Saturday, January 27, 2007

Bucs Amuse at FanFest Q &A; Management Answers the Call

Some of the Pirates most recognizable names took the stage at Pirates fest today for a Question and Answer session that did not disappoint, according to the people over at MLB.com.

Zach Duke, Tom Gorzelanny, Ian Snell, Matt Capps, Salomon Torres, Adam LaRoche, Jack Wilson, Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez formed a very loose and quite amusing improv group, answering fans' questions for an hour at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Right off the bat, there was some personal information shared with the audience of nearly 500 people. Bay recently had a baby, Duke is getting married and Capps will be his best man. Once those pleasantries were exchanged, the question-and-answer period began.

Not surprisingly, the first question was directed to the new acquisition, LaRoche, with a fan wanting to know if the Pirates need a winning swagger and if something like that existed when he was in Atlanta.

"I haven't gotten to play for the Pirates yet, so I don't know," LaRoche said. "There was a confidence from the coaches to players [in Atlanta]. We were lucky to have veterans who had been there and had won. I feel lucky to have spent my first three seasons learning from them, learning what it takes to win."

Holding their own edition of a question and answer section was Pirates management, who not surprisingly fielded many questions about LaRoche, Who will play 2nd base, Who will be the fifth starter and whether or not the goal of management is to just win 82 games.

"I'll acknowledge we all want to be over .500," Littlefield said. "But I don't want to put a ceiling on it. I think there's talent and we want to improve to a significant degree, but to put a number on it may not be the way to go."

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