Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Pirates Fans Show Up for Paul Skenes Bobblehead, Team Doesn’t Show Up at All

"Sell the team!"

Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The line stretched as far as the eye could see, across the Roberto Clemente Bridge, snaking through downtown Pittsburgh, with some die-hard fans having camped out since dawn. All for a bobblehead. Not just any bobblehead, but one depicting Paul Skenes, the electric 22-year-old phenom who has become the sole beacon of hope in a franchise drowning in mediocrity.

Three and a half hours before first pitch, here’s the line on the Clemente Bridge for a Paul Skenes bobblehead pic.twitter.com/zOiMW1nuvd
— Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) April 19, 2025

This line in Pittsburgh for Paul Skenes bobblehead day 🤯 pic.twitter.com/oZSMCvG08p
— MLB (@MLB) April 19, 2025

This past Saturday should have been a celebration. Instead, it became yet another painful reminder of the yawning chasm between what Pittsburgh Pirates fans deserve and what Bob Nutting’s ownership regime continues to deliver.

The Embarrassment That Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Has Become

As temperatures climbed unusually high for spring, thousands of Pittsburghers waited over five hours before first pitch, all to secure a bobblehead of the player who represents their only reason for optimism. The scene was both heartwarming and heartbreaking: a passionate fanbase desperately clinging to joy in a baseball wasteland of the Pirates’ own making.

Inside PNC Park – a cathedral of baseball, the contrast was stark, visible, and as unsurprising as it can get. Filled with 37,113 fans to watch Paul Skenes pitch, the ghosts of Pirates’ financial decisions, present and future, haunted every corner. The Pirates were originally going to give the bobblehead to just the first 20,000 fans, but looking at the demand, they changed it and promised that everyone who scans into the game will get one. Perhaps for the first time in recent memory that the Pirates management has actually delivered something of value to its fanbase.

We know how unique today’s Paul Skenes Rookie of the Year bobblehead giveaway is and how popular it is for our fans. We don’t want any fan who attended today’s game to not receive one.

Any fan who scanned into today’s game after the first 20,000 bobbleheads were given away… pic.twitter.com/e1lZNIEJBL
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) April 19, 2025

On the mound, Skenes performed with the brilliance that has become his trademark. Seven innings, two runs, six hits, a quality start by any measure, though with fewer strikeouts than his norm. But how far can individual excellence go in baseball? Not far. Individual excellence only carries a team so far. As the final out cemented a 3-0 defeat, the familiar, haunting chants began to reverberate through PNC Park: “Sell the team! Sell the team!”

These were the anguished cries of a baseball community watching a once-proud franchise waste yet another opportunity to build something meaningful around transcendent talent.

The Nutting Nightmare By The Numbers

Since Bob Nutting took control in 2007, the Pirates have spent a miserly $1.2 billion on player salaries, roughly what the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, or Phillies spend in just three years. Before the 2025 season, with Skenes coming off a Rookie of the Year campaign and firmly established as one of baseball’s brightest stars, Pittsburgh’s response was to spend $19 million in free agency.

ALSO READ: Auction Bidding War Drives Paul Skenes Rookie Card to Record $1.11M

Pittsburgh’s last year’s revenue? A healthy $326 million. That puts them in the same neighborhood as the Diamondbacks (payroll: $188 million), Royals ($134 million), and Twins ($127 million).

As ESPN’s Jeff Passan put it with blistering clarity: “There is zero reason, zero reason that the Pirates need to operate how they operate. It is a choice. It is a choice that is insulting to fans, it is a choice that is insulting to the game, it is a choice that is insulting to players in that clubhouse, who deserve better.”

If you’re looking for teams with lower payrolls than Pittsburgh, you’ll need to scrape the absolute bottom of baseball’s barrel. The 2024 White Sox, one of the worst teams in recent MLB history. The Rays, perpetually threatening to leave Tampa, presently play in the Yankees’ spring training home, and have tried to find a winning formula by spending less. The Athletics, currently playing in a Triple-A stadium while their Las Vegas heist progresses. And the Marlins, largely tangential since 2003.

This is the company Nutting has chosen for one of baseball’s most storied franchises, a team that once boasted Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell. And about that Clemente Bridge – the same one fans crossed to see Skenes pitch – it leads to a stadium featuring a Clemente tribute that the organization recently defaced with advertising, without even consulting the legendary player’s family. Some traditions are sacred. Some aren’t, apparently, when there’s money to be made.

The Inevitable Paul Skenes Heartbreak

In the deathly quiet of the postgame clubhouse, with only the hum of air conditioning breaking the silence, Skenes offered a simple assessment: “Wish we would’ve gotten the win.” Five words that might as well be the epitaph for an era of Pirates baseball defined by squandered opportunity, penny-pinching ownership, and a fanbase that deserves infinitely better.

200 Ks for Paul Skenes 👏 pic.twitter.com/AaTNooAxAS
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) April 19, 2025

Baseball insiders and Pirates fans alike know what’s coming. Skenes will continue to dazzle. His star will continue to rise. And eventually, when the financial reality of keeping him becomes inconvenient for ownership, he’ll be traded away.

It’s not a matter of if, but when. Unless something fundamentally changes, unless Nutting sells or has a Damascus Road conversion about investing in winning baseball, Paul Skenes bobbleheads may soon become collectors’ items not because of their quality, but because they’ll represent the brief, brilliant flash of light before Pittsburgh baseball returns to its owner-imposed darkness.

ALSO READ: Is Yoshinobu Yamamoto Already an Early Cy Young Favorite?

The fans who stood for hours under the hot Pittsburgh sun deserve better. Skenes deserves better. Baseball deserves better.

But until something changes at the very top, “Wish we would’ve gotten the win” may become more than a postgame lament. It may become the story of Paul Skenes in Pittsburgh.

Paul Skenes

Pirates

Mohsin Baldiwala

mlb

Mohsin Baldiwala is a Master’s student in Journalism and freelance content producer who got hooked on baseball through Seinfeld’s hapless George Costanza. The same reason why he’s a Yankees fan. He writes about sports because he believes it can offer a brief escape from the world’s chaos. Even if that means enduring the heartbreak of the 2024 World Series.