It’s Time for a Change SteelCityPirates.com is Born

1-9-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

I started writing for Sports Illustrated back in 2019, I had dabbled in writing here and there, never really planned to do much with it until I met the late great Jason Rollison and his passion and reason for doing his Buccocast pod struck a chord with me. He just wanted Pirates fans to have better options for hearing and reading about the team.

Man, that sounded awesome to me.

While writing for SI, I met Craig Toth host of Bucs in the Basement, we hit it off and even when our editor went A.W.O.L. and we were starting to read the writing on the wall, we just kept writing until they shut us down and folded the regional sports network. Two weeks later we hastily launched this site without much thought about names or design or how we’d make a name for ourselves, if we ever did, but hey it was fun anyway. Toss COVID in there like a week later.

Well, then all of you happened, and Pirates Fan Forum launched at DK Pittsburgh Sports and we brought in other writers, and they have podcasts, and let’s just say our hastily put together site was leaving us wondering if we maybe should have thought a bit longer first.

Well, some of that change is coming today.

Craig is leaving the writing side of things, and that being the case, and me very much so not leaving the writing side of things, there’s no bad blood here, we just decided, hey, let’s move on and it seems like the perfect time to rebrand. Before I do, let me just say, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for Craig, we built this up together, hell we called it our “old building and loan” as a joke that it sucked our lives away and never made us a dime.

His show is still great, and if this is ever something he wants to do again, and I still am operating this building and loan, he’s welcome back with open arms.

Moving forward though, Michael Castrigano from the 412 Double Play Podcast and frequent writer on this site will be stepping up into the co-editor role. He’s growing as a writer and podcaster and I’m lucky to have him and others along here, there’s lots to cover.

Yea, Jud and Corey and Joe, and Ethan are all still here too and who knows, maybe we’ll add more. Point is, the graphics change, the URL changes to http://www.SteelCityPirates.com, but I don’t think you should expect the earth to shake here with changes.

I think what this is becoming is a place for podcasters to be able to express themselves with writing as well. A place to expand on something time prohibits. Another reason to do the research, and more than anything, another way to get more serious bucco talk out there.

I’m sure things will change on social media and what not, and I’m quite sure you’ll run into references to Inside the Bucs Basement all over this site, I’m not changing the past, none of it is something to bury, but I hope to have all the cosmetic stuff in the right place by Monday. Social media I have to take a fresh look at and will ASAP.

That’s it, that’s what I got. Hope you like the new name, it took me almost 2 weeks to decide, I think it took me like 20 minutes to name both my sons, lol. Also, if you don’t want to rely on social media to know when there’s a new piece on the site, just subscribe on the homepage, I don’t use it for anything, it’s just an email when something is posted.

And I’m still not trying to run ads here, or go premium or whatever, maybe we’ll look into some sponsorships for recurring pieces like 5 Thoughts or whatever we come up with, so don’t expect to deal with pop ups or anything like that.

It’s fair to say we’ll remain Fair Pirates Coverage…That’s what Craig and I set out to do, and I think we have done so, no reason to stop that now.

Thanks for coming along with me all this time, whenever you hopped on, making changes like this can be nerve wracking if you think your audience is only half paying attention, this one is all in, and has been from the jump.

Let’s get it,

And Lets Go Bucs!

Gary