Marty Blake, the witty late former NBA scout, was once the general manager of the Pittsburgh Condors, one of several failed attempts to make pro basketball work in Pittsburgh. I once asked him why it was so hard to sell tickets. He answered: “You can make a big thing bigger. You can sell tickets to a lot of things in this world. But you can’t promote a funeral,” he answered.
If the Pirates aren’t careful, they may soon find this to be true. In fact, they may be finding this out already, as fan anger has turned to fan apathy.