Are You Ready For Some Football?

Yep, it's time to kick off a new National Football League season as the Steelers travel to Foxboro tonight to kick off the 2015 season.  For the occasion, I salute our favorite team with both its current and its "old school" style logos.

I watched maybe one quarter of action of the five Steelers practice games, so I can't offer that informed an opinion, but I know that the apprehension that covered the 2014 season continues into this new season, namely, the Steelers Defense, or lack of it.  The guy who may be their best defensive player, James Harrison, will soon be able to collect Social Security, and high draft picks like Jarvis Jones and Ryan Shazier have spent the last two seasons not being able to get on the field and contribute.  That has to change, and, alas, the practice games have given no indication that it is about to change any time soon.

However, the Steelers still have this guy in charge,

and they still have this guy at quarterback,

so I say that we need not give up on this season before it begins.

Le'Veon Bell will be back after two games, Antonio Brown is one of the best wide outs in the game, and the line is solid (and, yes, I know that Maurkice Pouncy is hurt), so the Steelers will score a lot of points this year.  Unfortunately, they will have to because the defense is going to give up a lot of them.  I foresee lots of games with scores like 43-37 this year, and Steelers fans can only hope that they will be on the right side of most of them.

I also, and this is the fan in me asking, am hoping that what you saw in the practice games was just that - practice, and that we will be seeing something different once the games start to count.  As I say, that's the Fan in me talking.

I will also say this....if Number 7 goes down for any significant length of time, kiss a winning season and the playoffs good-bye.

So, you want a prediction, here's one:  10-6 and in the Playoffs.

If you want prediction for tonight, New England wins BIG as they begin a season long crusade to extend a huge middle finger to the NFL and the World.

The Deadline Deals

More than a month has passed since the July 31 trade deadline in Major League Baseball.  Neal Huntington was criticized in some quarters for not giving up some of his prized prospects in order to obtain such big name and expensive players like Cole Hamels or David Price.  Instead, the critics said, the Pirates clung to their penny-pinching, dumpster-diving ways.

So how have the five players that Huntington procured done?  Here are the numbers, through the games of September 9:

HITTER	At Bats	Runs	HR	RBI	BA	OPS
Aramis Ramirez	136	12	5	26	0.250	0.716
Michael Morse	41	4	0	0	0.317	0.830
PITCHER	Games	IP	W-L	SAVES	ERA	K	BB
Joe Blanton	11	21.1	3-0	0	0.84	25	6
J.A. Happ	7	40.1	5-1	0	1.79	42	7
Joakim Soria	17	15.0	0-0	1	3.60	14	6

For comparison purposes, the three biggest name pitchers that were moved at the deadline have performed as follows:

David Price 5-1, 2.15 ERA

Johnny Cueto  2-5, 4.86 ERA

Cole Hamels 3-1, 4.07

Yeah, it would be nice to have David Price in a Pirates uniform, but Happ has done just as well, and at a much cheaper price.

As far as Ramirez is concerned, I wrote the following in The Grandstander last July when the trade was made:

Finally, there is the delicious karma of Ramirez coming BACK to the Pirates in the midst of a pennant race.  No need to recount the painful circumstances of the horrendous salary dump deal in 2003 when Kevin McClatchey forced Dave Littlefield to get rid of perhaps the team's best player and brightest young star in years for a collection of used jock straps and batting practice baseballs.  (Someday, I hope Dave Littlefield will write a book and explain HIS side of that awful transaction.)  If A-Ram can manage 8-10 home runs and 30 or so RBI's over what time he has here, it will be one terrific story.

Looks like Ramirez is going to come in right on those numbers, or damn close to it.

So, what do you think?  I'd say that considering what was given up for these players, Huntington gets an A grade for his deadline deals.  

Spygate, Deflategate, The Patriots, and Roger Goodell

Yes, like you, I am tired of all of the topics mentioned in the title of this post.  That said, I cannot recommend highly enough hat you read the following article from ESPN's "Outside the Lines" investigative team.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/13533995/split-nfl-new-england-patriots-apart

It is an extremely lengthy article by reporters Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham, but it lays out in such detail the Patriots' history of cheating under Bill Belichick that it really prompts one to question the integrity of many of the games that they have played in the last 15 years.  Until I read this article, I was among those who felt that the taping of the other teams' signals and the whining of teams defeated by the Pats over the years, and, yes, that includes our own Pittsburgh Steelers, were nothing but the the attempted justifications of poor losers.  I don't feel quite that strongly now.

