Jeff Banister for manager.
I want him to get the Pirates' job because I've long believed in him, both as a baseball man and as a human. But my vote doesn't and shouldn't count, so I'll begin by basing this on how the players themselves feel.
Suffice it to say, without naming the names of those with whom I've communicated the past couple days, that Banister's the overwhelming leader in the clubhouse, so to speak. He's been part of some of these players' lives for years, given his various instructional roles in the minor-league system. He's been a vocal, visible presence in the majors, too, as both a bench coach and special assistant.
As one player told me, "We all know how much Banny knows and how much he cares. If he's the skip ... man, that'd be f---ing awesome."
Don't think the players should have a say?
If so, I'll issue a friendly reminder that, through the All-Star break, before injuries and front-office ambivalence undid their season, they were performing with as much passion as we'd seen in these parts for quite some time. They care.
Most prominent on Banister's resume, of course, he was the Rangers' manager from 2015-18, including American League West Division titles in 2015 and 2016, and Manager of the Year honors in 2015.
Other than that brief span, he's a lifer with the Pirates.
And yes, that can still be a good thing.
As I've been writing a lot lately, pride in the franchise is needed now as much as ever. The man who owns the franchise shows precious little of it. The people running the franchise exhibit absolutely none. So the hiring of this manager comes in a time where far more change is needed than what's likely to occur. Meaning there's a fair chance he'll outlast one or more of his bosses and, thus, he'd better be someone who's deeply invested in something more than burnishing his brand to go elsewhere.
I've seen the names of other candidates applying for the job. I've even read up on a couple. They don't interest me, and not just because I've been convinced from the split-second Clint Hurdle was fired that Banister will get this job. They don't interest me because they can't come close to offering what Banister can. Maybe in a baseball sense, sure, but not as it relates to the Pirates.
I've known Banister very well for a very long time. He's always been my heart-and-soul source for all things Pirates. When I've felt things were exceptionally dark for the Pirates, when I've lost faith in those over him, I've been able to hear him speak about baseball, about this team, about this city in terms that were so uplifting, so positive, it felt like hope. He's like that. He gets people around him to be like that.
We've also had our bad patches. We once went several months in which he wouldn't even speak to me, he'd been so miffed about columns I'd written about the state of the minor-league system. He took them personally ... not so much as a person but because he takes everything about the Pirates personally. But one afternoon, we agreed to meet in the PNC Park dugout to talk it out, lay it all out there, and we did. He shared his thoughts on the team and the columns, and I did likewise. We achieved an understanding without necessarily an agreement.
My point to the tale: He cares that much. That's not someone randomly collecting a paycheck. At the time this happened, he wasn't much of a known commodity in the game or even within the team. He could've just shrugged me and my work off as a nuisance. But he didn't, because his investment -- that concept again -- was real.
He knows baseball at all levels. He's immensely qualified in that regard.
But he knows and loves the Pirates like few people anywhere on this planet.
Here's hoping this whole interview process has been, indeed, precisely the obligatory checking of boxes I've anticipated. One man's already checked every box.
• I don't believe Frank Coonelly will be the Pirates' team president much longer. I'm hearing that he's preparing for a move back to the commissioner's office to work with one-time-colleague-now-actual-commissioner Rob Manfred toward a new labor agreement.
Been writing this for weeks now, but Bob Nutting isn't done. He just isn't. If Coonelly's exit occurs, then others could be at hand. Which would finally explain a lot of the word that's filtered this way.
• Ever seen 'A Clockwork Orange,' the Stanley Kubrick masterwork novel adaptation from 1971?
There's a scene in which the protagonist is strapped to a theater chair, his eyelids pried open by metal constructs, while being forced to watch horrific films of 'terrible ultra-violence.' As it's happening, someone's sitting to his side occasionally plopping eyedrops to make sure the protagonist keeps watching, keeps screaming, keeps pleading for it to end.
Imagine watching Gerrit Cole in Game 1 of the World Series tonight in Houston, if you'd been the one who traded Cole for four guys named Joe, and it's probably something similar.
