What Do You Think Of The Steelers New Uniforms? (What Were They Thinking?)

That's funny. Though I lived less than a mile from Forbes Field, and even closer to Panther Stadium, growing up I was in Memorial Stadium more often than any other. My best man/best friend (from grade school on) 's Dad had been boyhood friends with Johnny Unitas from Pittsburgh Central Catholic. Unitas comped him several times. I got to meet Johnny U and Bubba Smith as a result of that. Shame the Steelers took a pass on him, as they did on Dan Marino. [They were idiots before Chuck Noll arrived, and having come from Pitt, Danny had problems in Pittsburgh which were well known; Noll wouldn't go anywhere near him. I doubt Tomlin would even mind...]

Back in those days I was more of a baseball guy (I think most of the country was.) I suppose I should take the opportunity to remind you that the Pirates pretty much owned the Orioles in World Championship play. Although, I never saw the Pirates beat the Orioles. First time I saw them play each other was game #2 in 1971. Palmer threw a shutout through 6 or 7 innings. In fact the only one hitting him at all was Clemente, until Ritchie Hebner hit a three run shot late in the game. The Pirates bullpen got completely rocked in that game. After a sh!tload of pitchers Murtaugh finally had to put a second starter in to stabilize the situation (Bob Moose.) Too late. In 1979 I saw the O's beat the Pirates twice. Grrrrr.

That 1971 Pirates team was unreal: they had six guys in the lineup batting over 300. For the first hundred games, Matty Alou, the lead-off guy, was flirting with 400. He actually stayed at cumulative .412 for around a week in July.

That Orioles team was none too shabby either. That was the one with Boog Powell, the Robinsons, and Belanger at short. Besides Palmer they had three other guys with twenty games on the mound (Dave McNally was one but I don't recall the other two -- I actually rooted for the Orioles as my "AL" team, so I knew them very well at one time.) Just as you will never see a line-up with 6 300 hitters again, with the modern pitching philosophy you won't see any more line-ups with 4 20 game winners.

Well, OK. Continue to lose. Depending on this weekend, we may have dug too deep a hole to see you in the playoffs. We shall see. Houston and NE will be playing shortly, and that may be an interesting preview.

I was so hoping you would not bring up baseball. Here’s my thing - dad had tix for the 5th game of the 1966 series - that we won in 4. I was all of 8 or 9. This was the first year in I don’t know how long I paid attention to the Os. 15 years of losing seasons will do that to you. Baseball was definitely my first love as well.

I took my dad to the final baseball game at memorial stadium (I had a ticket plan and went to all 4), what a moment that was when, after the game, they brought all the old Os onto the field. Like seeing all of your childhood heroes in one place. Wow.

Pat Dobson, Mike Cuellar, McNally and Palmer were the 4. Funny stuff ... McNally could shut any pitcher up when it came to their personal hitting abilities ... “how many grand slams did you hit in the world series?”

Considering how two of the guys now starting in our Dime were cut from the practice squad 14 days ago, we actually played fairly well in the second half. Had Antonio Brown not fumbled a nicely executed punt return with the Steelers up by 7, the game probably would not have gone into overtime; Romo's hot hand went cold in Q4.

That all said, I'd love to win out and at least get to the playoffs, but we have zero chance against anyone but the Ravens, and that game would probably, as usual, be a nailbiter decided by 3 points or less. Even if Ike gets healthy, our front seven is anemic and our O-line is not even NFL, let alone playoff, calibre. Ben will get the blame for throwing behind the receiver on the 2nd play of OT, but the truth is that any other QB in the league except RGIII and one or two others would have been sacked 9 or 10 times instead of just thrice. Rushing? 1.8 yards per carry for 67 yards. Take away a 22 yarder by Redman and it's even uglier. Definitely not Steeler football.

Maybe next year.

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