Will Tracy turn Bucs around?

So, who is this guy Dick Tracy ... I mean, Jim Tracy?
We're talking about the new guy on the block, the one the Pittsburgh Pirates hired the other day to manage the ball club next year.
Maybe Tracy is a household name out on the West Coast, but here in the Keystone State he's about as well known as my mother's stuffed pumpkins. (It's OK, mom, I loved them.)
Tall task
But like his namesake, this Tracy will be attempting to solve quite a few dilemmas of his own. He's not exactly stepping into a rose-colored garden. He's inheriting a Pirate franchise that has forgotten how to win, with 13 consecutive losing seasons, including one that hit the depths of depression this last season, finishing at 67-95.
Tracy takes over a ball club with a payroll as large as my grandkids' piggy banks. Tracy was never handcuffed like that with money problems as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he recently concluded five mostly successful seasons.
Tracy says he's welcoming the challenge with the Bucs and you can bet he's really going to get one. He says he remembers the days when the Bucs were somebody, a feared opponent on the diamond. He wants to return to that dignity once again and restore what Buc fans have been craving for, for so long, a winning season. But that's what former Pirate manager Lloyd McClendon envisioned, but he was given his walking papers following last season's debacle.
Tracy, 49, recorded a 427-383 mark with the Dodgers, which included an NL West title in 2004. This season, however, LA slumped to a 71-91 mark.
Missed opportunities
The Pirates, in all probability, could have hired former Pirate manager Jim Leyland, had they not been so slow in negotiations.
Leyland, however, signed with Detroit before the Bucs could make their move. Oakland Athletics manager Ken Macha was also a candidate for the Bucs post, however, he just signed a three-year contract to manager the Athletics again.
Tracy reportedly was the front-runner from the start, He and Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield worked together with the Expos organization in the '90s and that may have been one of the guiding factors in Tracy getting the position.
While with the Dodgers, Tracy took a group of young players and molded them into winners. Such is the same situation with the Pirates. He has youth working for him now in Pittsburgh with home-run slugger Jason Bay, up-coming hurlers Zach Duke, Paul Maholm and Oliver Perez, outfielder Chris Duffy, second baseman Jose Castillo and shortstop Jack Wilson.
That may be a good building foundation for the future.
We'll see.
One for Jack
Congratulation are in order for Coach Jack Leipheimer and the Thiel College Tomcats, who recently claimed the Presidents' Athletic Conference football championship.
It's been a few years since Leipheimer graduated from Hickory High (1970) and went on to play college ball at Thiel. He has coached at Kennedy Catholic, Allegheny College and now at Thiel. And when his Tomcats locked up the PAC crown with a 24-14 triumph over Thomas More last week, it sealed Thiel's first PAC crown since 1972, when Leipheimer was a tight end/punter.