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I took a break from writing for this blog on and around July 4, if only to wonder in amazement at how many people have been spending copious amounts of money on fireworks they’ve been setting off at their homes and how these seem to be the very people least able to afford such indulgences.

We set off some fireworks for the grandkids in recent days, but much less than others around us did. And, as a teaching moment, we stressed to two of our granddaughters how such money that is literally burned up in seconds, could be better spent elsewhere, such as on the toys they love, or on more productive uses.

On a day before the holiday when both gold and silver were running upward as I’ve been telling people I have expected they would, I noted to the girls how their custodial brokerage accounts I had set up for them (invested toward gold and silver) were rising in value before their eyes.

They immediately seized on the downside – to them – that being the accounts only are open to them to spend the money once they hit 18 years of age. Currently sitting at 6 and 5, respectively, that seems like an eternity in the future.

Gold and silver are running again today, with the usual suppression expected to keep the prices from being too strong heading into a weekend. But one expert I follow, who uses his proprietary formula of momentum structure to predict movements, went on the record last week that should gold and silver hit price levels this week well below what they trade at as I write this (current prices being gold $2,383.90 an ounce and $31.07 an ounce for silver) they will have broken out by his metrics.

I hope he’s right, because some positive results would be welcome against a sad backdrop for this nation.

Tonight is the night that the Clueless Joe Biden image rehabilitation tour goes nationwide with a scheduled 8 p.m. interview with a sympathetic media type.

In the wake of the Clueless One’s pathetic debate performance, excuses have filled the air.

Joe is a victim of sundowning, a state of confusion in late afternoons and evenings that afflicts some dementia patients.

Joe had a cold.

Joe was jet-lagged (from commuting back and forth from Camp David where he spent a week prepping for the debate?).

On the other end of the spectrum, many media shills and prominent Democrats now promote the Joe Must Go alternative. Give us someone, anyone, else to run vs. the hated Trump this fall.

These pathetic humans fail to address how just a week earlier they’d been denouncing those who viewed Biden as short in mental faculties as hateful rumor mongers.

They want us to believe they hadn’t noticed any of this, until the debate.

Must have been crowded for them living under that rock.

But the confused, garbled Biden was on full display again on July 4 as he made public appearances in which he strangely claimed to be the first Black woman to serve with a Black president, talked of being the first Catholic elected president of Delaware as a kid, and seemed to hint that he has been in battle as a member of the military, which he has not.

Biden, also during the debate, falsely had claimed no military members had died on front-line duty during his presidency, neatly forgetting the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle his regime oversaw.

As written here previously, I don’t think all of this rules out Biden being certified yet again as an electoral winner, more due to those counting the votes than to those casting them.

And that speaks to the sad, declining state of this once-great nation.

Forget the fireworks. Got gold and silver?

The U.S. men’s national soccer team is a lot like Clueless Joe Biden.

Both are long on indulging in misguided orgies of self-congratulation over imagined successes.

Both come up short when asked to perform in the clutch.

Both are tagged with looming expiration dates.

In the case of the U.S. men’s soccer team, it is their stay in the Copa America tournament that has an apparent expiration date, most likely on or about 11 p.m. tonight.

This means if you long to see the team in meaningful action, tonight’s 9 p.m. contest with Uruguay likely will be your last drink of water for some time.

Simply put, the U.S. has to do better against Uruguay than Panama does against Bolivia, or the U.S. stay in this tournament ends in the pool play segment, finishing third of four teams in the group and failing to advance to knockout play.

It would be yet another disappointment for a U.S. men’s program that has been over-promising and under-delivering since I was a kid.

Meanwhile, the U.S. women’s soccer team has gone from also-rans to world domination. And, while that outfit has slipped from the precipice of late, suffice it to say it won’t be disappearing anytime soon in the group play stage of a major tournament.

But that is precisely where the U.S. men find themselves. While FIFA rankings somehow have the U.S. men rated above Uruguay, the eye test has Uruguay appearing to be the better team.

This could be offset in part by Uruguay, which is fairly secure in its group positioning, resting players in tonight’s game ahead of the next round or rounds of play.

Also, the U.S. is in the familiar desperation mode, which supporters say will bring out a better performance than that seen to date in this tournament.

We can only hope so.

