WTAE reports that a Kennedy Township bar ran a promotion that reduced the price of beer for every game the Pirates lost, and a Pirates employee sent out an email advising recipients to boycott the bar.
↵↵↵A sign in front of the bar on Fairhaven Road said, "If the Pirates lose, you win." The promotion called for a discount of a nickel off a pitcher of beer after every loss by the Pirates, who haven't had a winning season since 1992.
↵An email sent on May 12 by Pirates account executive Angela Criscella said, "An occasional joke and jab is expected here and there, but to create business by ripping on the home team is ridiculous and in my opinion distasteful." She urged bar patrons to "take your business away from the Stroll Inn and to other local restaurants instead."
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As I wrote over Bucs Dugout, Criscella's comments reek of humorlessness. When a team is as bad as the Pirates for as long as the Pirates have been, it's hard to even remain a fan without a healthy sense of irony. This is especially true in the midst of a promotion this weekend in which the Pirates were reducing ticket prices on certain seats for every run the offense scored. The Pirates' attitude (and, by the way, this "boycott" seems to be the brainchild of one employee only, and certainly not the entire organization) should be, 'Hey, at least people still care.' Besides, the WTAE article notes later that what the bar was ultimately trying to do was to get people to watch the games there.
↵Anyway, Criscella later sent out another email explaining that she misinterpreted the Stroll Inn's intentions. Good for her - Stroll Inn wasn't doing anything wrong, and the last thing the Pirates probably want is to have an incident like this draw more attention to their losing streak