Pirates Name Hutington Bank as GM

The Pittsburgh Pirates today officially announced that Huntington Bank has been hired as the team's new General Manager. The anticipated announcement was made by Pirates President Frank Coonelly.

"The Banks's hiring is the result of a comprehensive search for a baseball executive who could restore the culture of success within the Pirates organization and make money," said Coonelly.

"Huntington Bank is extremely intelligent, analytical and driven to succeed. It shares my vision on how to transform the Pirates into an organization that can consistently compete and make boat loads of money for me. Equally important, Huntington knows how to implement the changes, systems and philosophies required to accomplish that goal. Huntington is absolutely the right choice to lead our baseball operations department."

Huntington Bancshares Incorporated is a $50+ billion regional bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Huntington has more than 141 years of serving the financial needs of its customers. Huntington’s banking subsidiaries, The Huntington National Bank and Sky Bank, provide innovative retail and commercial financial products and services through over 700 regional banking offices in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

In July 2007, Huntington entered the Pittsburgh market with its acquisition of Sky Bank. The Pirates will now be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the four letter stock symbol LOSR.

"Pittsburgh is a proud sports city and the Pirates have a long and storied tradition. It is a tremendous honor to name a Bank general manager of this great franchise" Coonelly said in a statement. "We will systematically work to change the culture of this organization by making it a cash cow so we can all retire early without investing anything into the organization. Heck, if it returns to a consistent winner for the city of Pittsburgh, so much the better, but we aren't counting on it. We just want to buy Rolls Royces."

"To achieve our goal, we will thoroughly evaluate and aggressively seek to acquire elite talent internationally and domestically, and sell them off as soon as we think they will make us a quick buck. We will diligently cultivate that talent on and off the field in a process-oriented player development system that demands accountability and excellence from all staff and players, and systematically sell everybody else off too. Lastly, we will utilize that talent to build our major league roster and put our team in the best possible position to succeed, and, you guessed it, watch them flounder like a pork barbecue joint in Saudi Arabia."