Thursday, June 17, 2010

Huntington, Russell Contracts Extended, But...

Frank Coonelly's statement about the contracts of GM Neal Huntington and skipper John Russell:

"...while we have demonstrated in the past that a contract will not prevent us from making a change if one is appropriate and thus contract status truly is irrelevant, we will confirm that during the off-season we exercised the Club's 2011 option on JR's contract and added a fourth year (2011) to Neal's contract.

We understood that returning this once-proud organization to championship baseball would not happen overnight and that the progress that we were making towards reaching our goal made such extensions appropriate."

So they were signed through 2011 back in October in hush-hush talks (even Cot's Contracts missed it), but like Aki Iwamura, can be cut loose anytime.

Thanks, Frank, that sure cleared up matters. Any other lil' things you guys forgot to mention in the meanwhile? GW is wondering if Coonelly actually came from the Commissioner's Office or the CIA. And heck, the CIA probably wouldn't have been as tight-lipped about Pedro's first game in Pittsburgh as the Pirate brass were.

Sometimes we're surprised they let the game times slip out.

At any rate, the GM and manager aren't lame ducks, and just about everyone who could be called up from Indy has been. It's a new day, so let's move on to new stories, starting with Pittsburgh getting this losing streak out of the way and becoming a team once more instead of a national punchline.

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