As the incoming managing partner and principal owner of the Texas Rangers, Chuck Greenberg will join Larry Lucchino as Pittsburghers playing prominent roles in major league teams. Lucchino is president and chief executive officer of the Boston Red Sox.

Bob Nutting is not a Pittsburgher; he is a West Virginian. As the Pirates’ principal owner, he is overseeing the team’s major league record 18th successive and his fourth successive losing season.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have links to Greenberg and Lucchino. I went to high school with Lucchino’s brother, Frank, and with Greenberg’s mother, Barbara. But having nothing to do with that Allderdice connection, I believe the Pirates would be better off – far better off – if either Lucchino or Greenberg owned or operated the Pirates.

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San Francisco Giants fans have spoken, and probably the nicest thing they had to say about me is that I’m an idiot.

Disagreeing vehemently with a recent column in which I questioned the integrity of the Giants and other teams, they responded with what was probably the largest outpouring of e-mail of any of the 250 columns I have written for this Web site in the two years of its existence.

The closest in e-mail volume to this response followed a column about the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates. In that instance, the response was literally 50-50; half of the readers agreed with my critical view of the Pirates while the other half supported the Pirates’ way of trying to improve the team.

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It’s easy to dismiss Ozzie Guillen’s recent rant about the way Latino players are treated in Major League Baseball compared with the way Japanese players are treated. It’s easy to dismiss anything Guillen says because the Chicago White Sox manager says so much, and so much of it is inflammatory, certainly controversial.

I enjoy hearing and reading Guillen’s comments. I have enjoyed his remarks since I came to know him as the White Sox shortstop in the mid-1980s. It wasn’t necessary to spend a lot of time in the White Sox clubhouse. When he saw reporters present, he often went into his act, which usually meant making sarcastic comments about his teammates.

Guillen has a different platform now. He’s a major league manager who has a ready-made soapbox from which to express his views.

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