And so it begins. Another baseball season.

The peanuts. The hot dogs. The fireworks.

The game? Maybe?

Last week, the Pittsburgh Pirates unveiled all the new things that will be happening at PNC Park for the 2022 season. When the home opener happens Tuesday, attendees will be able to enjoy all kinds of new offerings. A Reuben hot dog with locally sourced sausage and corned beef. Hometown craft beer. A riverwalk and a refreshed kids’ play area complete with a pirate ship and bridge.

That sounds great. It’s like an amusement park. There’s plenty of things for people to do that don’t involve watching baseball — which is good since no one expects the Pirates to win.

Fans are increasingly hard to find. Even those who still call themselves fans are not really the kind of hopeless romantics who go into the first game dreaming of World Series glory. After all, it’s been more than 40 years since they’ve had that kind of satisfaction.

In a recent article surveying fans about their feelings heading into the season, the constant refrain was “the owners won’t spend the money they need to make the team competitive.” It’s a familiar song. People have been singing it since before Barry Bonds left town.

Then Wednesday, the team signed Ke’Bryan Hayes to play third base for eight years at the stellar price of $70 million. Could that be a sign of things to come?

It would be great to think so, yet the first game of the season happened against the Cardinals in St. Louis. In what seems like a resigned shrug of a prediction for where things go, the Pirates went scoreless while allowing nine runs.

And so making PNC Park a destination for a fun day out that has little to do with whether you care about baseball or expect to see a good game for the home team makes good business sense.

If you can’t watch the Pirates win, at least you can still get good nachos.

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