Football? Wherefore Art Thou, Football?

Oh, for the love of Mike, what do I have to do to get some football around here?  I've been patient; I've been good; can I PLEASE have some damn football?

Sorry.  I get this way every year in the last couple weeks before Training Camp opens.  You can tell that I am not the only one affected so.  The media gets more and more manic, as they try desperately to find any newsworthy nugget.  Case in point is today's gem from that tool, Mike Florio, at PFT.  You might want to have your kids avert their eyes for the next part.  Our Big Doof QB was playing golf in Ohio...and...peed...on...the...grass.  Oh my stars and garters!  A guy is playing golf on a forty bazillion acre expanse of land, hydrates properly with a number of favorite beverages and feels the call.  SOMEBODY CALL THE COPS!  BEN'S PEEING ON THE GRASS!  Crack investigative reporting there, Mikey!  (Just leave that crappy pun dangling, please!)  Seriously, check out the link.  This yutz, with his man-hate, has cycled way down but, if you think about it, there is real newsworthy piece of this story.  Ben is a Steeler, playing golf in Ohio, home of the Bungles and the Brownnosers, but all he does is pee on the ground?  What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is going on here?  Is Ben going soft in the head?  (Oops, obvious question.)  Does this mean he will take it easy on the Ohio teams?  My Lord!  Call the reporters!

And Bus?  How the mighty have fallen.  Geez, friend, you're a Steeler.  Can you please go drop dimes on some other team for a while?  Bill hung around that lame duck year because you couldn't shut your yap.  Please stop giving us your "insights" on the Black and Gold!

Of course, there are good reporters, too, and good football stories.  I make it a point to stop by BTSC for my daily Steelers fix.  I also stop by Yahoo! for the lastest Jason Cole column.  I do not agree with Mr. Cole all the time, but the guy writes very well.  You can tell he loves the game as much as the rest of us.  I like that he continues to find fanboy kind of things to keep me interested in the offseason.  When he ranked 3-4 defensive lines and the Steelers were 6th, though, I cacked on my Raisin Bran.  Sure, you mention Smith and the Snack-meister but, dude, have you heard of Brett Keisel?  The guy is a beast! He got a little lost as the number one guy on the end last year but, with Aaron healthy, it should be a fun year for the Deisel.  In his defense, Cole more than made up for his temporary insanity by ranking the linebacking corps.

"With LaMarr Woodley and James Harrison, the Steelers have the best combination of accomplished pass rushers among 3-4 defenses in the NFL.  In fact, it’s not real close.  The only team that could close the gap anytime soon is Dallas if Anthony Spencer improves.  When you add in inside linebackers James Farrior and Lawrence Timmons (seven sacks last season), you have the best overall linebacking corps in the league by a pretty good margin.  Dallas is really good, but the Steelers are special."   Ahhhh.  Things are fine again in Steelerville.

I have to admit, I am getting a little manic, myself.  The start of Training Camp means it is almost time for the annual pilgrimage to football Mecca.

This year in Canton is going to absolutely rock.  Pittsburgh years in Canton are always pretty cool but this year is special.  Take a look at the Class of 2010:

Russ Grimm                 Pitt kid

Rickey Jackson            Pitt kid

Dick LeBeau               Coach Dad - How cool is that?

Floyd Little                 Ummm.....flew through Pittsburgh a few times

John Randle                Great player who deserves to get in

Jerry Rice                   The Roy Hobbs of receivers - the best there

                                   ever was and ever will be

Emmitt Smith              Pittsburgh traded away the pick that
                                  gave Emmitt to the Boys - you're welcome!

My big plan is to work my way into the volunteer committee so I can get a high five from Jerome when he makes the grade.  I swear I will be on my best behavior.  I promise not to bust on him for his foray into journalism.  And, even though Canton is in Ohio, no peeing on the grass! 

Great Moments in Dadliness - 19 Jun 2010

You might have learned everything you needed to know in kin- dergarten but I learned it all from my dad. Seriously, once you learn how to play fair, live with honor and never, ever back down, what else is there? Sure, fart jokes are important and every guy has to learn his way around a grill but you can pick those up along the way.

