Davin Brown

@JonPgh I dont know about playing time all year. Once Edman is healthy…. That’s 3 guys for 2b. Unless Muncy gets hurt.

Two barrels and a long homer from Alex Freeland last night Playing at 2B for the Dodgers with Edman hurt and Kim being a terrible baseball player One of the top hitting prospects for the Dodgers. Good add for deeper league, and 12-teamer potential without a doubt

I am proud to continue my support of the Gary Sinise Foundation and its mission to honor and serve our nation’s defenders, veterans, first responders and their families. I will again donate $100 for every strikeout I record during the 2026 season. In an effort to make the most impact possible, I have increased my campaign goal to $150,000. I invite you to join me on my mission to raise money for this amazing cause.  To kick off this campaign, I will personally meet and thank the individual that makes the largest donation between the launch of this campaign and the Pirates home opener on April 3. This individual will be thanked with a batting practice meet and greet and tickets to stay and enjoy a home or away game during the 2026 season. The meet and greet experience is for a mutually agreeable game date during the 2026 season. In the event that there are multiple donors with tied donation amounts, up to two prizes will be awarded to the first two donors. Please donate at link in my bio! Thank you for your support and go Pirates!  @GarySiniseFound

I don't think enough of you people appreciate how much snack food goodness comes out of York, Berks and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania.

@chrisbriem Or at least make more pollution

Well, maybe the cracker plant can make money (for) now.

@kirawontmiss Once there is a law that the businesses can’t be sued over any of the stuff they donate… most will do it immediately. It’s a liability issue. For big corporate places and mom&pop places.

i speak for EVERYONE when i say this should be a law in every country on earth

This is a baseball league for kids with special needs and bro hits a home run

Awesome to see the two former #Pittsburgh #Pirates skippers and BFF’s Jim Leyland and Gene Lamont in attendance at the Spring Breakout game last night ❤️ #LetsGoBucs

The reaction says it all! 102MPH from Seth Hernandez ⛽️

The reason we know dinosaurs existed, and were wiped out by an asteroid, is that no matter where you dig in the world, you’ll find a distinct layer of clay. All dinosaur fossils are found below this layer, and never above it! This layer has iridium that is very rare on earth but found in asteroids. It is called K-T (Short for Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary

Pitt NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament appearances: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011...Show More

@breadguy44 @eYARKulation Alika???

@eYARKulation @davin_brown My current odds of making OD roster if KG goes to INDY (and assuming Bart is #2): Callihan 40% Cook 20% Password 15% Alika 10% Late acquisition 15% Cutch 0%

This roster is about set. Non roster guys that could sneak in Konnor Griffin Mike Clevinger Alika Williams Possible 40 man casualties Enmanuel Valdez Cam Sanders Id say the last spot is between Griffin and Callihan with Garcia going to play OF everyday at Indy as the next bat up.

@DocEisenhauer @fantasyaceball @Owen_FBB You guys are a good mix. I catch every episode. I think it continually improves; and Owen is a great addition

@davin_brown @fantasyaceball @Owen_FBB Yeah if anything we have to contain the arguments when Owen and I hop on together 🫡 not an echo chamber that’s for sure!

Rise and Shine, it's Dynasty SP Time! 🌞⚾️ 🎧 w/ @DocEisenhauer and @Owen_FBB Dudes: Eury Perez v Chase Burns v Nolan McLean Emmett Sheehan Jesus Luzardo Thomas White v Cam Schlittler v Bubba Chandler Tim v Owen and Doc on Andrew Painter & more youtube.com/watch?v=GsCf5X…

Your annual reminder that Big East tournament intros to “Hypnotize” is the closest thing to basketball heaven there is

Sam Young That guy rocked.

@CyrtHogg How do you expect the split at 3b and 1b to shake out over the course of the season?

Let's take a crack at the opening day roster and lineup, shall we? jsonline.com/story/sports/m…