More disturbing was the actions of the National Football League and Roger Goodell and his minions during this period.  They have given new definitions to the word "arrogance".  As recently as July 30 I wrote in this blog that I would not bet against Goodell retaining his job over all of the deflategate nonsense.  After reading this article, I honestly don't see how he can keep it, or how the thirty-two NFL owners could justify retaining him as Commissioner.  His dealings with United States Senator Arlen Specter when the NFL was being threatened with a Congressional investigation were reprehensible.

And, of course, it goes back to the Patriots.  The article concludes with a description of a party that owner Robert Kraft held at his estate this summer when the he brought in all of his players and coaches to distribute their Super Bowl rings and divide the spoils of yet another NFL Championship.  It brought to mind these images of another meeting back in 1959:

It didn't end well for those guys either.

To Absent Friends - Judy Carne

Judy Carne

1939-2015

Few television shows in my lifetime took the country by storm as quickly and as totally as did "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" in 1967.  If you were around then, you will remember that one of the breakout stars of the ensemble comedy troop was the pretty British actress Judy Carne, much better know as the "Sock-It-To-Me" girl, who would regularly get doused with buckets of water whenever she uttered that catch phrase.

Judy Carne died yesterday of pneumonia at the age of 76.  She left the cast of Laugh-In after only two seasons, and her life was not all that great after that.  She fought a long battle with drug addiction.  IMDB lists only 36 acting credits for her, the last coming in 1993 in a movie called "What About Me" where she played a "woman of the streets".  Before "Laugh-In" came along, she starred in a short-lived TV series called "Love on a Rooftop" and had a brief, tempestuous marriage to Burt Reynolds, well before he hit the big time.  

She will always be remembered by those of a certain age as the perky, pretty sock-it-to-me girl on one of television's great shows of the 1960's.  I hope that that was worth something to her in her life.

RIP Judy Carne.

Heinz Field's New Look

This past Saturday, I paid my first visit to Heinz Field in 2015 to see the Pitt-Youngstown State football game.  This is my first visit to Heinz Field since the installation of approximately 3,000 new seats in the south end zone of the Stadium.

I have long maintained that, unlike PNC Park, Heinz Field is pretty much a generic football stadium.  Nothing plush or fancy, but a pleasant enough place to watch a football game.  In my mind, the only thing that set Heinz Field apart from every other bowl of a football stadium was the open south end of the stadium.  It was aesthetically pleasing and offered a fairly nice view of the slope leading to the Allegheny River.  That open end was especially nice when you came INTO the stadium for a game at one of the two entrance gates on the south end.  You walked through the turnstile and had a lovely view onto the playing surface of the field.

Here is a look at the new south end of Heinz Field:

So much for the view of the riverfront.  And when you enter the stadium on that south end, instead of that nice view on to the playing surface, you get a nice view of concrete block walls.  Kind of like walking into the unfinished portion of my basement where the water heater, furnace, and boxes of Christmas decorations are.

It should also be noted that those new end zone seats are the gray colored ones and have been designated as "Club Seats" by the Steelers, similar to the club seats on the east and west sides of Heinz Field, and a new "Stadium Club" resides behind those new seats.  If the past is any guide, this little trick enables the Steelers to charge more for these seats, and sets a higher price for the requisite seats licenses to said seats.  To be fair, I do not know that last statement to be a fact, but if they follow the same guidelines that were in place when Heinz Field opened, and I was a season ticket holder at the time, so I know whereof I speak, that would be the case with these new seats. If someone tells me I am wrong, I will gladly print that.  I would also argue that those new seats, especially the ones in the lower level of the end zone, may well be the worst place from which to watch a game, but that's just me.

However, it has been noted that the Steelers sold all of those new seats in less time than it took you to read this post, so what the hell?  Business is business.

A Milestone Reached

As you may have guessed from the title and the picture above, this post is Post Number One Thousand Five Hundred for The Grandstander. 

As this milestone was approaching, I was wondering what would be the topic of the milestone post.  A book or movie review? A commentary on the Pirates or Steelers?  An observation on the local Pittsburgh media scene?  An off-beat Absent Friends write-up?

Rather than leave it to chance, I decided to mark this occasion by just saying THANK YOU to all of you who read this blog and comment upon it, either on the Blog itself or via Facebook comments.  I have a lot of fun writing all this stuff, and it is made even more fun knowing that there a few dozen of you out there who read and enjoy it as well.