I wanted to take a break from the kinda, sorta sports talk you normally have to slog through for a Father's Day piece. You know what they say, "My blog, my rules." Okay, nobody actually says that, but they should! Besides, the Pirates are 826 games out of first place. It's not like you're missing any breaking baseball news. These guys reached rock bottom and keep digging.

I've been a lot of places and done some very cool things but the best job I ever had was being a dad. Just coming home to see my sons' faces light up as I got out of the car made my life complete. This, of course, was before they became teens and hated me. They got over it and, now, I get to be a Pap to my grandkids, an even cooler job. I didn't think you could get cooler than the coolest, but there you go. From those wild, full body hugs only a little kid can give to the weekly walks to the cornerstore with my first son for my newspaper and his piece of candy, this was a job I could really get into.

I learned how to be a dad from a guy who was pretty good at it himself. My dad was invincible. He knew everything and everybody. He told us of how he had regular conversations with Steelers and Pirates, TV stars and Pittsburgh bigwigs. This was heady stuff for a kid who already worshipped the guy. As I got older, my brothers, sister and I started to think my dad was actually full of crap. Nobody could be the hero of every single situation, not even him.

We were driving through some town in Ohio. I was probably around twelve. My sister, brother and I were working out the lines of demarcation in the back seat of the station wagon when my dad rolled down the window and called, "Hey, Bill! How are you doing?" We looked at each other and sniggered, like he was trying to impress us with some new BS story. The guy on the street turned around, looked and said, "Hey, Jack, good to see you!" Whoa. I mean, really. Whoa.

Whoa, again. How wild is it to have a dad who knows absolutely everyone? We were just passing through some random town and he was chatting with buds on the street! I was suitably impressed for years. It wasn't until much later, when real cynicism set in, that I started to wonder if Dad set it up. My dad could be pretty sneaky. I still wonder if he slipped a twenty to a friend and said, "I want to impress my kids. Drive over to this little town and be standing on the corner at 3:15. I'll drive by and call to you."

So I learned to be a dad from the best. I learned that you do whatever it takes to be the great dad. Decades later, driving through Ohio again, but this time with my middle son in the back seat. We just got back on the road after our 47th potty break. Traffic was a mess around Cincinatti, due to construction and we were crawling. I realized I did not close the back door securely but there was no shoulder through the construction zone, so I asked my son to open and close it for me. When he did, his prized, personalized license plate from California fell out. The hysterics were immediate but I still could not pull off the road or stop. I tried the dad thing and told him to grow up. Yeah, that worked. Next, I told him I would get him a new one when I took another trip to CA. Still no luck. I finally found a tiny highway alcove almost a mile up the road. You have not lived till you have to trek back a mile, through a highway construction zone, with a bawling little boy, trying to find a crappy blue piece of tin. We finally found the license plate and trudged back to the van, with the accompanying horns and cat calls. We got back and only lost an hour or so. I strapped my son back into his seat, happy now that he had his treasure. As I pulled back into traffic, he wanted to thank me for being such a great dad. To this day, I am sure of it. But, when he opened his mouth, he said, "Dad. I need to pee!"

Sadly, kids grow up. I always wanted to shellack them at six or seven and keep them that age. Wishing was in vain, though, because I just couldn't figure out how to make air holes for the process. Before you know it, they are grown and you have these huge, hairy things shambling around the house like your own personal mastodons. Once my youngest son, my baby boy, opened the fridge and took out a large Tupperware container with a complete family dinner. He got a fork and started eating out of the container, so I said, "Hey! Just take what you're going to eat!" He said, "Dad, I did." I think the rest of us ate macaroni the next night.

I was lost when Dad, Phase One, ended and our youngest went off to college. The grandkids initiated Phase Two and we are happily making up songs about bananas, telling gross booger jokes, filling the house with pink and purple for Tinkerbell festivals and reading stories with Grover voices. So I get all this AND a day in my honor? Well, doesn't that just rock!

I am sure this was not the yuckfest you came here to read. Deal with it. For Father's Day, I want to thank the man who made me what I am and the three young men who tolerated my attempts at dadhood. I really do want to thank them, I am sure of it, but I need to pee. Take that, Mike!

