Payments to Players Traded or Released Swells Debt of Pirates

Payments to released or traded players such as Steve Kemp and Jason Thompson were responsible for $3 million of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 1986 operating losses of $7 million, says Pirates President Malcolm (Mac) Prine.

Among the former Pirates paid for not playing all or most of the season were Kemp, Jason Thompson, Johnnie LeMaster, Sixto Lezcano and Lee Mazzilli. The Pirates owe the players, mainly Kemp and Thompson, an additional $2.5 million that will be paid in 1987, Prine said recently after a team board of directors meeting.

Kemp was owed more than $2 million when he was released last summer.

Although the Pirates lost a significant amount of money in their first year of ownership by a public-private coalition, Prine said the team’s financial outlook for future seasons is much better.

“We have no intention at all in losing this kind of money in the years to come,” Prine said. “We won’t owe anything like the amount of money we had to pay released players this season. Our payroll is lower. We have trimmed costs, and we expect additional revenues from increased attendance and higher national and local broadcast rights.”

And, Prine said, “Pittsburgh is turned back on to baseball.”

Despite fielding a last-place team for the third season in a row, the Pirates’ attendance jumped 36% from 735,900 in 1985 to 1,000,917 in 1986. It was the team’s first 1 million attendance season since 1983.

“People are excited about baseball again,” Prine said. “We expect an operating loss in 1987 but a much smaller loss. We are running a more efficient business.

“We’re on a very solid financial footing. We’re very much where we expected to be financially. We expect to improve significantly in 1987. We believe major league baseball is here to stay in Pittsburgh.”

Prine said the Pirates lost $9,296,340 in 1985, their final year of ownership by the John W. Galbreath family of Columbus, Ohio. A coalition of businessmen and corporations, helped by $20 million loaned to the group by the city of Pittsburgh, purchased the team for $22 million in October 1985.

The Pirates have more than $16 million remaining from the money raised to buy the team, Prine said. Under terms of the coalition’s loan agreement with the city, the Pirates can be moved from Pittsburgh only when these funds have been exhausted.

“We expect the Pirates to be in Pittsburgh for many, many years,” Prine said.

Prine also said:

--He and the Pirates’ other officers were re-elected at the board meeting. Prine is no longer chief executive officer of Ryan Homes, Inc., one of the Pirates’ owners, but has agreed to remain in his post.

--The Pirates’ cash operating loss for 1986, not including the salaries of the released players, was $4,020,159. The 1985 cash operating loss was $7,971,340.

--Pirates General Manager Syd Thrift was among those who addressed the board of directors about plans for the 1987 season.

“The board didn’t make recommendations (to Thrift) on who should play first base or coach third base or what color the Pirate Parrot’s costume should be,” Prine said. “The board thought it should have an annual review of what was being done.”

--Depositions are now being taken from the principal figures in the team’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against former Pirates’ outfielder Dave Parker, now of the Cincinnati Reds. The case may be heard in U.S. District Court sometime in 1987, Prine said.

The Pirates are trying to block the payment of $5 million owed Parker under the five-year contract he signed in 1979. The team alleges Parker’s acknowledged cocaine use resulted in a significant deterioration in his play.

--The Pirates “may never need” the additional $5 million promised them by the city. The money was to have been raised by the sale of Three Rivers Stadium. Plans to sell the 59,000-seat stadium have been snarled by revised tax codes, but Pittsburgh Mayor Richard Caliguiri said he expects the sale to eventually be completed.