The U.S. play in this Copa America began with a 2-0 win over Bolivia, arguably one of the worst teams in the event. Uruguay beat Bolivia 5-0 and the U.S. missed enough Grade A scoring chances to have equaled that total.

But the U.S. players and their media apologists were all sunshine and lollipops over the uneven, unimpressive win over Bolivia. Even those who acknowledged something short of good play predicted better vs. Panama in the next game.

What we got, instead, was an early red card when U.S. player Tim Weah delivered what has been reported as a “punch” or a “shove” to an opponent’s head. He was sent off and the U.S. played a man short most of the game, losing 2-1. The offense was flagrant enough that Weah has been given an additional two games of suspension, meaning he doesn’t play tonight vs. Uruguay, or in the next round should the U.S. miraculously advance.

It was ironic that former U.S. star Landon Donovan, doing the broadcast Sunday of what looked like it was going to be a humiliating England loss to Slovakia in the Euro 2024 tournament, neatly summarized the U.S. men’s status.

Said Donovan, “You have no divine right to anything in this game, ever.”

Somehow, that message never gets through to the U.S. men. But another attempt is likely tonight.

There is an orgy of celebration this morning among the Republican faithful after Clueless Joe Biden reinforced to the world the image of his mental failings in a lengthy debate with Donald Trump.

No, as noted here yesterday, I didn’t watch it. Not necessary. I merely watched select clips after the fact and accepted the input of pundits whose opinions I respect.

It turns out this one was not close, with even usual Democrat apologists and sycophants in the lamestream media saying it out loud – Joe must go.

The same leftist sources such as MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, who blindly boosted Biden and bent the truth to do so, now are attempting to salvage some semblance of credibility by savaging him like the pack of hyenas that they are.

In recent weeks, they’ve accused conservatives of cherry-picking videos to make Clueless Joe look bad, neatly ignoring that he does a superb job of that on his own. Now, they admit he came off as weak and lost in this debate and should step aside “for the good of the party.”

How about the good of the country? Were these propaganda artists worried about that when they closed ranks to protect the obviously flawed Biden in 2020, not to mention his questionable family, and shepherd him into the White House?

No, they weren’t.

Did they seriously investigate and report on widespread allegations of voter fraud. No, instead they treated those questioning the vote as tin-hat wearing conspiracy theorists.

This is the same approach they’ve taken regarding those doubting Biden’s mental fitness for the challenging job of president. Now that Biden, after a week away from the presidency spent preparing for this debate, looked like a deer in the headlights, they are shifting their attacks to Biden.

Do we deserve an apology from these propagandists? You bet. Will we get it? Absolutely not.

They already are pivoting to deciding what empty suit they can run in place of Biden to keep the hated Trump out of office.

DR. JILL BIDEN, anyone?

And, to all the Republicans taking a premature victory lap, Democrats could still win the Oval Office in November.

I watched John Fetterman put on an equally incoherent debate performance against Dr. Oz and Fetterman still won the election for Senator from Pennsylvania. Such is the power of a brain-dead Democrat voter.

It didn’t matter to them that Fetterman was not up to the job physically or mentally, he had a D beside his name on the ballot. It will not matter to these same zombies that Biden is probably more lacking physically and mentally than Fetterman.

Just this morning, in the wake of the debate, I saw a neighbor at the other end of the street had put out a Biden-Harris yard sign. Didn’t notice it before today.

I repeat, your average registered Democrat voter has all the intellectual integrity of Baghdad Bob.

And there are many reports that party operatives already are seeking to bastardize the upcoming vote by issuing voter registration cards to all the illegal immigrants applying for welfare that Biden has allowed into this country with his open-border policy.

This isn’t over; not even close. Despite the increasingly apparent ability of Biden, in the supposed words of Barack Obama, to “f . . . things up” Republicans have a strong history of screwing the pooch, too.

Democrats still have all their “vote enhancing” machinery in place and even though pollsters and analysts now are openly predicting a Trump win, that’s a formidable challenge.

Democrats also have their ongoing legal assault on Trump, wherein misdemeanors past their statute of limitations, magically are ratcheted up to felony convictions in questionable courtroom proceedings.

Yes, Biden presented a sad picture Thursday. But he was widely acknowledged to be that bad before he won the first time, too. His pathetic performance as president, with crippling price rises in consumer staples, border insecurity, and U.S. weakness worldwide inviting despots to foment war and terrorists to act boldly is blindly ignored by the average Democrat.

