So what does it mean to be a team leader in baseball? How can one personality influence the collective psyche?

The term is thrown around so loosely, it can lose meaning. Like, “dietary ice cream.”

“Veteran leadership.” How does it work?

Have an example, from the fly on the wall of the Pirates’ clubhouse.

Chris Resop calls out across to room:

“Hey, A.J. Who is No. 48? Don’t look at the sign above the locker.”

“Hughes!” A.J. Burnett shouts back, and starts walking across the floor.

“There you go. Jared Hughes was just saying he bets you don’t even know who he is.”

“I also know it’s not Jared. His first name is William,” Burnett says, as we walks up to Hughes and the two exchange a fist-pump.

“Wow! Thanks, man, Really cool,” the rookie Hughes, whose given name really is William Jared Hughes, tells the 14-year vet Burnett.

Any questions? 

This won’t come as a surprise, but Erik Bedard has been scratched from his next scheduled start, Monday against the Marlins in Miami. Brad Lincoln will step into his spot. Bedard, ousted from his Wednesday start by back spasms, will instead open up the two-game series on Wednesday against the Nationals.

Manager Clint Hurdle made the decision after talking to both Bedard and the training staff. Bedard has been taking muscle relaxants and getting other treatment.

What this means in the short-term is that Lincoln will not be available out of the bullpen for the final two games of the ongoing series against the Astros. But the Bucs have Daniel McCutchen available for any long relief assignments.

McCutchen was added to the roster when Joel Hanrahan went on the Bereavement List on Friday, and hasn’t yet worked. 

Hanrahan, whose grandmother had passed away, is due back in town Saturday night, and is expected to be activated for Sunday’s game.

Been a while since I’d seen Andrew McCutchen smile. The smile was back early Tuesday afternoon, as McCutchen looked forward to a productive return to the Bucs lineup.

He has played only 13 innings in a week, since coming down with a nasty stomach flu. He wishes he hadn’t played even that much.

Given Sunday off by manager Clint Hurdle and Monday by the Pirates’ schedule has made all the difference.

“Yeah, definitely. That was some well-needed time off,” McCutchen told me. “I felt good today, woke up feeling really good. So I feel like my normal self, ready to go out and start playing again.”

Normal is good. Andrew was back in his customary No. 3 spot in the lineup — but his lineup neighbors are different. Pedro Alvarez has moved in behind him in the cleanup spot, and Neil Walker is now in front of him in the two-hole.

“I lost a little weight, but I’m slowly putting it back on,” McCutchen added. “I got my appetite back, so I’ll be able to put it back quick.”

I must have been listening to the same back-in-my-day blowhards as Cole Hamels. When the Phillies lefty plunked Bryce Harper, then admitted it was an intentional welcome-to-the-big-leagues pitch, I have to admit to three immediate reactions:

1. Wow, a modern player actually aware of the game’s history.

2. He’s right; there’s a tradition for this. Veterans used to lay rookies, not welcome mats, in the dirt.

3. Fine, yes, but no way he gets suspended.

I was dead wrong — on all three counts. Being surprised by the misconceptions on the first two, of course, left no surprise for No. 3. MLB did the right thing by handing Hamels a five-day timeout. He could also have been sentenced to Old School, and I’d be in the desk next to him.

Separating myth from fact:

This is totally arbitrary, I know, but at random I looked at the Major League debuts of a baker’s dozen of eventual Hall of Famers and All-Stars from different eras who broke in with the Harper-type of fanfare that might have provoked pitchers to put them in their places: Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Ted Williams, Bob Horner, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Billy Martin, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, jim Rice, Fred Lynn.

An eclectic mix, I know; I said it was random.

Some got plunked at an early stage comparable to Harper’s eighth game. Rice, for instance, was hit in his debut game, and DiMaggio got it in Game No. 3. But enough contemporaries were not hit at all (Mantle, not once in his entire rookie season; Cobb, 50 years earlier, never got hit as a rookie; Williams didn’t go down until September of his first year) to make all that seem incidental.

