Shirt Pocket Notes

Time to check the shirt pocket and catch up with some things rattling around in my cranium.  (Two Myron Cope references in one sentence!) 

The Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup competition between teams of golfers from the USA competing against golfers from Europe began last Friday.  As we were driving home from Massachusetts all day Friday, I, of course, was unable to see any of that day's competition.  By the time I got home late that evening, all I knew was that the European golfers were kicking the collective asses of the American team, and there was talk of some ugly behavior from the American galleries which apparently consisted of a bunch of loudmouthed obnoxious New Yorkers - the matches were being staged in Bethpage on Long Island - who had had way too much to drink.

My Saturday television watching was confined to college football, but I was aware that the drubbing of the USA golfers was continuing and that, if anything, the behavior of the galleries was even worse.  Someone had thrown a cup of beer at Rory McIlroy, and the female emcee of the event, who was hired by the PGA of America for this event was engaging in organized "F**k You" cheers aimed against the European golfers.  To its credit, the PGA fired this woman, but they also must share in the lion's share of the blame for the national embarrassment that happened.  They, after all, have ginned up this event over the years as a "war" between the competing sides.

At that point, I had no interest in watching the singles matches on Sunday, which turned out to be pretty compelling and the USA turned a total drubbing into a close 15-13 loss.  So, I didn't see a single stroke of the whole shebang, and I can't say that I'm sorry, given what a total black eye this gave to the USA and its sports fans.

No less an imposing golf figure than Tom Watson said it best:

No word from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue about the events that unfolded at Bethage, but I am guessing that the POTUS was probably okay with how it all came down.

College Football

Last weekend was a great one for college football with all kinds of terrific match-ups.  It began on Friday evening when the University of Virginia upset ranked Florida State in overtime in Charlottesville.  It was a terrific game, but it was marred at the end by this truly frightening scene.

This, of course, was the storming of the field by the UVA students when Florida State's fourth down pass fell incomplete in the second overtime of the game, sealing the win for Virginia.  As the game proceeded through the fourth quarter and the possibility of an upset win by UVA looked probable, you could just see how the crowd was building in the end zone, which is apparently a hillside with no barrier between it and the playing field?, and you just KNEW what was going to happen if the Cavaliers ended up winning.  It was, as I said, frightening, and it is a miracle that no one  - that we know about - was seriously injured or even killed.

Spirit, loyalty, and joy over a Big Win are all wonderful things, but scenes like this are not.  The University of Virginia was fined $50,000 by the ACC for allowing this to happen, but what's fifty grand in today's world of big time college football?  A college football podcast that I follow suggested this week that fines, and hiring a couple of more security guys in yellow shirts aren't going to stop this, and the guys on this pod suggested that one way that would surely stop it would be having the home team forfeit the game.  

I'd be all for that.

Saturday's schedule saw Pitt take 17-0 lead over Louisville only to see them blow it and end up losing 34-27.  They are not a good team and Pat Narduzzi didn't help on successive play calls on a 3rd and 2 and a 4th and 7 in the final quarter that were positively baffling.  If he didn't have a contract with a $70 million buyout, I think that he'd be out on the streets after this season.

And speaking of Narduzzi, just what exactly does he write in that spiral top notebook on the sidelines while he is, presumably, coaching a game?

The game to which I was most looking forward came on Saturday night when 6th ranked Oregon traveled to 3rd ranked Penn State.  It was highly anticipated and it was to be Penn State's traditional "White Out Night" to really get the juices flowing in Happy Valley.   No doubt about it, the scene and the atmosphere were electric:

Then the game started.   A "meh" first half produced a 3-3 score at intermission.  Oregon then overcame a 3-10 third quarter deficit by scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter to tie the game and then winning 30-24 in two overtime periods.

James Franklin's record at Penn State against Top Ten ranked teams now falls to 4-21.  That is not a statistical aberration at this point, folks, and how hot will the seat be under his rump should (when?) the Lions lose to Ohio State again later this season?