Hold the celebrations until after the election.

Dave Ailes, one of my late, great former sports editors, had some pet phrases to express disdain for an event.

He might say that if it were being held in his backyard, he would pull down the blinds.

Other times, he’d say he was too busy to do something because he had to wax the cat, which curiously has come to be a euphemism for removing pubic hair or, according to an urban dictionary online, giving someone an outlandish excuse to avoid dealing with them.

Ailes was ahead of his time.

Were he still with us, dispensing his bon mots, Ailes would be pulling down the blinds regarding tonight’s presidential debate. And I’m right there with him.

First, these so-called presidential debates are jokes in general, with “moderators” who often are pushing an agenda via their questions.

I certainly expect that to be the case with tonight’s CNN example. The so-called Clinton News Network long ago ceded any semblance of impartiality, and with that, most of its audience.

And so we come to tonight’s debate on CNN, with Jake Tapper and the aptly named Dana BASH running the show.

That Trump even agreed to this venue seems to have been a mistake, not that debates on other networks promise much more in the way of even-handed treatment due to overwhelming mainstream media bias and/or ineptitude.

Perhaps realizing the error, Trump and his surrogates have been out ahead of the event attempting to note the biased moderators, particularly Tapper.

One Trump proxy even appeared on a CNN interview and promptly had her microphone cut off because the host didn’t approve of pointing out the biased nature of the debate moderators.

Understand that, as reported by the New York Post, Tapper has likened Trump to Hitler, called him a “desperate electoral loser,” a spreader of “Russian propaganda” and accused him of trying to ‘kill democracy.”

All of these are straight from the Democratic Party playbook.

As for BASH, she’s far from a down-the-middle political person.

Expect the debate to unfold on an uneven basis with Biden being asked to talk about his favorite flavor of ice cream, or the great success of his regime (all with straight faces on the mugs of the moderators).

Meanwhile, Trump will be challenged to prove he’s not Hitler, not a desperate electoral loser, not the would-be slayer of democracy.

As a side note, Trump wants the debate contestants drug-tested beforehand. The Biden camp, predictably, says no way, Jose.

Expect Clueless Joe to be hopping around like a racehorse, perhaps fueled by Adderall, which would show up on a drug test.

Bottom line, I will pass on the live event and take my cues from trusted analysts and pertinent video clips sure to be available after the fact.

Amidst these times of political correctness run amok, utter disregard for traditional values, and general bizzarro world behavior, we try to address the situation with another installment of news and views.

NEWS: The Texas Rangers are the only Major League Baseball team not to have a pride night this year, those ubiquitous homages to all things gay.

VIEWS: While the Rangers are not doing so well in the MLB standings this year, they’re atop my list of teams for having the courage to just say no to these lavish examples of style over substance; to celebrating those making an alternative lifestyle choice as some sort of heroes.

NEWS: The Woke Queen of Oakland, Mayor Shen Thao, had her house raided by the FBI, which reportedly was looking into claims of illegal campaign finance, among other failings.

VIEWS: Her honor, who also has presided over significant leaps in violent crime, is blaming it all on “radical right wing forces.” It’s better than insisting that the dog ate her homework.

NEWS: The brain donors who run Kenya decided now was a good time to tax the citizenry into submission with measures that included price increases on necessities such as diapers, in an effort to be environmentally friendly.

VIEWS: Residents responded by storming the parliament building, setting it afire and moved to rioting in the streets. The Democratic morons who hyped Jan. 6 protests in Washington, D.C., into “insurrection” ought to be paying close attention. Coming soon to a national capital near you, real insurrection.

NEWS: Leftists in the media are attacking Federal Judge Aileen Cannon for attempting to hold Trump accusers to legal standards in his Florida classified documents case.

VIEWS: Many of these stooges were outraged that people questioned the Colombian-born judge handpicked to try and, to turn into a circus, Trump’s New York City trial on so-called hush money, yet they feel free to go after Cannon relentlessly. Again, these stooges didn’t even seem to care that Judge Cannon ruled against the Trump legal team regarding the legality of the Mar-a-Lago search. And, finally, the stooges fail to note Cannon is a judge confirmed in a bi-partisan manner by Congress while Senor Colombia became a judge due to an appointment from then-NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg. Yes. Bloomberg is a Democrat, just as is Judge Colombia.