This wasn’t a scientific, conclusive study. I also realize you don’t actually have to be hit to be given a message; getting dusted off is as effective, without making it into the stat line.

However, I think Cole and I both need to enroll in History Revision 101.

Clint Hurdle appeared to be more than a little bothered by the Bucs’ 17-strikeout performance on Sunday. While somewhat-grudgingly crediting Mat Latos and the Reds bullpen, he clearly faulted his batters’ approach.

Hurdle pointed out the “big swings” taken by a team really not suited for them, but his displeasure was most obvious in declining to defend Nate McLouth’s “big take.”

With the bases loaded and two outs in the first, McLouth was called out on a 3-and-2 pitch that clearly was low. Hurdle left no doubt to his thinking, that when a pitch is even close in that situation, you take a hack at it.

The postgame mood in the Bucs’ clubhouse was definitely somber. There might’ve been some chewing-out going on, maybe even in the dugout, before the 5-0 loss to Cincy was even over.

However it happened or however avoidable it might’ve been, Sunday’s game provided a bizarre bookend to Thursday’s in St. Louis. In the space of four games, Pirates pitchers set a new club record for most strikeouts in a 9-inning game, and tied their club record for striking out the most times in a 9-inning game — 17 in both cases.

Adding to the wackiness: The Bucs’ 17 was set up by Erik Bedard’s 11. Ditto for the Reds, with starter Latos ringing up the first 11.

A month after hurling Indianapolis’ last previous no-hitter, Ian Snell was in the Pirates’ rotation. 

So does that mean Justin Wilson, who pitched most (7 1/3innings) of the Indians’ first no-hitter since 2005, should pack his bags?

Not necessarily. Wilson already has more Triple-A experience than Snell had when he held Norfolk hitless on May 15, 2005. But the current Pirates staff, rotation and bullpen, is (yes, I can’t believe I’m writing this) impenetrable.

Nonetheless, Wilson obviously brightened his pin on the Pirates’ map with his Sunday gem against Durham.

Wilson was a mid-March cut from Spring Training with specific developmental instructions he apparently is following. When he was optioned, general manager Neal Huntington said Wilson needed to “refine his mechanics and become more consistent.”

He was consistent enough on Sunday to hold Durham hitless for 7 1/3 innings. Jose Diaz and Major League veteran lefty Doug Slaten finished up the gem.

Wilson was pulled after 107 pitches because he had pitched into the eighth inning for only the second time in 78 Minor League starts. However, always on the lookout for a match-up lefty, he may at first reach the Pirates as a reliever.

“Love the velocity, the arm strength and the power,” Huntington says of the 6-foot-2, 220-pound lefty who was the club’s fifth-round choice in the 2008 First-Year Player Draft.

A.J. Burnett was asked after last night’s game whether he somewhat expected the Pirates offense to be roused by his own nifty escape from a fifth-inning jam against the Braves.

“These guys don’t need a lot of spark,” A.J. said. “They go to the end every game. It just didn’t work out for us this time.”

But there have already been a lot of “this times” for the Bucs, especially their crack starters. In going six innings on a yield of two runs, Burnett tendered their seventh unrewarded quality-plus start. What’s quality-plus? I just made that up: Going six-plus innings and allowing no more than two earned runs (as opposed to three, for the standard quality start). The Bucs rotation has had 10 of those, and won only three of them.

Does the offense indeed need a spark? How long can you wait for it to catch up to the pitching?

This question becomes even more relevant today, as Bryce Harper joins the Nationals and Mike Trout joins the Angels. Washington called up its uber-prospect due to injury issues, so the Angels’ situation is more comparable to that of the Pirates — they’re languishing, and needed a pick-me-up.

The elephant in this room obviously is Starling Marte. It’s a touchy quandary for Neal Huntington, who among other things may be sensitive to repeating the Pedro Alvarez experience; the third baseman may yet get it right, but a lot of people feel his current problems are a reflection of the fact he’d been rushed to the Majors, merging into the Bucs lineup two years after being Drafted.