Hibernating, 12 June 2010

Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks for winning the Stanley Cup. To paraphrase one Pittsburgh fan, "Thanks for volunteering to take care of the Cup for us till next year." So again, congrats to the Hawks and especially to Marian Hossa.

Yep. Got that right. I am over the Hossa hate that gripped so many Burghers after he sold us out to join the Red Wings. A lot of us have not made the transition, hoping that he would lose forever, in everything he did. Some went so far as to (gasp!) cheer...for...the...Flyers. Even my cousin, who is normally very cool (she's from Pittsburgh; she can't help it) wanted the Flyers to win game six. Not me. I would even consider rooting for the Crapitals against Philly. Another very cool relative (somehow I managed to score all the cool relatives) wanted to congratulate all of the Blackhawks except Hossa. You're my hero, Sabman, but I have to disagree. When I became a temporary life-long Blackhawks fan, I knew that Hossa could raise Lord Stanley.

Really bad aside: in the buildup for the game when the Steelers played the Cardinals in the Greatest Superbowl Ever, the media interviewed one doof Cardinals fan who said he had been a lifelong Cardinals fan for five years. I've been using the line ever since.

I can hold a grudge for decades. There are people who ticked me off when I was eight that I still have not forgiven, so I get it. But Hossa? I can't hate the guy. What did he do that was so bad? He went to another team, in search of Lord Stanley. He made a bad choice and we had a lot of fun rubbing that in his face but the guy paid his dues. It's not like he jumped at the money like, oh...I don't know...Barry Bonds? Hossa took a cut in pay to get a shot at the Cup with a perennial contender. I have to respect that. Bonds went where the money was best and we forgave him. Sure, it took fifteen years, but the point is that we forgave him. Personally, I never understood the Barry hate and got over it after only ten years. Look at the circumstances: San Fran offers twice as much money as the Bucs, keys to the city and, apparently, keys to the pharmacueticals locker. Who in his right mind would turn down DOUBLING HIS SALARY for the love of the game? I guarantee that, if you doubled my salary, I could love the game a whole lot in my new city.

Hossa did not badmouth his former team. Taken in the correct context, he did kind of call the Penguins losers by saying he wanted a better chance at the Cup. We have to keep in mind that the man is from Czechoslovakia. Poor word choices in translation are to be expected. It's not like he hired a speech writer so cut the guy some slack. We can't forgive a player who openly talks bad about his former team after he leaves Pittsburgh. If Yancey Thigpen had a career after he left the Steelers, we would still be pissed about the comments he made. Instead, he went to the Titans and disappeared. That'll teach him not to criticize his oldteam! Even the great Terry Bradshaw had to apologize to the city before we would show him some love.

So the hockey season ends but the blog must go on. Baseball playoffs are only a couple months away. Bwaaahaaahaaa! I almost typed that with a straight face. The Pirates are fifteen games below .500 and it is only June! I wasn't even sure it was mathematically possible to lose more games than you played, then the Buccos come to town. OMG! (Sorry, had to put that in for the younger readers. For us older guys, it means Oh My God! Just doing my part to keep you current.) Anyway, it's close enough to the football season to start getting nuts about the Steelers. If it works right, I'll carry my football playoff beard right into the hockey finals. Another year with Lombardi and Stanley in the same city would be uber-sweet. (Umm, that means having both football and hockey championship trophies in the city would be one heck of a lot of fun. Try to keep up) Check back now and then to say hello.

Hibernating, 9 June 2010

This is the worst time of the sports year: the in between seasons time when your team is sitting at home, watching some crappy team play the Blackhawks for the Cup. Man, I hate that! The Steelers are still hanging out at OTAs (Offseason Time is Awful) and being pretty boring though, with our doofus quarterback, boring is okay. The Bucs are, well, the Bucs. The other day, they got beat by a 12 year old kid on the Nationals. I heard he struck out everyone on the Pirates, the snow cone guy, three Bud Light vendors, a parking lot attendant and seven of his own players. Sheesh! When will our baseball pain end? As for hockey, the big event in the Burgh is the Student Flush at the new Consol Center to test the toilets in the Pen's new home. Be sure to catch the highlights tomorrow on Sports Center. Sad as it sounds, you know they will cover it.