NEWS: Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has declared gun violence a public health crisis.

VIEWS: Well, duh. Murthy has the usual mealy-mouthed solutions, such as disarming the populace in general by making LEGAL gun ownership onerous due to over-regulation. A web site cited in the U.S. News and World Report story on the matter (gunviolencearchive.org) has removed suicides from its statistical trove. The site blames bad available data, which probably has something to do with suicides annually dwarfing other gun death totals. Also, banning so-called “assault rifles” which as available to the populace do not fit the term, and magazines for guns with capacities over some arbitrary figure, won’t cure gun violence. Harsher penalties and prison sentences for gun-wielding criminals instead of our catch-and-release justice system would help. Also, if someone really wants to kill another, guns are but one method. Just last week, the Johnstown Daily Bugle had not one, but two stories on the very same page about area people allegedly shooting other people and killing them with, wait for it, crossbows. No doubt Murthy soon will see crossbow violence as a public health crisis.

The hot mess that is Joe Biden stirs the imagination regarding what it would be like to have a direct conversation with the man, perhaps over a morning brew. No doubt it would be surreal, and confirmational of his declining mental state, not that further evidence of Biden’s mental failings would make any difference to his deaf, dumb and blind supporters

I’m thinking it might go something like this.

Me: So, Joe, how about this heat wave?

Joe: It’s not hot. You’re just like the people griping about inflation and the economy. They’re clueless, too. Things are great. It’s your imagination about the heat, too. It’s cool, man. You’re just a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.

Me: Moving on, you or your people, recently put out a social media post claiming zero inflation currently and you also told CNN in May that inflation was running 9 percent when you took office. Actually, inflation was 1.4 percent on a year-over-year basis back then, and the current annual inflation rate in the U.S. is between 2 and 3 percent, depending on the specific measure used.

Joe: Come on, man. It’s just like I was telling the president of Greece, Zelenskyy, the other day, people need to just relax and enjoy how great things are here. It could be a lot worse. They could be living in Ukraine. Zelenskyy even told me he’s grateful he’s living in Greece, not Ukraine.

Me: OK, I think. Lately there have been a lot of videos of you at public events staring blankly, wandering off and in many cases needing someone other than your usual handler — DOCTOR JILL BIDEN — to lead you around. What’s going on?

Joe: Did I ever tell you about the time I made Corn Pop back down? He was a bad dude, man. But he was/is black, so no doubt he voted for me, maybe more than once, and even if he’s technically dead. You know how those gang thugs don’t have a long life expectancy.

Me: But the videos?

Joe: Look, that Juneteenth thing, I thought Kamala was doing enough jumping around for the both of us. Obama was just trying to get a little air time when he grabbed me and walked me off the stage in Hollywood. That Group 7 deal, I was just going over to shake the hand of that 7-foot tall white rabbit – Harvey. And D-day, there really was a chair I was looking to sit on. You just couldn’t see it. Stealth technology.

Me: I see, or I don’t see, I guess. Something a lot of people saw – and can’t unsee – is the way you rubbed foreheads with Pope Francis the other day. He didn’t seem to like it. What was going on there?

Joe: Look, that’s just Joe Biden being Joe Biden. Maybe you’ve seen me standing uncomfortably close to young females, or smelling the hair of women near me in public settings. Well, the Popester is a guy and he’s bald, so I couldn’t smell his hair, could I? Rubbing my forehead against his was the next best thing.

Me: On that note, I’ll let you go since I guess you have a lot on your agenda . . .

Joe: Nope, this is it. Maybe a phone call from Hunter later – loves to keep The Big Guy in the loop – but nothing concrete except my nappy, watching some Brady Bunch reruns and then early to bed.

Me: Well, I do have some things I need to do . . .

Joe: Let me give you a little parting advice. The coffee was OK, but you ought to have something around for guests to munch on. I’m so hungry, I could eat Uncle Bosie if those damn cannibals hadn’t beaten me to him.

Amidst yet another wondrous Father’s Day I find myself pondering how the others handle days such as this, or Mother’s Day for that matter.

I speak from experience when I tell you that nothing surpasses the joys of fatherhood and presumably motherhood, although being a grandparent is a close second.

But what about the people who never have the opportunity?