@eYARKulation Man don’t be tagging dudes

I mean hes no @LorenzoCarrier but hes OK I guess #H2P

Oneil Cruz Is Putting On a Show at the WBC Two towering home runs. Exit velocities that look like they were generated by a bazooka. And a dugout full of Dominican stars laughing as the ball disappears into the upper deck. That’s the scene surrounding Oneil Cruz at the World Baseball Classic, where his early theatrics have ignited chatter online about a long-awaited breakout season. Cruz has always possessed the loudest, most video game-esque tools in baseball, but now he’s doing it in a clubhouse filled with superstars. And it is attracting national media attention. Get used to it Pirates fans. Following an offseason that accumulated impact bats in Brandon Lowe, Marcell Ozuna and Ryan O’Hearn, the real headline may be what all that support did to help transform Cruz into a superstar. Here are four reasons the conversation around him is starting to shift: 1. The Ceiling Remains Absurd Cruz should be more successful at baseball than he’s been thus far. Cruz’s physical profile still reads like a baseball laboratory experiment: •Bat speed: 78.8 mph (elite) •Average exit velocity: 95.8 mph (top of MLB) •Arm strength: 98.2 mph (best in the sport) •Sprint speed: 29.2 ft/sec (elite for any outfielder) Offensively, his poor squared up % and K/whiff rate are the drag on his profile. When he runs into a pitch, it gets punished, but better swing decisions would be needed to harness that. So far, so good on that front. Having more guys on base means more fastballs instead of junk floated down and away. That is his experience at the WBC, but it is also the new-look 2026 Pittsburgh Pirates. A maturing pitch selection would be the biggest key to his success. 2. The Ozuna Effect Is Real Colin Beasley published a great deep dive PG article last week outlining the impact of fellow Dominican slugger Ozuna taking on a mentoring role with Cruz: post-gazette.com/sports/pirates… The two have worked together constantly this spring, including early-morning hitting sessions, fielding reps, and buddying up in the clubhouse. Pirates coaches have noticed the difference. Ozuna brings a veteran’s routine and discipline, and where a younger player may have been challenged by it, Cruz has embraced it. Most have observed that Cruz’s barrier has been primarily mental since arriving in Pittsburgh. Having a respected Dominican veteran showing him the daily habits of a middle-of-the-order hitter may prove as important as any swing adjustment. 3. He Attacked His Weaknesses All Winter Cruz hit .102 against left-handed pitching in 2025 (!!), so he spent the winter taking batting practice from left-handers whenever he could find them. His defense remained raw in his first full season in center field, so he spent a week training with former Gold Glover Kevin Kiermaier. This appears to be the offseason where Cruz addressed the deficiencies in his game formally and with intentionality. It’s the kind of preparation that often marks the transition from toolsy athlete to complete player. 4. Confidence Might Be the Real Breakout Indicator Cruz passes the eyeball test for me. It was so obvious: he just looks so much more relaxed and self-confident this year. He cut off his dreads in the offseason, adopting a tight cut -- an indicator that he was ready to move on from the last few years of getting acclimated to MLB. He also put on some muscle during offseason strength training. He is carrying himself differently this year, shoulders back, a little less 'little brotherly.' He has a new presence. He looks like a man. Confidence doesn’t show up in projection systems, but I’d argue it is the single most important key to getting Cruz to harness his physical gifts. Bottom Line 📌 Is this the season? Could it be? Some predicted 40+ HRs last season, and instead it was a step backward. A lot of dejected at-bats, with a look of being fed up with it all. Playing on a losing team, surrounded by a bunch of under-performing losers, didn't motivate Cruz. I get it. This year, we're seeing what Cruz looks like when he doesn't need to be the best player on the team... it is the conditions that allow him to become the best player on the team. And if that happens, watch out. All of RA/RS projections I did the other week were based on a modest return-to-form of Cruz (and Reynolds) just returning to their 2024 numbers. If Cruz takes a big step forward, this team is built for a pennant.

On the day John Ratzenberger walked into an audition room in 1982, he had a plane to catch. He had been living in London for nearly a decade — acting, writing, performing improv comedy across Europe with a two-man theatre group that had played to standing-room-only audiences for 634 consecutive shows. He had appeared in small roles in some of the biggest films of the era: *Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back*, *Superman*, *Gandhi*, *A Bridge Too Far* He was a working actor, but nobody's idea of a household name. That day, he was in Los Angeles on a writing assignment, and his ticket back to London was already booked. He had one audition before he left. A new sitcom about a bar in Boston. Both Ratzenberger and another actor, George Wendt, were reading for the same role — a minor patron named George who had a single line: "Beer!" It was barely a part at all. But Ratzenberger wanted the work, so he went in, and the moment director Jimmy Burrows told him he was there to audition, not have a conversation, he felt the energy in the room go cold. By his own account, all the blood rushed out of his body. He delivered a forgettable read. The casting director thanked him on the way out — the polite, final kind of thank you that everyone in show business learns to recognize. He was almost through the door when something stopped him. Not calculation. Not strategy. Just the instinct of a man who had spent a decade doing improv and knew that the moment before you leave a room is sometimes the best moment you'll ever have. He turned around. "Do you have a bar know-it-all?" The producers didn't know what he was talking about. So he told them. Every bar in New England, he explained, has one — some guy who acts like he has the knowledge of all mankind stored between his ears and is not even slightly shy about sharing it. He had grown up around exactly this type: a man named Sarge at his father's regular bar, who could answer any question with absolute confidence whether he actually knew the answer or not. The room would ask Sarge the length of a whale's intestine and Sarge would shoot back: "Baleen or blue?" And somehow, everyone deferred to him anyway. Ratzenberger launched into an improvisation right there — the Boston accent, the lean against an imaginary bar, the slightly too-long explanations of facts nobody had asked for. The producers watched. Then they laughed. Then they asked him to do more. George Wendt got the role of the bar regular, renamed Norm Peterson. And the producers, convinced by five minutes of improv from a man on his way out the door, wrote an entirely new character into the show. His name was Clifford Clavin. United States Postal Service. Cheers debuted on NBC on September 30, 1982, to nearly catastrophic ratings — finishing 77th out of 100 shows that week. The network came close to canceling it in the first season. But the show found its audience, and then it found a much bigger one, and then it became one of the most beloved television series ever made. It ran for 11 seasons. Ratzenberger appeared in 273 of 275 episodes. Cliff became the man at the end of the bar with the white socks and the questionable facts and the magnificent certainty — the guy everyone tolerated and secretly enjoyed, the kind of person every room has and everyone pretends to find annoying and would immediately miss if he disappeared. Ratzenberger was nominated for Emmy Awards in 1985 and 1986. By the time the show ended in 1993, Cliff Clavin was embedded in American culture as one of the great comic characters in the history of the medium. Cheers! 🍻