Also, Drew Allar has now dropped off of my list of "Quarterbacks That I Would Like To See The Steelers Draft".

The NFL

At this point, I'm just resorting to bullet points:

• That was nice win for the Steelers in Ireland over the Vikings.  3-1 and in first place in the AFC North.
• D.K. Metcalf is a marvel.  Big, fast, and can really catch the ball.  That 82 yard pitch-and-catch TD from Aaron Rodgers was a marvel.  He should be targeted at least a half dozen times a game, and I am guessing that no one knows this better than Rodgers himself.
• The Ravens fall to 1-3, and appear to be a not-very-good team.  Long noted for their great defenses, they have been giving up so many points (133 in four games)  that you might even say that they "stink".  Ray Lewis and Ed Reed are distant memories at this point.  Oh, and now Lamar Jackson will probably miss a game or two due to injury.  I guess they can still turn it around, but they had better hurry.
• Those of you writing off the KayCee Chiefs who started 1-3 can put those thoughts on hold for the time being.  They still have the best QB in football, as Patrick Mahomes showed with five TD passes against the Ravens on Sunday.

I will close with one of my favorite images from the Steelers win in the Dublin Game.  DB DeShon Elliott celebrating his interception with some Irish river dancing in the end zone.

In The Dunes On The Cape

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I want to share a few details of the second part of our Steelers Road Trip to New England, which was a four night stay in the Cape Cod Village of Falmouth.  During those four days, we got to explore a delightful little New England town, got in some beach time, took a ferry boat ride to Martha's Vineyard and explored the towns of Oak Bluffs and Edgartown (where "Jaws" was filmed) on that Island.  Alas, while on Martha's Vineyard we did not see Carly Simon, the Obamas, or a single member of the Kennedy Family, but, hey, you can't have everything.

It was a delightful four day stay, and we very much enjoyed seeing this part of the country.

Allow me to share some photos.

Our Inn while in Falmouth

No elevator and we were on the second floor 😒

Street Scene

We had no trouble finding room to sit on the beach.

Outdoor night scene at our Inn

Great little bar on Martha's Vineyard

Did I mention that "Jaws" was filmed on Martha's Vineyard?

It rained the day we went to Martha's Vineyard.  When we stopped at bar for lunch and saw that they specialized in frozen drinks, I told the waitress that I'd have a pina colada because "I'd been caught in the rain".  I thought that she would have been too young to get the joke, but she "got it"!  Maybe she's heard it before.  Or maybe she just wanted a nice tip. (Perhaps you have already noticed that the headline of this post comes from the same Rupert Holmes song.)

2025 marked the 50th Anniversary of the release of the movie "Jaws", an event that was noted all over the island.

"Amity, as you know, means friendship."

The Island Queen, the ferry boat that took us to and from Marths's Vineyard.

On the trip home we encountered a beautiful sky 

with the sun setting and a fingernail moon visible.

"Sunburn" by Laura Lippman

I discovered "Sunburn" in one of those Kindle "Deals of the Day" emails and thought it was worth spending buck ninety-nine to try.

What a bargain.

This is a thriller of a novel, published in 2018, and written in noir style.  As I read it, I was seeing this story as a black & white 1940's movie starring Barbara Stanwyck and John Garfield.  

In the beginning of the book, we meet Polly, who has just ditched her husband and one year old daughter while on a vacation at the Delaware beaches.  She settles in an out of the way motel in a small town off the beaten path between said beaches and Baltimore.  We also meet Adam, who also finds himself at that same dump of a motel due to "car trouble".  However, we soon learn that Adam has other purposes on his agenda.  He has been hired to find and follow Polly, but who hired him, and exactly why is he following her and just what is it he supposed to find out about her?