Some cannot, having been denied by cruel physiological fate despite their fervent desires to be parents.

I feel for them.

It is the others, however, who prompt the most speculation on my part.

An anagram – DINK – was coined years back for people who got married, both worked, yet didn’t want to spend money on progeny, and so live out their lives as perpetual adolescents. DINK means dual income, no kids. It was and is a lifestyle choice.

All the while, their biological clocks keep ticking. I wonder, do they reach a point when it is too late that they regret the decision to indulge themselves and forego raising a family?

Such choices have long-term, rippling consequences. No children means no grandchildren. No great-grandchildren.

No memories of first steps, first words, first day of school, first date, marriage and the like.

I have heard others say they can live the experience vicariously through the children of friends or relatives. With all due respect, that’s like saying watching someone else eat a cherry pie is as enjoyable as consuming the treat yourself.

And then there is the matter of those who abort children. While we constantly have pro-abortion types trumpet about having the right to abort conception due to rape or incest, that is the tiniest part of the abortion spectrum. Most abortions are, to borrow a phrase from earlier in this piece, the result of lifestyle choices.

Economic woes, no relationship with the father, just not the right time, are among the more common reasons for abortion.

That leads us on another tangent. Not all men who have fathered children deserve celebration on this day. Too many are hit-and-run artists, who leave the woman holding the bag, figuratively speaking. For them, today should serve as an annual reminder that they dropped the ball.

They know not what they have tossed away.

I got a laugh at having two of my granddaughters present today, watching them make faces regarding the food choices, then end up enjoying the shrimp (barbecued, in butter or cold with cocktail sauce) that was part of the feast prepared by my wife. They passed on the steak, but loved the hot dogs and corn on the cob. And, oh, the desserts.

Maybe someday these girls will enjoy Mother’s Days, or Father’s Days with their eventual husbands.

At least, that’s where I hope things will go. I’d hate to think of these young girls falling into the DINK category.

Weather forecasts are calling for brutally hot weather in the coming week, but I’m not afraid. My electricity supplier emailed me that all is well.

That supplier is FirstEnergy, which proclaims in the email that its system stretching from Ohio to New Jersey, is ready to meet the challenge.

Staffing has been adjusted and any planned outages have been rescheduled.

Sounds good, until the second paragraph promises that any local outages caused by excessive heat will be handled promptly.

What happened to the promise in the first paragraph that FirstEnergy is prepared to meet the anticipated demand from the heatwave?

The email concludes with the usual no-kidding list of things one can do to improve efficiency, things like caulking windows, etc. This is the sort of stuff that is the staple of TV news reports regarding weather.

When it’s cold, they advise us to dress in layers and limit exposure. When it’s hot, they encourage us to drink plenty of fluid and take breaks.

I doubt many will be rushing to caulk windows in advance of this bit of heat. I won’t.

I’m thinking (hoping) we will get through this because FirstEnergy has assured me the company is ready.

It is disconcerting, however, to recall all the news stories about people elsewhere being asked to conserve during warm or cold periods, because the creaky electrical grid just can’t handle the load.

And I think if all the electric-car wet dreamers had their way and we all were whirring round in EVs how bleak things would be. That would be electrical vehicles needing recharging virtually daily. No less an authority that Mayor Pete Butt (whatever) our secretary of transportation, has been forced to admit during Congressional testimony that each EV requires the annual electricity consumption equal to a person running 25 refrigerators.

I am willing to bet that if all of us ran out and bought 25 refrigerators and plugged them in prior to this heat wave, the FirstEnergy promise would not be fulfilled.

This is something you might think about as you sit around in your air-conditioned home in coming days, looking to avoid the heat and trying to follow all the no-kidding advice from the media about how to do so.

Now imagine those air-conditioners not running because the electrical grid has crashed due to EV recharging demands.

Enjoy.

Today is Flag Day. I mention this because it’s a virtually unforgotten holiday.

Most workers don’t get the day off and it has not been shifted around to provide yet another of the three-day weekends that are the bones tossed to the masses hoping to keep the declining percentage of the population still interested in working maintaining that tendency.

The holiday commemorates the adoption of the U.S. Flag way back in 1777, a time when men were men and women were women and there were not thousands of madeup genders in between.

Traditional celebration of Flag Day involves displaying the Stars and Stripes.

