Jul 6, 2019 4 min read

The Penguins snuck in a contract extension for coach Mike Sullivan into the dead news period that is the Friday after July 4, making it seem like they wanted the move to be made quietly.

Sure, Sullivan’s team underachieved last season, getting swept out of the first round of the playoffs.

But Sullivan has a 174-92-34 record as the Penguins’ head coach and ranks third all-time in franchise history in games coached (300) and wins (174). His .637 winning percentage ranks second.

He’s won a pair of Stanley Cups in his four seasons with the Penguins.

That he should receive a contract extension should never have been in question. Yet there are those who think he shouldn’t have been extended. Such is the job of being a coach of the Penguins or Steelers.

Unless you’re winning the championship every year, there are those who feel you aren’t doing a good job.

Those people fail to realize how difficult it actually is to win a championship in any sport. Injuries and pure dumb luck are always involved.

Sure, Sullivan’s team got swept out of the playoffs last season, but that doesn’t negate the job he did in his first two seasons.

• How good of a season is Pirates’ first baseman Josh Bell having?

Consider this: Going into Friday night’s game against the Brewers, Bell had 59 extra-base hits. In his 2013 National League MVP season, Andrew McCutchen had 64 extra-base hits in 157 games.

Bell has played in 85 games this season.

• The Steelers remain only $985,000 under the 2019 salary cap.

In the previous years, they would have restructured a contract or two by now to clear cap space.

But after going that route in 2018 with Antonio Brown, thinking he would be a long-term member of the team, it came back to bite them when Brown lost his mind.

That move raised Brown’s 2019 salary to $21.2 million, which would be fine if he was on the roster. As it is, it’s a lot of money to be allocated to a player not on the roster – even if it isn’t necessarily money out of pocket.

Because of that, the Steelers seem more reluctant than in previous years to renegotiate contracts to create cap space.

• Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon might be the biggest jerk in baseball. That is probably the easiest argument to make in the world.

But Maddon took things to another level this week.

After the Cubs 11-3 win over the Pirates on Thursday — the only victory by the Cubs in the four-game series — Maddon had this to say:

“I love their players. It’s a good team,” Maddon said after being ejected for going after Pirates manager Clint Hurdle.

“It’s a real good team. And they’re good guys. I like the guys on this team but if they keep pitching like that, a lot of these guys are not going to like their pitching staff.”

Mind you, this came after Pirates pitchers hit all of two batters in a game. Did they also pitch up and in a couple of times? Sure.

But that’s the cost of doing business in baseball.

If you’re going to crowd the plate, don’t be surprised when your hitters wear a baseball or two. It’s part of the game.

Maddon understands that as well as anyone. At the very least, he has now put Major League Baseball on alert. When the Cubs and Pirates meet again, and they will for a series that begins Friday in Chicago, expect warnings or ejections the first time a pitch gets anywhere near a batter.

Here’s hoping it’s one of the Cubs starters who gets tossed. Maddon would deserve no less for making threats.

• My money would have been on Hurdle to take Maddon, by the way, if umpire Joe West had let him get to the Pirates dugout.

• It’s hard to believe but we’re less than three weeks away from the Steelers reporting to Saint Vincent College for the start of training camp.

Where did the summer go?