Or not.
• Astros in seven. But only so Cole can start Games 1, 4 and 7 and ring up 15 Ks in each.
John Marino rushes up ice Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS• On the subject of outright thievery, how in the world did the Penguins wind up with John Marino?
Here's the official answer: On July 26, he was acquired from the Oilers for a sixth-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft. Edmonton officials believed he'd return to Harvard University for his senior year this 2019-20 season and, if he'd done so, they'd have lost his NHL rights to unrestricted free agency next summer. On Aug. 8, two weeks after Marino became property of the Penguins, he opted to forgo his Harvard elibility and signed with them.
Here's the more truthful answer: When it comes to player transactions, the Oilers are the Pirates of the NHL.
Meaning that:
1. They can't recognize their own talent.
2. Other teams do, then underpay for it.
In this specific scenario, Marino used those Ivy League smarts to send signals that he'd be going back to school, aware that the Edmonton system has several promising young defensemen. And once the trade came off, he was so pleased with his new NHL rights-holder that he did what he subconsciously wanted to do all along and turned pro.
I asked Marino over the weekend to comment on all this, and he smiled and asked me to turn off the recorder. So read into that what one will.
Not to turn this into a standard bashing of the Oilers. (Heck, they're off to a 7-1-1 start.) Full credit here to the Penguins' scouts, not least of whom was Kevin Stevens, for spotting Marino, but mega-credit to Jim Rutherford for giving up next-to-nothing to acquire him. That's some Hall of Fame GM'ing right there.
• Marino's getting almost uncomfortably rave reviews from Mike Sullivan in the early going, particularly for his ability to close on the puck and puck carrier. He did that twice Saturday night to the Golden Knights' Jonathan Marchessault, a possession machine, pretty much engulfing him on both occasions.
I asked about that and, this time, I kept the recorder running.
"Yeah, the biggest thing is that you can't allow players nowadays to have any open space," Marino told me of the Marchessault encounters. "The quicker you close on them, the quicker you take away their time and space, the more difficult it is for them to make a play no matter how good they are. Ask any forward out there, and they'll tell you how important that is. That's something I've always made a priority."
It's his defense that's led to all else, which also meshes elegantly with the Sullivan system. From the same game, behold:
Sorry, but just looks too easy for a rookie, you know?
Any chance he'll have a hard time fitting his head in his helmet soon?
"Wow, no," he replied with a laugh. "Not in this room. Are you kidding?"
Of that rush, he added, "You just kind of take what the play gives you. If you have a chance to go behind the net with the puck and just wheel, if you think that's what's best after reading the play, yeah, you'll take all the ice you can get."
• Eddie Johnston identified three young players early in camp he felt would help the Penguins at the NHL level this season: Sam Lafferty, Adam Johnson and Marino.
Yeah, E.J.'s still got it at age 83.
Still showing up for work at every home game, too. We should all be so fortunate.
• Injured forwards are getting healthy. And that's wonderful ... so long as Lafferty stays. He's got zero business in Wilkes-Barre anymore.
• Imagine being Nick Bjugstad and Bryan Rust, presuming both get cleared to play tonight in Sunrise: If the Penguins lose or, worse, look even a little listless in doing so, it's all their fault.
• Quick, name something phonier than the Sabres starting out 7-1-1. Answer: Buffalo's NFL team starting out 5-1.
Not buying on either. I mean, the Bills would have to collapse to not make the playoffs, but three of their wins came against the almost equally pathetic Jets, Bengals and Dolphins, and those three by a whopping 15 points combined.
• Will posterity ever record that the Patriots' dynasty-level run of success came in part because they've been able to coast through the AFC East forever?
At least the Steelers of the 1970s had real rivalries, real competition within the division in the Oilers, Bengals and Browns. All three were competitive at different stages of that decade. New England, by comparison, has enjoyed nearly half its regular-season as a bye since the turn of the century.
Including last night ...
