Mark Madden's Hot Take: Want to be popular? Offer to buy the Pirates

I’m putting together a group to buy the Pittsburgh Pirates.

We will bring back the Bulls, Condors, Crawfords, Hardhats, Forge, Maulers, Phantoms, Power, Spirit and Triangles, too. (That’s indoor lacrosse, pro basketball, Negro League baseball, softball, junior hockey, football, roller hockey, arena football, indoor soccer and team tennis.)

Robert Morris men’s and women’s hockey also will return.

We will run for Pine-Richland school board, win, and re-hire Eric Kasperowicz as the high school’s football coach.

We will put a football stadium on Pitt’s campus.

We will re-open the Original Hot Dog Shop and several Winky’s locations.

But first things first: We will buy and fix the Pirates. Yay, us! We’re Pittsburgh heroes!

Want to generate artificial popularity in Pittsburgh? Say you want to buy the Pirates.

They’re not for sale. You might not have two nickels to rub together for all Pittsburgh knows. Your first move might be to cut payroll.

But that’s the beauty of wanting to buy something that’s not for sale. You don’t need two nickels.

The Pirates stink. You say you would fix them. Huzzah. You get a brief burst of PR while taking zero risk. Having pulled one con to get your pipe dream in the public eye, you can take the goodwill generated to your next gaff. “I’m the guy who almost bought the Pirates.”

The master of this is Mt. Lebanon product Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. He’s a very successful carny but a carny nonetheless.

Cuban wanted to partner with Mario Lemieux to buy the Penguins out of bankruptcy in 1999 — using none of his money, just Lemieux’s.

Cuban occasionally says he’d love to buy the Pirates, and wouldn’t it be great to come back to Pittsburgh and have a Primanti’s sandwich with all of yinz?

Cuban said he was going to buy and re-open the Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland when it closed last year. (It’s still closed.)

Cuban had zero intention of investing a penny in any of those endeavors. He just wants to keep up his Pittsburgh street cred.

“Hey, Cuban, I wish you’d buy the Pirates!”

He’s a carny. Cuban’s hustles got in the paper, too.