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Bob Nutting and Clint Hurdle speak in the PNC Park home dugout before a September game. -- GETTY[/caption]
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
Weekly roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our city's teams …
• Spring training is still several weeks away, but the Pirates will convene next week in Bradenton for minicamp, and not just the players who report voluntarily. It'll also be a gathering for the front office, managers, coaches, scouts, pretty much everyone in baseball operations all under one roof, a great rarity in an increasingly global game.
And man, will this be one giddy gathering, by all accounts.
I spoke with a few of the folks who will be part of this, including some who only two winters ago were bitterly critical of the back-biting, divisiveness and divergent philosophies that were plaguing the operation. Some of that was the natural exhaust of a 20th consecutive losing season. Some of it was men fearing for their jobs and filling the lifeboats. And some of it, of course, was the infamous Hoka Hey escapade.
Well, forget it all, I'm assured.
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