are fuming over how they've been portrayed by ESPN and other media for supposedly setting up a candle and "shrine" to Nate McLouth .

"It's ridiculous. Blown way out of proportion," Burnett said. "I'm waiting for an apology."

Chavez said the candle was set up two weeks before McLouth was traded as a running joke about the players' daily card game of Pluck. As long as Chavez and Burnett kept winning, the candle stayed lit at their lockers.

"It had nothing to do with the trade," Chavez said. "It's a friendly thing we had going on, an inside joke."

Neither player was disciplined by the team and the candle and Pluck scoreboard remain at their lockers.

- Rob Biertempfel, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had an unpleasant flashback to the Meares shrine of ages past , so it's good to know that the players are handling the trade better than the media would have you believe. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised - when was the last time ESPN got something right about the Pirates? Sean may not want to hold his breath waiting for that apology. They'll just ignore him until he expires, then report that he committed suicide to protest the deal.

[In case you're curious, Pluck is a four-player card game kind of like Spades or Hearts.]

Image source  (courtesy of hoyasmeg )

(Note by Charlie: Actually, I think the Post-Gazette was the first to report this. The ESPN report was a mishmash of stuff from the Post-Gazette and the Associated Press. I think Bucs Dugout and a couple of other blogs were the only publications that used the word "shrine." I think that word was an entirely accurate description of the events as they were presented by the Post-Gazette and by ESPN. The candle-lighting scene was the lede in a Post-Gazette story about "clubhouse backlash" to the trade, and it described a lit candle, along with McLouth's uniform number and picture. To me, that's a shrine. If the "shrine" wasn't related to any "clubhouse backlash," the Post-Gazette got the story totally wrong. Of course, all this assumes the Trib report is accurate. The idea that lighting a candle next to McLouth's uniform number and picture within hours of McLouth being traded continued to be a "joke" sounds strange to me. After thinking about this for a while, I believe the Post-Gazette's original report and not this little bullet point from the Trib. Dejan Kovacevic of the Post-Gazette isn't prone to completely flubbing stories like this.)