Pat Lackey of the Pittsburgh Pirates blog Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? recently took a week-long trip to Florida to check out Spring Training in the Grapefruit League. He also received an unexpected opportunity to tour Pirate City.

Pirate City is a facility that the Pirates opened back in February of 2009. It serves as the home for the Pirates Florida operations, and includes dorm rooms for players and staff.

According to Lackey, the Pirates house all of their minor-league players on-site during Spring Training. Apparently, the Detroit Tigers are the only other team to do such a thing. I know that the Reds don’t.

It sounds like the Pirates have done a great job of incorporating the history of the team into the complex, with pictures of past greats adorning the hallways. Another nice touch is that each of the dorm rooms is dedicated to a particular Pirate All Star.

Lackey also got a meet-and-greet with Pirates GM Neal Huntington, and got to see many of the conference rooms and player areas. There are more pictures and details about how Pirate City is used here.

I saw this story today about Charles Trimble, a lifelong Reds fan who had a heart attack and had no pulse for almost 15 minutes during a Pirates-Reds game on August 23.

But there’s good news. Trimble was revived thanks to the quick efforts of CPR and a nearby doctor. He spent time in the hospital recovering.

But yesterday, he was sitting up in bed, surrounded by family members, and talking. He doesn’t remember anything from the baseball game.

Now he’s just going to give the Reds ideas. Although, considering they beat the Pirates that day, maybe not.

Still, Trimble knows who saved him.

In his hospital room yesterday, Mr. Trimble wore a Pirates cap — an homage to the park and the people who gave him his life back.

So there you go, Pirates. Now you know how to get more fans. Just lull them to the sleep of death and revive them in the nick of time. If that gets too difficult, you could always try winning.

After the parade of veterans the Pittsburgh Pirates have sent out over the last few forevers, it shouldn’t have been such a shock to see them ship Nate McLouth off to the Atlanta Braves for 3 prospects.

On the one hand, shouldn’t the Pirates eventually run out of best players? On the other, this is the exact thing that the team should be doing. They’re not going to have a winning season with McLouth this ear. He had a career year last season. Sure, it as his first real year in the majors, but he’s in his late 20s and likely to regress. Best to replenish the farm system while you can.

And GM Neal Huntington did. Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez, and Jeff Locke all are coming into the Pirates system. Two starters and an outfielder, all young and with some decent upside, is quite a haul. It’s absolutely what the Pirates should be doing, and I’m enjoying watching Huntington move towards ending the Pirates losing.

Boxscore

Whatever Johnny Cueto did in the offseason, it should be bottled up and sold for massive profits. He appears to be a new man. Last year he was trying to prove he belonged in the major leagues. This year he is looking like a Cy Young winner. Yes, its early, but all hyperbole aside, the one thing that hurt Cueto last year was his high number of base on balls. Lack of command. This year teammate Volquez became the guy who walked too many batters. Cueto is dealing. Right now he easily looks like the ace of the staff. His line: 8 innings pitched, 9 Ks and zero BBs.

Bruce smashed a solo homerun in the second inning and it was an easy ride to victory. Jay looks like the cleanup hitter to me. Sure it means batting consecutive lefties but the fact that Votto is hitting .333 against southpaws makes the decision more palatable. I think we’ll get this lineup thing figured out by mid-June, folks. I really do.

I will give credit to Dusty for having a psychic vision during his sleep. Apparently the lineup card last night had Rosales slotted for #6 with catcher Ramon Hernandez behind him. After his vision Dusty flipped Hernandez and Rosales. The big hit today came from Hernandez, a bases clearing 2 out single.

Dusty resisted abusing Cueto this early in the year by sending him out for the 9th. Instead he sent in Old man Rhodes who pitched a scoreless inning for the hold. He is on pace to pitch about 100 frames this year. That’s approximately the same number of innings he pitched from 2006-2008 combined. If his arm doesn’t fall off by August the Reds have a good chance of making the playoffs.

Boxscore

The Red Hot family traveled down to Cincinnati over the weekend to catch a game. Unfortunately, the first one was rained out. Fortunately, the schedule was flexible enough to allow the rain-out tickets to be redeemed for the very next day. The Reds lost of course, but it was neat to see the ballpark. I heartily approve of the new, improved scoreboards. Although the pitch speed is a little slow to appear. Here are a few pictures from Saturday’s game.

“Dusty, are you really sure you want Phillips hitting cleanup?”

Jay Bruce long-tossing with the right field ball boy. Despite capturing him in a bad shot here, Bruce actually looks better than he does later in the game.

Johnny Cueto striking out 1 of 9 on the day.

We ran into Nate McLouth in the elevator of our hotel. The Red Hot Child told him about Friday’s game being rained out. McLouth asked, “Are you a Reds fan?” That’s when we should have responded, “Yes, which is why we don’t know who you are.” I kinda think his joking with our son gave him the karma to destroy the Reds on Saturday.

I’ve heard many, many times that Mike Lincoln is a decent reliever. However, given how badly he always performs when I’m physically present, I think he should consider paying me to stay away.

Here we see the Pirates congratulating themselves after Mike Lincoln allowed a grand slam.

Mike Lincoln’s sterling ERA after the home run.

Jay Bruce looking ashamed after his boneheaded mistake to get doubled up at first. I haven’t seen play that bad since little league.

The Pirates congratulate their bad selves for a job well done.