So, anyway, offseason is not fun. How do people talk smack in the days of no sport? Office chair races? "I can staple faster than you" races? Sadly, there is no firing range at the Pentagon so marksmanship (and dueling) are out. Arrrrrggggggghh! Hurry up, football!

My favorite tradition of championship sports, aside from the obvious one of Pittsburgh players hoisting whatever trophy, is the bet between the local politicians. The mayors and governors of the respective cities and states in the champoinship pony up whatever their big specialties if their teams lose. The losing politician has to deliver the delicious food to a soup kitchen in the winning city. The mark of a really cool politician (Come on! There has to be at least one!) is standing in line to help serve the food he or she just delivered. When the Steelers played the Seahawks a few years ago, we bet pierogies and Primanti's, while they put up foie gras and pooftyburgers or something like that.

I used to get a little angry about the custom. Our tax dollars were subsidizing a stupid public relations stunt. Then I realized that we subsidize things much more stupid than this: the weaponization of the frisbee; bailouts for arrogant jerks; performance art; critical junkets to Barbados; on and on. At least with sports, some less fortunate people get a decent meal.

This has to be the only good thing about the current Stanley Cup match up: pizza vs. cheesesteak. Man, I am salivating, just thinking about it. A hot cheesesteak would taste pretty good right now! Go, Blackhawks!

Hibernating, 25 May 2010

We were talking at work today about why I don't like the Flyers. Have you noticed that every one of my posts has some variation of the phrase, "We were talking at work today?" Just because I work for the government, please don't get the impression that ALL I do is sit around, talking about sports. Sometimes, we talk about other things. Just kidding! Ha ha! Please don't tell the Government Accountability Office. Crap. I am so busted.

Actually, I have to burst your bubble about government slothliness. We multitask and, while we are saving the world from mean, nasty, ugly people, we yabber about all kinds of cool stuff. The other day, we talked about different callibers of ammunition. See what I mean? Fun Central!

So, back to the story at hand. The question is: here I am, a Pennsyltucky boy, born and bred. I should be thrilled that a PA team is in the Cup Finals. But.....not so much. I don't really have anything against the individual players on the Flyers. I am sure they are marginally nice guys who just have the misfortune to play for a crappy city. Let's put aside all the many, many reasons I don't like Philly, even the fact that Philadelphia is not Pittsburgh. I just can't cheer for a team with orange uniforms. Come on, now. Orange? Are you serious? Orange is just fine if you live in Syracuse. (Right. Don't ask me why. They kind of get into all that Orangeman stuff.) Only the worst professional teams have orange uniforms. Case in point: Cincinnati Bengals. The tiger stripe could be cool but not on a perennial loser team like the Bungles.

Oooh, wait! How about the Cleveland Browns? It is just sad when you name your team after a color and then get the wrong color. What happened that day? The decorator had a hangover? "Oh, I swear, Mr. Modell! Those uniforms were just the brownest brown when I colored them!" (Cleveland fans can all take a momentary pause to spit and curse Art Modell. Never letting THAT one go, are we?)

A friend brought up that the Knicks wear orange and are horrible but that goes outside of my sports range. I stopped caring about about basketball when the Pittsburgh Condors bit the big one and we had to endure that ridiculous "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" movie. Who in the wide, wide world of sports picked my beloved town for a movie starring Gary Coleman? Sheesh!

In fact, the one saving grace of the Pirates is that they have not shifted to an orange uniform. That tells me that someday, somehow, in a universe far, far away, the Buccos might not suck so much. I hope.

And all this comes back to the Flyers. They're from Philadelphia. And they wear orange. Yick. Guess I'll be a Blackhawks fan for a few weeks.

Hibernating, 18 May 2010

In case you were keeping track, the Canadiens won the first and last game in the Igloo. I am still pretty bitter about that last loss to them but I guess you can't blame the Habs. They were just playing good hockey while my beloved Pens were on a bus, en route to Schenctady. That is the only rational explanation. Some crazed Canucklehead hijacked the bus and headed north. Mario was desperate and found some guys with playoff beards to stand in for the players. I swear I bought a snowcone from the guy with Geno's jersey on. Seriously! Would I lie?

