In professional baseball, if your batting average is .250 you probably make somewhere between $2 - $4 million a year with the probability being you’ll stick in the League (so long as you’re a decent defender and runner) for a solid eight to ten years.

In other words, and by getting a hit one in four times, you’re doin’ OK.

But I’m not so sure that one out of four is all that wonderful when it comes to city government and taking care of the City of Pittsburgh’s economic woes.

Let me explain.

First Plate Appearance – The City of Pittsburgh, and back in the fall of 2010, hosted a conference (organized by the Marcellus Shale Coalition) that dealt with the natural gas industry. This conference was well attended, and from what I understand, it generated millions and millions of dollars in economic activity for: western Pennsylvania; all of the businesses involved with gas exploration in western Pennsylvania; and of course; the City of Pittsburgh.

In other words, everyone benefited. And so it was anticipated that this would become an annual Pittsburgh event. It just seemed logical that it would especially since western PA is the true epicenter of the Marcellus industry.

Of course, we now know that Pittsburgh’s City Council, and even as this conference was happening, was working hard to pass an ordinance that would ban all Marcellus drilling. I remember thinking at the time, “There pretty much goes any opportunity for a second Marcellus conference in this part of the world.”

“Brilliant thinking,” I remember saying to myself, “just brilliant.”

Next week, I and three of my colleagues will be attending the second Marcellus conference. Trouble is, this second conference will be held at the convention center in downtown Philadelphia.

I am going to this conference because I am very much interested in the Marcellus and all of the entrepreneurial opportunities it is driving. (When I visited a Washington County-based well pad last week, I learned that some 115 local companies were selling back to just that one well pad. This included services, products, and people. I have also interviewed, and on Pittsburgh Business Radio (WMNY AM 1360 M-S and FM 104.7 Sundays), a half-dozen entrepreneurs whose businesses are 100% dependent upon Marcellus. This, I believe, is what economists call, “Economic Drivers.”)

One of my listeners, a gentleman who owns a thriving business in Washington County but who himself lives in Allegheny County, sent me a copy of a letter that he had recently written to the executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

I quote: “While I realize that the Marcellus Shale extends all the way to northeast PA, it is Pittsburgh and Washington County that actually represent the epicenter of the play. Therefore, I was quite surprised that you chose Philadelphia as the venue for your September conference.”

He went on, “I will attend a Marcellus conference in Philadelphia when a Philadelphia pharmaceutical industry holds a major industry conference in Pittsburgh, or better yet, in Washington County. The center of gravity for every economic action is not always Philadelphia!

I will not be attending.”

Like I said, I am attending, but only because Pittsburgh Business Radio derives a percentage of its income from the Marcellus play, and also because I personally believe that this is the greatest economic generator of our time --- perhaps even since the birth of the steel industry.

In all other aspects, I completely agree with the letter writer’s opinions.

Second Plate Appearance – City Council, and for reasons I’ll never understand, attempts to build into the Home Rule Charter language that would pretty much forever ensure that natural gas exploration would never happen within Pittsburgh’s city limits.

This was an absolute insane decision. First, because it makes our Council members look like fools; and second, because no energy company I’ve ever heard of would even consider drilling in the city limits anyway. (I could begin to list reasons for this, but I know that you can easily figure them out on your own. Start with the fact that drillers need roughly five acres for each of their well pad sites, and you get the idea.)

Third Plate Appearance – A very close friend of mine, and an individual who has done much for entrepreneurism in western Pennsylvania, found himself smack dab in the middle of the recent Washington Boulevard flood.

I hung on his every word as he told me how he was able to escape the rising waters (and man did they rise --- according to him, about an inch every minute). After having walked through chest-high water/sewage only to find himself next having to negotiate some 30 yards of just plain mud/sewage, he fell exhausted onto a hillside overlooking the carnage.

He was frightened. He had never before contended with the full wrath of Mother Nature and he saw how quickly the forces of nature can make our thinking that we actually control our lives completely academic.

Covered with mud, blood, sewage and fuel, he was handed just a single blanket and told, “Sit right there --- don’t move more than two or three feet or you’ll be arrested.” This, from the lips of an EMS “professional.”

My friend’s exact quote to me was, “Ron, we were shivering, we were nauseated, and we were covered with everything you could imagine. And yet the police and EMS were screaming at us, telling us that we would sit there, motionless, until they decided that we could again move. All I could think was, ‘I’m paying this guy’s salary?”

The most unfortunate part of telling you this story is that, and I’m almost 100% certain of this, you probably have a very similar story as well.

Plate Appearance Four – Finally, a base hit.

I’m referring to the Mayor’s “Project Pop Up (PPU).” PPU is a concept that was originally developed (I believe) in San Francisco and New York City, primarily for artists.

Essentially, the City administrators in those towns “squeezed” both donors and landlords to, and respectively, pledge operating dollars and storefronts. The City then turned around and made those storefronts and dollars available to artists wishing to display their work.

Quite a deal, especially when you consider the fact that the attached stipends could be used for build-out, supplies, even operations.

Unfortunately, and as might be expected, the pop ups were generally less than successful. There were numerous reasons for this, but primarily it is believed that these kinds of “businesses” are simply just not sustainable.

I believe it was New York that first took the step away from just supporting the arts, adding to the mix some real-world, commercial businesses. Today, these businesses seem to be surviving, even thriving.

By the time the whole Pop Up idea migrated to Pittsburgh, the ratio seemed to be about 66% commercial business and 33% art gallery. And so here in Pittsburgh, some 15 sites have been (shall I say it?) “expropriated” and enough money has been raised such that stipends ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 are now available.

The Mayor’s plan is to have all 15 sites up and running by “Light-Up Night” (late November) and it looks very much as if this will happen.

I, in fact, have a student who is involved in the Pop Up Program, and I personally think his model can work.

The Pop Up Program not only does away with one of Pittsburgh’s dirtiest and ugliest little secrets – empty storefronts – but also puts new and exciting businesses in their places. I’d love to tell you about my student’s business but I don’t think at this point he would be very happy if I did. Let us just say it is “unique.”

A couple years ago, I was visited by a nice young man from the Mayor’s office who told me that, and in his Mayor’s most recent election, “He got his butt kicked” when it came to his understanding of economics and business. I can see why. For even though the Mayor was on the right side vis-à-vis the Marcellus decision, he is unfortunately painted with the same brush anyway.

But I feel as if this latest program, small though it may be, is a step in the right direction.

And when you throw in the fact that good people like the Piatt family (Millcraft Industries) are putting their money where the City’s mouth is by investing in downtown apartments and condominia, you have even more reasons why the city might be a reasonable bet in the future.

Now, if Pittsburgh could only understand how absolutely anti-business so many of its programs and procedures still are. Need I list them?

• Parking meter larceny;
• Unfriendly and non-existent police and other emergency service personnel;
• Making it difficult, if not impossible, to build or modify existing structures;
• And the big one – TAXES! (When, oh when, will the City realize that its tax policies are driving businesses out of, not in to, this town?)

But that’s a whole other column for a whole other day. Hopefully, the City will find even more programs to attract both residents and businesses to the metropolis. Because all in all, it’s really not a bad place to live or work.