How do we know Marte wouldn’t turn out to be Jose Altuve instead? The little (5-foot-5) 22-year-old has lit a fuse under the Astros.

The Bucs want to expose Marte to enough Triple-A pitching so his bat is ready when he makes the jump but, ironically, his speed would be an immediate asset. Clint Hurdle knew his team was short on power and would have to make up for it with its legs, but that hasn’t been working out at all. Rather than run into big innings, the Bucs have been running themselves out of it. 12-for-22 in steal attempts isn’t cutting it.

The proven bats on this team will get hotter. But nobody will suddenly get faster.

Big topic of pre-game conversation in Bucs’ Turner Field clubhouse was their 2011 Waterloo — the Jerry Meals call that ended last July 26′s 19-inning game here, and started the Pirates’ tailspin into oblivion.

There may really be no such thing as an on-off switch, but when Meals erroneously called Julio Lugo safe under Michael McKenry’s tag, it sure did seem to turn out the lights on the Bucs. They went into that game tied with the Cardinals for the NL Central lead — and that game became the first loss in a 19-43 finish.

Returning players re-lived that game with a shrug. Clint Hurdle couldn’t even give it that much. “I hadn’t even thought about it,” the manager said.

Hurdle certainly gave a lot more thought to his lineup for the first of four against the Braves. Casey McGehee is in the seven-hole for the first time all season, with the hope he can provide some protection for Pedro Alvarez, who leapfrogged him into the sixth spot.

It’s just another way to try to extend some innings. Hurdle needs to sprinkle the few guys currently hitting throughout the lineup, to break up the automatic outs. Once the others pick up some steam, that won’t be a problem. 

I had a little time to kill yesterday at the Pittsburgh airport. Actually, I had a lot of time to kill. My travel agent is Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame. Rule No. 1: “The less time you have to catch a flight, the farther your gate, and vice versa.” So I’m really early for my flight to Atlanta — you got it, very first gate in the concourse.

Anyway — with all this time, and fresh out of David Baldacci books to read, I decided to make a list. Every once in a while, we hear about this veteran pitcher appearing in his umpteenth different Major League stadium, or that seasoned player playing in so many different parks — bloated numbers due to waves of new construction.

I was about to make my first visit to Turner Field, which I’d somehow missed for its first 15 years, but had frequently been to its predecessor, Fulton County Stadium. So I got to thinking: How many different Major League press boxes will that make for me?

So I began to list them, somewhat surprised by how quickly they all came back to me.

And — drumroll, please — The Ted will be No. 51!

Considering I started covering baseball when there were 24 teams, and even now we’re up to only 30 — guess that means I’ve seen a lot of yards come and go. I began humming Sinatra’s “There Used To Be A Ballpark Here” and flashed back to each and every one of them, randomly … 

Dodger Stadium … Angel Stadium … Memorial Coliseum (joined the list in 2008, when the Dodgers played a turn-back-the-clock exhibition against the Red Sox) … Three Rivers … Forbes Field … PNC Park … Riverfront … Great American … Municipal … Progressive … Shea … Yankee … Fenway …

… Wrigley … Fulton County … Oakland Alameda Coliseum … Candlestick … AT&T … County Stadium… Miller Park … Chase Field … Coors Field … Kauffman … Comiskey … U.S. Cellular … Busch II and III … Veterans … Citizens Bank … Memorial … Camden Yards … Pro Player … Tropicana … Arlington … Rangers Ballpark … 

… Exhibition Stadium … SkyDome … Olympic Stadium … Tiger … Comerica … Kingdome … SAFECO … PETCO … Jack Murphy … Astrodome … Minute Maid … Metrodome … RFK … Nationals Park … Metropolitan.

Spring Training ballparks? Don’t even start me, considering I’ve done both Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues.

And know what? When I first step into Turner Field, the kick will be as big as ever. Might even do a little jig through the door.