Mad World
The Fun Is INSIDE
By Mark Madden

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an article complaining about the reported design of the new multi-purpose arena that will house the Penguins. "Where's the fun?" cried the headline.

The PG certainly has no problem with PNC Park. Said fish wrap constantly extols the virtues of PNC, publishing no fewer than three preseason stories about the stadium's new "All You Can Eat" seats. If you can stomach limitless ballpark nachos, perhaps you're more likely to stomach a 16th straight losing season.

The PG ownership and management love baseball, as decrepit and musty old men longing for lost youth often do. The Penguins, meanwhile, get their architecture analyzed by Patricia Lowry, obviously a direct descendant of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Too many stone walls, she writes. Not attractive enough for the residents of the Hill District to look at, she writes. God forbid the crime and crack capital of Pittsburgh ever experiences an unpleasant visual moment, after all.

Where's the fun?

The fun is inside, where the Penguins have done what the Pirates don't even TRY to do: assembled a winning, entertaining, charismatic team.

The understaffed Post-Gazette is barely a newspaper at this point, and its quality and reputation have plummeted since John G Craig Jr. retired as editor in 2003. Many things about it make me laugh, still more make me groan, but one thing that outrages me is the kid-glove treatment the bumbling Pirates franchise gets.

The PG - which once owned a piece of the Pirates - and its staffers serve as unabashed cheerleaders for the team and baseball, accentuating the positive to sickening levels while sugar-coating (or ignoring) the negative. There's always light at the end of the tunnel, even if objective observers know that with the Pirates, that light always turns out to be an oncoming train. As the Pirates get worse - and attendance dips further - coverage actually increases.

Interest in the Pirates as a competitive entity is at an all-time low. The average paid attendance through eight home games this season was 14,766, last in Major League Baseball. The actual nightly head count at PNC? Even lower.

The Post-Gazette isn't giving the people what they want when it comes to boosting the Bucs.

What the Post-Gazette gives the people is the sound of one hand typing.

So the Penguins' new building isn't the Guggenheim Museum. Sidney Crosby lives there.

So PNC Park is a proud temple of the great sport of baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates lose there.

I think, deep down, even the Post-Gazette knows where the fun is.