Adam and Polly then take jobs at low rent diner/bar.  She as waitress/barmaid, he as a short order cook, and lo and behold, they fall for each other.  Both of them, though, have reservations about just who this person with whom they are falling in love (lust?) is.  Can they trust this person?  We also meet, among others through chapters with alternating points of view, a crooked cop, an unscrupulous insurance broker, the waitress that also works at the greasy spoon, and we learn about Polly's two marriages, two children, and her, shall we say, checkered past.

In her afterward to the novel, Lippman tells us that this story is in the style of hard-boiled, noir fiction writher James M. Cain, who authored such classics as "Double Indemnity","The Postman Always Rings twice", and "Mildred Pierce", and she nails this tribute perfectly.  As you read it, you can almost visualize the dust motes swirling in the sunlight that comes through the torn window blinds of the cheap motel where Polly and Adam are shacked up.

I have to say that I loved this book, and I give it the full Four Grandstander Stars.  If only Billy Wilder were still with us to make it into a movie.

(NOTE:  Sharp eyed movie buffs will note that I mixed a metaphor in the body of this post.  I suspect that my pal David Cicotello will be all over it.)

Road Tripping With The Steelers

No, the "road trip" in question was not to Dublin, Ireland to see the much ballyhooed "Dublin Game" between the Steelers and the Vikings.  Our trip was a bit closer to home, although it did involve being in a car for close to 24 total hours, going through four states, and covering 1,330 miles in eight days.

Yep, there we were in Foxboro, MA on September 21 to see the Steelers play the Patriots and deliver a 21-14 win to Steelers Nation.  The genesis of this trip was our cruise vacation through Canada last May and perhaps one too many cocktails with our new friends, Patti and Barry Rowe, who live in Boston suburb of Melrose.  The NFL schedule was released while we were on the cruise, we saw that the Steelers were visiting New England in September, when the weather would still be nice, and the next thing you knew, we were getting in the car two Fridays ago and headed towards Boston.

After staying in Scranton, the halfway point of the trip, where we visited the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and drove on the "President Biden Expressway", we were grateful guests of the Rowes for two nights. On Sunday morning, we piled into Patti's SUV and headed to Foxboro.

This was our first ever "road trip" to see a Steelers game, and, frankly, we weren't quite sure how we would be treated as we wore our Steelers gear and waved our Terrible Towels.  We needn't have worried, because it couldn't have been a more positive experience.  As we walked through all of the tailgating parties in the parking lots,  entered and sat in Gillette Stadium, and returned to our car through those same parking lots after the game, we could not have been treated more graciously by the New England fans.  We had countless conversations with many of them, all of them positive, and even the "derisive" comments were made with tongues in cheeks and smiles on faces.

Of course, it no doubt helped that we were far from alone in being Steelers folks in the crowd.  We have heard for years and seen on television how Steelers Nation travels, and we can now testify that it is a very real thing.  I would estimate that anywhere from twenty to thirty percent, and maybe more, of the crowd were Steelers rooters, all of them waiving Terrible Towels.  (Funny Story:  As we left the stadium after the game, a young guy and his date walked up to us and asked "Were they giving those towels away at the game today because EVERYBODY had one?"  We set him straight.)  Nobody gave us a hard time, nobody picked a fight with us or threw a beer at us.  It was just a terrific experience.

Everything you've ever heard about traffic and driving in Boston is true.  It was horrendous ("You learn to live with it" Barry told us), and this is true about getting to and from Foxboro on game day.  The logistics of how the police work the traffic patterns before and after the game are sheer genius.  It was truly amazing.

Here are some photos from our memorable weekend On The Road with the Steelers.

Tailgaters

Taking it all in

With Barry and Patti Rowe

Now THAT'S a big video board!

Bragging Rights.  

They earned them.

The only thing missing was "Renegade" being played

Post-game

I was also able to continue the tradition that I started with my Roberto Clemente jersey at Pirates games of getting photos taken with HOF jerseys from the other guys, which was pretty cool.