It's taken me a while to come around but I am a reluctant Habs fan. I want them to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, though I really do not care who wins. I just really do not want to have the Flyers advance to the Cup. I am sure the Flyers players are just wonderful human beings, but the fans........ick. Not sure they are human beings. They are obnoxious when their teams suck (most of the time) but are on a different plane when their teams are good (almost never.) So...Philadelphia...talk about your quintessential armpit of the universe. I am trying to think of one good thing about Philly. Liberty Bell? Cool history but must have been made in Philly cause it broke the first time they used it. Ben Franklin? He went to live in England just to get away from the place. The nation's capital? Only for a bout a week and a half, till everyone realized they built in in Philadelphia, then ran like hell to DC. The Eagles? Ha! GO DONOVAN! I never thought I would cheer for the Redskins! Cheesesteaks? My cholesterol is too high, anyway. So, what's left? Teeming cesspool of urban blight? Well, that about sums up Philly.

Of course, it is only fair to mention that I was born and raised in Pittsburgh (once again voted the coolest place on Earth by everyone who votes on cool places.) This means that we Burghers are raised to believe Philadelphia is where they put all the people who are not good enough to live in Pittsburgh. This made perfect sense back then and I have no reason to change that opinion.

Of course, it is absolutely chapping my butt to know they shut out the Habs two games in a row. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! Come on, New Jesrsey! Grant my request an annex Philly! I'll help pack it's bags!

In the meantime, GO HABS!

Day 27, 13 May 2010

This is all that remains of the once-proud playoff beard! My Pens went down in flames last night so I was forced to pull out the razor. As depressing an event as that was, I can't be totally bummed out. Together, we raised $310 for my beard (yay, beard!) and more than $86,000 for the Mario Lemieux Foundation! Last time I checked, that was far and away the most money raised by any team. Obviously, Pittsburgh rocks! I want to thank all the very cool people who supported my beard. We ended up rank #47 out of 586 Bearders. Not too shabby. It gives me something to grow on next year. That's in addition to the actual face I will grow on, but I guess you figured that out.

With that said, though, today was brutal at work. Some folks were very polite and let me whine about how my team got their butts handed to them. My boss, who has been jabbing at me all season, passed on the opportunity to razz me one more time. Others were just caustic. One woman was cackling with glee because she hates Crosby. She clearly knows nothing about hockey. My proof? She's a Devils fan. It's not like they're a real team or anything.

So what is the deal with all the hate on Sid? He's a fantastic hockey player, even with a disappointing Habs series, and a genuinely nice guy. What's to hate? Is it jealousy that drives these potato heads? Lunacy? Idiocy? Open sea? Wait...where'd that one come from? Take my bud who is a Devils fan. No, seriously, take her. Maybe to the open sea. Leave her there. We won't mind so much! She hates Crosby because....are you ready?....Sid is the reason her goalie sucks!!!!!! Apparently, there is some cross-rink space continuum thing that I don't know about. The Schrodinger's cat of hockey: You put Crosby on the ice with your goalie and Sid scores seven goals. Would your goalie suck less if Sid was not on the ice? Maybe the goalie is crap all the time (like on the Devils) and Sid just exposed him. Maybe Sid is such a great player that he can make a good goalie look bad (though you can't prove that by Halak. Damn it!) Does the presence of one great hockey player change the nature of a goalie?

Admit it, this is why you read the blog. Where else are you going to get physics and hockey in the same blog? I'm like your very own educational toy! You are so very lucky.

A recent Facebook status paste for those too lazy to write one sentence says something like "I'm from Pittsburgh so I'm six Super Bowls, Three Stanley Cups and a Sidney Crosby cooler than you!" Makes perfect sense to me. I am not ready to climb on the Habs bandwagon and cheer for them, though I have a hard time working up a good hate for them. The Habs outplayed and outcoached the Pens. Because of that, they're moving on to glory while we mutter into our collective beers. Huh. I guess it wasn't so hard to work up a hate for them, after all!

I have to take a second here to thank the Penguins for a great season. Too bad it ended the way it did but I had a great time. I hope y'all did, too.