PHOTO BY SEAN COLLIER

You can be bad or you can be dumb. You can’t be both.

The front office of the Pittsburgh Pirates is in the process of learning that lesson, as a series of public blunders have coincided with a dismal opening to the 2025 season.

The latest such instance involves the disappearance of the Bucco Bricks, a collection of about 10,000 commemorative bricks sold to fans when PNC Park was built a quarter-century ago. Sold for $75 to $150, the bricks were an opportunity for Pirates fans to put a personal message — often, a memorial or tribute to a loved one — into the ground outside the ballpark.

These bricks have been replaced (with the messages reprinted) twice before; wear and tear necessitates it. In previous years, however, the bricks have remained in the same spot; fans didn’t come to the ballpark looking for their brick only to find a patch of concrete.

So where, then, were the bricks? At a dump in Reserve Township.

The team has since clarified that replacement bricks are on their way (perhaps to be displayed at a new location). Team owner Bob Nutting has personally apologized for the incident.

This story came on the heels of another public-relations slip, as a booze ad appeared on the right-field wall where an emblem bearing Roberto Clemente’s name had been in recent seasons. The team tried to downplay this controversy, explaining that the spot had traditionally been used for advertising and had only borne Clemente’s name temporarily when a prior ad had been removed.

Because heaven forbid there be a square inch of that building without some kind of advertisement. But I digress.

Smaller recent stories have included a New York Yankees fan going viral for a custom Paul Skenes Yankees jersey — a nod to the assumption that the Pirates will fail to pay Skenes what he’s worth when free agency arrives — and Andrew McCutchen getting into a Twitter spat with Pat McAfee.

By the way, how are things going with, you know, baseball games?

Oh, that’s right: The Pirates are already in last place, with a dismal 6-11 record. The team’s batting average through the first 10% of the season is a lifeless .199; the next-worst team at the plate is the Cincinnati Reds, who overcame their own .200 average to easily sweep the Pirates this weekend.

If the Pirates were playing well — or even in a manner befitting Major League competition — extracurricular missteps wouldn’t pack such a punch. But if the front office remains unwilling or unable to field an actual big-league roster, they need to be perfect off the field.

Both the Bucco Bricks flap and the right-field advertisement are, at their core, examples of carelessness. Whichever employee was in charge of the placement of the ad didn’t think to move the Clemente logo or communicate with the public about the change; whoever was in charge of the Bucco Bricks transition dropped the ball on timing and messaging. Such flops can be explained — but the fact that these errors happened at all conveys something larger about the way Pirates are conducting business.

They’re operating like they already have the fans’ trust and loyalty.

That’s a bad assumption. Perhaps the “Sell the Team” chants might have clued them in?

If the Pirates are going to continue to struggle — and, more importantly, if Bob Nutting is going to avoid spending enough money to compete — then the front office needs to operate in continual crisis mode, working overtime on managing every other aspect of the team’s relationship with its customers and the city. There can be no blunders. Someone needs to make sure that every interaction the public has with PNC Park is flawless.

There are going to be more than enough errors on the field. They can’t afford any outside of it.