So, once again, a hearty THANK YOU to all you Loyal Readers.

Catching Up - Mostly Sports Stuff

It's been awhile, so it is now time to clean out the Mental In-Box.....

• The horror show for the Pirates that is the NL Central Division continues as the Bucs drop the first two games of a series in Milwaukee.  The Pirates have run roughshod over the NL East and NL West, but their record in the Central now sits at 21-31.  This is the same bug-a-boo that haunted them in 2014, and it continues, almost inexplicably, deep into 2015.
• Twenty-three of the Pirates remaining thirty games are against Central opponents.  They better figure something out, and quickly, starting tonight in Milwaukee.
• Have you caught the trailer for the movie, "Concussion", that will be released in December?  This looks like a "must see" movie, Will Smith looks like a lock for an Oscar nomination, and it looks like the NFL will be putting its massive PR machinery into high gear to discredit this one.  What I am looking forward to seeing is whether or not the network television partners of the NFL will do the League's bidding in attempting to quash this movie as well.  (See trailer at the end of this post.)
• Speaking of the NFL, the federal judge in New York City is due to hand down his ruling on this deflated footballs nonsense tomorrow.  I want to go on record today and predict that Tom Brady will not miss a game this year as a result of his draconian suspension handed down by Czar Roger.  At the very least, he will be playing next Thursday night in the opener against the Steelers.
• Speaking of the Steelers, based on very limited viewing of their practice games this summer, it appears that they will be involved in a lot of games that will end up with scores like 47-42 and 38-35.  One can only hope that they will be on the positive sides of those scores more often than not.
• Also, the Steelers had better hope that Ben Roethlisberger can stay healthy for 16 games. Without him directing the offense, and given the nature of the defense that they appear to have, they won't be going anywhere in 2015.
• And how about that Martavis Bryant?  It has been pointed out that, at least where marijuana is concerned, that it is very difficult for an NFL player to screw up so badly that he gets suspended for marijuana use, but somehow some way, our guy Martavis managed to do it.  For that effort, let us bestow the coveted H.A. Citation upon Steelers wide receiver Martavis Bryant.  This one's for you, Martavis!

(Photo courtesy of Dan Bonk  Enterprises)

• Pirate Chat Night at PNC Park took place three weeks ago, and the game lasted over five hours and fifteen innings.  For all that, it was a terrific night.  During the tense extra innings of that ball game, the pre-recorded organ music treated us to such toe tapping melodies as "Mexican Hat Dance", "Turkey in the Straw", and I am drawing a blank on some of the other equally irrelevant tunes that were rained upon us.  Did I mention that this organ music is pre-recorded?  Vince Lascheid, God rest his soul, has been dead since 2009, and the Pirates have long since jettisoned his Wurlitzer (probably to make space for yet another bar area at PNC Park), so I think it is long past time to can the canned organ music.
• I hope, at the very least, that the Pirates are paying some kind of royalties to Lascheid's family for the continued use of this stuff.
• Pitt Football opens yet another "new era" this Saturday against the mighty Youngstown State Penguins, who carry a one game winning streak against the Panthers.  Leaving no cliche unturned, HC Pat Narduzzi said that come Saturday it will be up to "the players to play, the coaches to coach, and the officials to officiate."  YEAH!!!
• BY all rights, Pitt should roll over YSU on Saturday, but we all know what happened three years ago, don't we?  Also, YSU has a new coach too, and it is an experienced and "big time" guy, Bo Pelini.  Hope the Panthers don't take this one lightly.
• Wisconsin, under their new HC Paul Chryst open up this week against Alabama.  Good luck with that, Paul.
• While driving on Saturday afternoon, I listened to part of the Steelers radio broadcast.  On one play, our boy Billy Hillgrove went into ecstasy over a terrific catch made by Antonio Brown, only to be advised by his spotters that it was actually DeAngelo Williams who made the catch.  Oops.
• You can say that there are five major sports "franchises" in the Pittsburgh market: Pirates, Steelers, Penguins, Pitt Football, and Pitt Basketball.  The play-by-play radio duties are handled by the same guy, Hillgrove, for three of those five.  That must be a tough pill to swallow for younger up-and-coming play-by-play guys.

I thought that I would close with a a clip of the trailer for the movie alluded to above, "Concussion".