The American Flag is on display at the front of my house, as it is on most days, holidays or not.

A quick visual scan of the street showed a total of four American Flags flying today, clustered in a knot of seven houses near the middle of the block.

Beyond that, it was just the usual potpourri of political statement (a pride flag) and decorative banners flown simply to dress up a house’s external appearance.

As a young man, the numbers I saw would have been much greater in terms of houses displaying American Flags.

This is a metaphor for the ennui that grips our divided nation even as Clueless Joe is in Europe wandering aimlessly away from his peers at a ceremonial display and having to be reined in by other political leaders much in the way parents steer toddlers away from trouble in public settings.

Patriotism, particularly that born of knowledge of the nation’s history, is all but dead. School children are taught a leftist stew of guilt, blame and disdain for such formerly basic principles as religion, family and critical thinking.

Just the other day, a story was reported that our friends up north in Canada are making tentative plans of how to deal with the disruption that would follow the outbreak of a Civil War in these United States.

Maybe their flaming liberal dress-up leader could alternate public appearances wearing uniforms of the opposing sides just as he has been photographed in the past clad in the garb of Arabs or Indians, the former including brownface makeup.

This would be as helpful as most of his decisions. Trudeau is Clueless Joe, without the excuse of slipping mental faculty to explain his bizarre actions.

Regardless, celebrate the remainder of this holiday, and consider just how much worse things might be when next the holiday rolls around – presumably if it is allowed to be celebrated in 2024.

Pirates rookie phenom pitcher Paul Skenes got an ovation from the fans when he was pulled from a Tuesday game. Nothing unusual except it was in St. Louis, with fans of the Cardinals recognizing the special nature of a visiting player’s performance.

Skenes, the first pick overall in the 2023 draft, has been nothing less than a revelation for the Pirates. In a month of Major League play, Skenes has started six games, going 3-0 with a 2.43 earned-run average.

His velocity routinely hits triple digits. He has a five-pitch repertoire and is only beginning to display that at this level.

Simply put, Skenes has given downtrodden Pirates fans a glimpse of greatness and hope that this moribund franchise might somehow return to the time when it won six division titles and two World Series titles in the 1970s, or three consecutive division championships in the early 1990s.

But the track record of the Pirates franchise in recent decades Skenes tells us will be elsewhere in 2030, when he becomes eligible for free agency, if not well before.

This reality was rammed home by watching the Los Angeles Dodgers play the New York Yankees over the weekend in a matchup many believe was a preview of the season’s eventual World Series pairing.

These are thought to be two of the best teams in the majors, and both have former Pirates pitchers on their rosters.

The starting pitcher for Los Angeles in one game was Tyler Glasnow. During the broadcast of that game, injured Yankees hurler Gerrit Cole, another former Pirate, was shown in the dugout.

The Yankees won one game, and Clay Holmes, yet another ex-Pirate, got the save.

The message is clear: The Pirates draft and/or develop talent, then send it elsewhere once the cost of retention becomes too steep.

Yes, the Pirates gifted Skeenes with a record $9.2 million signing bonus, but that number pales compared to the average $36 million a season Cole is scheduled to earn in his current 9-year contract with the Yankees.

The Pirates can’t be a consistent contender without spending a lot more money on payroll. That’s the truth, one proven by results since that last run of sustained Pirates success more than three decades back.

It can be argued whether the Pirates are frugal by choice or by necessity, but that doesn’t change the reality that they don’t spend enough to win.

The Pirates traded Cole to Houston after the 2017 season because they couldn’t afford to re-sign him.

One of the players the Pirates received in the deal was pitcher Joe Musgrove, who they traded to the Padres after two seasons.

Jameson Taillon, currently with the Chicago Cubs, is another Pirates castoff, one in some ways similar to Skenes. Taillon was the second overall pick in the first round of the 2010 draft. After several injury-plagued seasons with the Pirates, he was traded to the Yankees, a team that can afford to take chances on talented players with injury problems.

Taillon had two strong seasons with the Yankees, parlaying that into a four-year $68-million contract with the Cubs.

Even the Yankees can’t keep – pay – everyone. But teams like the Yankees and Dodgers do more than their share of spending.

The Pirates do not. The message to Pirates fans is enjoy Skenes while he’s here, because that sound you hear is the unmistakable ticking of the clock on his career in Pittsburgh.