Through Week 7, the Patriots have outscored their opponents 223-48 ? pic.twitter.com/FFv1FS0uy4
— ESPN (@espn) October 22, 2019
• Don't dare underplay the loss of Stephon Tuitt to the Steelers' defense.
Not just because, before his season-ending pec injury, he had 18 tackles, 3.5 sacks and six tackles for a loss. Those were tremendous and had him on a path to the Pro Bowl, if not All-Pro status.
Rather, as his teammates will attest, it's because his push from the inside carved out all kinds of space for inside blitzes and, for that matter, edge rushes by T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree. Offensive coordinators hate to have to scheme for defensive down linemen, but that's what Tuitt was wreaking. Javon Hargrave and Tyson Alualu will be able to replace his basics, but not that wild-card element.
No one seems to be talking about this, and they sure won't after the Miami game. But it'll come.
• I'm OK with Kevin Colbert parting with a draft pick to bring back Emmanuel Sanders by the NFL's trade deadline a week from today, but here's hoping it's from 2021. Not to kick the can down the road, but the 2020 picks already are down to a handful: A second-rounder, two in the fourth, a sixth and a seventh. That's one pick -- 41st overall -- out of the top 105. That's unhealthy.
• If the Steelers' receivers can't create separation against the Dolphins, it's time to start making way more noise about them. No one expected some stacked corps, but it also wasn't anticipated to be JuJu Smith-Schuster and little else. Let's see real separation, real football plays from Diontae Johnson and, if he's OK, James Washington.
• Now the NFL's asking its players' union to approve a 17-game season spread over 18 weeks, with each team's extra game being set at a neutral site.
To which I've got only one response: Put a franchise in London already. The schedule expansion itself is all about the cash, obviously, but the neutral sites have pointed for years now to London. So just do it. Stop with all the testing. No one will ever know if the city will fully adopt a team -- and the sport -- until there's an honest effort made at a true connection. As it is, those games are being largely stocked by tourists and overseas military.
I've believed for a long time it'll work. And from there, a second European team can overcome some of the travel challenges.
• Also, feel free to put London in the AFC North. For those of us who, you know, love London.
• The complaints about NFL officiating have reached what's probably a crescendo. It's no longer just that a bad call's been made. It's now whether or not officiating has reached an all-time low or, more comically, who should be made available to the public to apologize for missed calls.
Talk about a narrative that's running exactly the wrong direction.
Here's the truth: Officiating has never been better. Not just in the NFL, but in all sports.
The only thing that's changed is our ability to gauge those missed calls, thanks to countless camera angles, super slo-mo and 80-inch TV screens. We're all now Al Riveron in our living rooms. And because of social media, we all now have a place to congregate and agree that officials are incompetent and that, more comically, we deserve apologies for this.
In this setting, these people's jobs are next to impossible. They can be brilliant 99 percent of the time and, after one blown pass interference, they're branded for life. And more comically, we deserve apologies for it.
The NFL has never had more reviews, more clearly defined regulations, more of an emphasis on safety with its calls. This isn't an opinion. The NHL has never had more on-ice officials, more reviews, more of an emphasis on safety with its calls. This isn't an opinion. Major League Baseball has never had greater control of its once-renegade umpires, more reviews, more of an emphasis on safety and, for that matter, a sharper strike zone with its call. This isn't an opinion.
It can all be better, sure. But the notion that it's getting worse is the most backward thing any clear-headed sports fan could possibly think.
• Saturday will mark the greatest day for soccer in our city's history. Yeah, the bar isn't set all that high, but it's got to get raised one level before it begets the next.
Congratulations to the Riverhounds on claiming the top seed in the USL's Eastern Conference heading into the playoffs that, for them, will open this weekend at Highmark Stadium, then stay there for as long as they win. And I'm here to tell you: They're capable of doing that for a while. They've never been this organized, thanks to Bob Lilley's coaching and Joe Greenspan on the back line, and they've never had the attack, the depth, the midfield movement ... you name it.
This could get seriously fun.
