Sob.
A Disgrace
Not a national one. A regional disgrace, and this hits right in the gut:
The name and the character may take some getting used to. But move over Stevie Steeler and The Terrible Fan: The mascot named yesterday as part of the 75th anniversary season of the Steelers is … Steely McBeam.
No. It won’t, because I will refuse to get used to it. As a matter of fact, after this post, I will refuse to acknowledge it.
Here is a picture of the disgrace:
I have always been proud of the fact that we don’t have cheerleaders (maybe because the thought of South Side girls in short skirts and revealing tops terrifies most sane people), and this just is stupid and unnecessary. We don’t need a mascot. We have a football team. We have Yuengling. We have Imp and Iron. We have Primanti’s and Kielbassa and 5 Superbowl Trophies and Myron Cope and Tunch Ilkin and the Terrible Towel and Mean Joe Greene and the Steel Curtain and the Immaculate Reception and we don’t need a stupid mascot.
Ever.
*** Update ***
Here is the URL for the Steelers front office contact info. Give them a piece of your mind.
My email:
I really can not tell you how much I dislike this idiotic mascot, but here is a start:
Please quietly kill this embarrassment, and I promise you we will all pretend it never happened.
John Cole
I think this was my first bit of web activism.
Bonds is the HR King
Bonds hit #756, and is now the HR king. Prepare yourself for bitter haters to spend the next 40 years trying to delegitimize his accomplishments because they liked Hank better. Ignore them- Bonds has been the most potent offensive baseball player in the modern history of the game.
If you don’t believe me, check out the big brain on Matt:
The man holds the record for most career home runs and most home runs in a single season. What’s more, not only did he hit 73 home runs in 2001, but he also “managed to shatter two of Babe Ruth’s longstanding records — most walks (177) and highest slugging percentage (.863) in a season.” That record of walks stood until . . . the next season when he drew 198. Then in 2004, he drew 232 which helped hold him to 45 homers but helped power him to an OBP of .609, a major league record. He had nine different seasons with over 30 stolen bases, plus two 29 SB seasons and a 28 SB season.
He is, in short, the greatest offensive player in the history of baseball. Not being someone who pays much attention to baseball, I don’t pay a ton of attention to Bonds, but it’s silly for people to just shut their ears and pretend this didn’t happen. Yes, it appears that during the period when Major League Baseball had no steroid policy, he took steroids. And the day when MLB invalidates all the other records from the Steroid Era — rescinds the World Series titles and the division penants, takes back the Cy Young awards and the Golden Gloves, etc., etc., etc. — I suppose it would make sense to take Bonds’ achievements away too. But until that happens, the records are the records and he played better than anyone else.
Exactly. As a side note, can you imagine what Matt would know if he did pay attention to baseball?
In closing- Bonds is the greatest HR hitter. Officially. And watching #756 again this morning, and his swing was just as pretty as it was for the previous 755.
*** Update ***
So who really deserves the asterisk? Peter Ueberroth, Fay Vincent, and Bud Selig. They did nothing while steroids flourished, because owners liked what it did to the game. It resulted in more homers, and more spectacular homers at that. It generated interest in baseball during some rocky times and led to the silly Home Run Derbys before All-Star Games. The owners marketed on steroids and they depended on them just as much as the players who used them — and these commissioners didn’t lift a finger to stop it until Congress asserted what little authority it had to embarrass MLB. Only then did Selig start pushing against the Steroids Era.
Agreed.
*** Update ***
One last thing- it is an absolute disgrace that Selig was not there in the stands.
Steeler Football
RIP, Bill Walsh
Few men have had as great an impact on their profession:
Bill Walsh, who guided the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl championships and six NFC West division titles in his 10 years as head coach, has died at the age of 75.
Walsh died at his Bay Area home early Monday following a long battle with leukemia, according to Stanford University.
Walsh didn’t become an NFL head coach until 47, and he spent just 10 seasons on the San Francisco sideline. But he left an indelible mark on the United States’ most popular sport, building the once-woebegone 49ers into the most successful team of the 1980s with his innovative offensive strategies and teaching techniques.
The soft-spoken native Californian also produced a legion of coaching disciples that’s still growing today. Many of his former assistants went on to lead their own teams, handing down Walsh’s methods and schemes to dozens more coaches in a tree with innumerable branches.
Walsh went 102-63-1 with the 49ers, winning 10 of his 14 postseason games along with six division titles. He was named the NFL’s coach of the year in 1981 and 1984.
Even as a rabid Steelers fan, who did not love Walsh’s 9er’s? Other than the Cowboys, I mean.
RIP, Bill Walsh. Thanks.
Iraq On Top
No, it does not mean everything is ok in Iraq. No, it does no mean everything is ok and blah, blah.
But it sure is nice to report that Iraq’s soccer team beat Saudi Arabia in the Asia Cup 1-0, and are champions. Good for them, and anyone who has ever lived in a town that has won the World Series or the Superbowl or the Stanley Cup can tell you that no matter how crappy things are going, a sports championship can lift spirits, and man do the citizens of this country need a break and something to cheer them up.
In another note, let me state that it sure is nice to have two genuinely good men be inducted into the Hall Of Fame. Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn are everything that is right with modern sports, and Tony Gwynn was the best pure hitter I have ever seen (spare me the comparisons to others before him- I am not old enough to have seen them). I still contend that Will Clark had the sweetest swing in baseball, though, at least in my lifetime.
The DARK PERIOD is Ending
There is a long, dark, dank, period every year from the end of the Superbowl until August when the NFL begins again, and it is coming to a close:
Forty-five minutes into the initial session of his first training camp as a head coach, Mike Tomlin pressed his fingerprint onto the future of the Pittsburgh Steelers by returning to the past, and unwittingly offering an homage to the legendary Hall of Fame sideline chief for whom the team’s primary practice field was recently christened.
Nah, Tomlin didn’t put his charges through the dreaded Oklahoma drill, a hallmark of Chuck Noll summer camps. There isn’t a team in the league that still runs the Oklahoma drill, a onetime ritual here that used to draw boisterous crowds to the far corner of the practice field at St. Vincent College, and created the kind of bloodlust atmosphere typically associated with the Roman Coliseum.
But he did call for a “back-on-‘backers” blocking session — with running backs attempting to pass-protect against blitzing linebackers — that instantly stoked the level of intensity at a Tuesday morning practice that already ranked as one of the most physical workouts in recent franchise history.
And with that drill, acknowledged wide receiver Hines Ward, who had worked his entire nine-year NFL career under one boss, Bill Cowher, the franchise’s coaching calendar was officially flipped forward, and a rare Steelers transition was essentially complete.
While some unsuspecting veterans, who hadn’t worked in full pads in the opening practice of any camp under Cowher, appeared poised to pass out, the baton was passed to Tomlin. And his players, even the most grizzled stalwarts who might have been eyeballing the rookie coach with skepticism, were keenly aware of the significance of the moment.
“Basically, that very first contact let us all know that this is Tomlin’s team and this is his blueprint,” said Ward. “I mean, you can go through the minicamps and all the OTAs and stuff, and think you know what a coach is going to be like. But you don’t really know until you get into camp. He didn’t leave any doubt about who’s in charge. There’s a feeling, when you’ve done things one way for so long and been successful at it, that’s like, ‘Why should we let go of the old way?’ Well, there are no options like that around here. The old way is definitely gone.”
Steeler football is almost back!