One photo that we didn't get was me chest bumping 

with a guy (not this guy) wearing a Jack Lambert jersey in the parking lot

At halftime of the game, Julien Edelman was inducted 

into the Patriots Hall of Fame.  That was pretty neat to see.

Like I said, it was one terrific experience.

When we decided to drive to make this trip, Linda and I made the decision to add time on to the trip and spend some beach time at Cape Cod, a place where neither of us had ever been.  I was going to write of that in this post, but it is long enough already, so that write up will take place separately within the next few days. 

To Absent Friends - Bob Oldis

 

Bob Oldis

1928 - 2025

By just about any measure, Bob Oldis, who died this past weekend at the age of 97, had a very ordinary, to be kind, major league career, but his death deserves to be noted because he was a part of perhaps the most beloved team in Pittsburgh sports history: the 1960 World Series Champion Pirates.

Oldis spent two seasons with the Pirates, 1960-61, as a third string catcher.  In that championship season of 1960, Oldis appeared in only 22 games, had 4 hits in 20 at bats (.200), and had 1 RBI.  He appeared in two games in that '60 Series, but had no plate appearances.

His career spanned seven seasons among three different teams, the Senators, Pirates, and Phillies.  He appeared in only 135 games and retired with a career batting average of .237.  However, he does have one rather cool distinction in his  career.  In 1962, he threw out Maury Wills attempting to steal second base twice in the same game.  He was the only catcher to do that in that season where Wills stole 104 bases, was caught stealing only 13 times, and was the MVP of the National League.

Oldis became the proverbial "baseball lifer" as he spent many years in coaching and scouting, and it was in that capacity that Oldis earned a second World Series from the Marlins in 2003.  Oldis also turned up in Pittsburgh whenever there were reunions of the 1960 team.

Only four members of that beloved Pirates championship team remain with us: Roy Face (97), Vernon Law (95), Bob Skinner (94 on October 25), and Bill Mazeroski (89 on September 25).

RIP Bob Oldis.

To Absent Friends - Robert Redford

 

Robert Redford

1936-2025

The Great - and I do mean capital G Great - Robert Redford died yesterday at the age of 89.  A great actor, a talented director, a humanitarian, what can I say about Redford that most people don't already know?

Here are some numbers from IMDB:

• Redford has 82 acting credits.  The first one was for an episode of "Maverick" in 1960.  He also appeared in episodes of "Perry Mason" (1960), "The Naked City" (1961), "Route 66" (1961), and "Dr. Kildare" (1961).  When you scroll through his credits, you see that he did A LOT of work in television in the early 1960's.
• He has 10 credits as a director.  The first was "Ordinary People" in 1980, and he won a Best Director Oscar for that one.  For my money, though, the best of the lot was 1994's "Quiz Show".  If you've never seem that one, stop what you're doing now and watch it.
• He is also listed with 57 credits as a Producer.

It is for being an actor that he is primarily known, and when you scroll through the list of his movies, you realize that you have forgotten just how many really, really good movies he made. I will just highlight three of my particular favorites.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance"

with Paul Newman

1969

"The Sting"

1973

This movie won that Best Picture Oscar that year.

Also starred Paul Newman.

Great line: "Luther said I could learn something from you.  

I already know how to drink."

"All The President's Men"

with Dustin Hoffman

1976

The best movie about newspapers ever made.

I have watched all of these movies many times over the years, and I can tell you that each of them holds up perfectly over fifty years after they were first made.

Before writing this post, I did a search in The Grandstander archives and came across two lesser known but nonetheless terrific movies from Redford's oeuvre that I had seen and written about in this space.

I stumbled upon this one by accident back in 2013.  It is about a fascinating topic, and I loved it.  

 THIS IS WHAT I WROTE ABOUT IT AT THAT TIME.

This one is from 2018, and I might be the only person in the world who saw it.  It was just a nice, entertaining movie and featured great performances from two "older" actors, Redford and Sissy Spacek.

THIS IS WHAT I WROTE ABOUT IT AT THAT TIME.

You could do a lot worse than watching these two movies.

Redford was 89 years old, and he had one terrific run, but a true giant has left us.

RIP Robert Redford.

The Bionic Grandstander

Interesting headline, isn't it?

It all began back in January, 2024 when I received an partial knee replacement.  However, that's not really a big deal because if those of you reading this haven't had a knee or hip replacement by now, you surely know someone who has.

Then, in March, 2025, I was fitted with hearing aides.  While this has certainly improved the quality of my life (not to mention Linda's quality of life since she no longer has to shout at me to be heard, but also no longer has to sit in a room with the TV set turned up REALLY LOUD), again, it is not that big a deal, since hearing aides have been around forever, right?

What really turned me into Lee Majors (for you kids out there who don't get the reference, Google "six million dollar man") was a transformation that began last December.  

At that time, I went to my opthamalogist, Dr. David DeMarco at the Eye Physicians and Surgeons practice in Wexford, PA with the thought in my mind that I was in need of a stronger prescription and needed new eyeglasses.  Instead, Dr. Dave said that the time had come for us to address the cataracts that he had been keeping track of for several years, and he turned me over to one of his partners in the practice, eye surgeon Dr. Judah Beck.  Okay, I've known a ton of people who've had cataract surgery, so, again, no big deal, right?

What Dr. Beck proceeded to tell me though, was a new breakthrough in the treatment of cataracts, and he suggested that I was a good candidate for it.  It consisted of removing the cataracts, of course, and then implanting in my eye something called a Light Adjustable Lens (LAL).  With this newly approved lens - it has only been being done in Pittsburgh since 2024, and only by Eye Physicians and Surgeons (I think) - the doctor would be able to adjust the lens after it had been implanted in my eyes by using ultra-violet light.

So, in June (the process of implanting the lenses was delayed for another medical reason that I will not go into here), Dr. Beck performed the surgery and implanted the lenses in my eyes.  There then followed a period of several weeks where I had to follow a strict regimen of eyedrops, but I immediately noticed a difference in my vision.  Trees outside our bedroom window that only appeared as green blobs to me when I awoke in the morning now had thousands of individual leaves that I could discern.  I could watch TV, go to PNC Park and read the scoreboard, and follow a struck golf ball in flight and find it in the fairway, or, more likely, the rough, all without glasses.

After the eye drop course of treatment was completed, I went back to Dr. DeMarco who would give me a regular eye exam ("is it better with 1, or 2", "how many fingers am I holding up", "what line on the chart can you read") to determine a new "prescription" and then turn me over to Dr. Beck, who would shine the ultra-violet light machine into my eyes to adjust the new Light Adjustable Lens.  After two such adjustment, he was able to do a "lock in" adjustment to the new lenses, and I am now seeing 20/20.  

When I have told people about this process, I have used the phrase "It's like something out of a science fiction novel", and so it is.

And here I am today, the guy who has worn glasses since he was in the third grade:

That picture was taken two weeks ago at a Pitt football game at Acrisure Stadium, where I could follow all the action without glasses!

Full disclosure: I still need to use "readers" or "cheaters" with a 1x magnification to read a newspaper or real tiny print on, say, a medicine bottle, but I'm good with that given all that the LAL has done for me otherwise.  I can read a printed book, my Kindle and iPad, and I have typed this post on my iMac desktop without the aid of the "cheaters".

More full disclosure:  The cost of the LAL is not covered by insurance or Medicare, and they are not inexpensive.  I am blessed that I am able to pay for them, and considering the benefit that I have received - 20/20 vision -  it turns out to have been a small price to pay.

I will be happy to talk to anyone about all of this if you are interested, and I absolutely cannot say enough about the care and treatment that I received from Drs. Demarco and Beck and the entire staff at Eye Physicians and Surgeons.