- I was happy to see that I finally broke the .500 mark in my NFL Playoff Predictions this past Sunday. Especially after I hit in the first game, and a 50% tally would have meant a Steelers loss to the Jets.
- That means I now stand at 6-4 in the predictions business, which means I'd have made money, regardless of how the Super Bowl pick goes. That is, if I'd actually bet on these games.
- Three days after the fact, there isn't much I can add to all the post-mortems on the AFC and NFC Championship games. OF COURSE, it is delightful to see the Steelers making yet another trip to the Super Bowl. As Art II said on Sunday, it never gets old.
- The 35.something passer rating that Ben Roethlisberger had on Sunday proves one thing: that the NFL passer rating statistic is about as meaningful as the one that Neal Huntington used last year to tell us Charlie Morton wasn't doing so badly in the starting rotation. As Mike Greenberg said so well on Monday, if you watched the game there was no doubt who the best player on the field was, and it was Ben Roethlisberger.
- Must comment on the cause celebre of Sunday's game, and that is the Jay Cutler affair. I have always considered him an over-rated, whiny punk, and when I saw him on the sidelines, I thought of how Aaron Rodgers took a shot in the game and stayed in (and in the second game, both Roethlisberger and Mark Sanchez took some bad hits and played on), but I did say to myself that, hey, it's not for me to judge how bad the guy is hurt. It was interesting to see that most of the criticism leveled at Cutler has come, not from fans or media, but from other players. Justified or not, I think that this will dog Cutler for the rest of his career.
- It did bring to mind the criticisms that Hines Ward leveled on Roethlisberger in 2009 when Ben sat out the Ravens game due to "concussion-like symptoms."
- In the past six seasons, the Steelers have gone to the Super Bowl three times and missed the playoffs twice. Not sure how you might feel about it, but I'm OK with a couple of playoff-less seasons amid all those Super Bowl trips.
- And the Pirates are in the news this week for oh-so-quietly announcing an increase in ticket prices for 2011, the first ticket price increase since 2002. As these things go, it was a pretty benign increase, as it will only apply to tickets purchased on the day of the game. In the PG+ "DK on Sports" blog, Dejan Kovacevic points out that the Pirates sell fewer than 2,000 day-of-game walk-up tickets on average, and that this increase is expected to bring in less that $1 million over the course of the season. Interesting.
- Now I know of no business that can afford to hold their retail costs over nine years, so I do understand the Pirates looking to increase prices, but from a purely emotional point of view, how can the Pirates really justifying asking people to pay more money for a steadily deteriorating product?
- What this tells me is that when (if?) the Pirates ever do get good, or even post a winning season, the price increase that our friend below will take to market will hit Pirates ticket buyers like a freight train!
<--- The Most Disliked Man in Pittsburgh?
- Another lucky visit to Rivers Casino this morning. Turned $100 into $200 in a little under one hour at the blackjack table. It started poorly, as my $100 stake had dwindled to $30 after about ten minutes. Got lucky, though, thank you very much!!!
- A melancholy Happy Trails to Pittsburgh radio talk show host Doug Hoerth who passed away at the age of 66 today. Hoerth had been off the air for a number of years, but he was one of the best interviewers in a business that is now dominated by big mouthed gasbags. RIP, Uncle Dougie.
Just a comment on the Bucco's price increase. Why would anybody even go down to the games on a whim now? Let's see.....stay at home and watch them all on tv in the comfort of my own home or go down there and pay even higher prices for the worst franchise in all major sport. Tough call there. Guess Nutting figures this will get everyone to buy in advance. Well since nobody would actually drive down to PNC Park in advance of the game, they will probably purchase online. This way the Pirates can nail them with every surcharge known to man. But think about it. This year you will get to watch Scott Olsen and Kevin Correia. BTW.....Waiting to see some new commercials for this years Bucs. Will they actually try to sell the game of baseball or more 'all you can eat' sections or Skyblast Concerts? I think we all know the answer. So I hope they got rid of that annoying guy who is on all the commercials and handles the 12 or so First Pitches prior to each game. What an annoying jack***!!! He has to be related to someone high up in ownership.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from The Legend once again. He has been quiet for far too long!!
ReplyDeleteBREAKING NEWS----This just in. The Pirates 3 game home series with the Boston Red Sox originally scheduled for June 24-26 has been moved to Boston. PNC Park will instead be used for a concert starring The Original Partridge Family. Pirates Owner Bob Nutting was quoted as saying 'This is a fantastic coup for the Pirates family. Not only are we getting one of the all-time great rock 'n' roll bands. But we are getting them at the beginning of their long awaited comeback. I want to thank Shirley Jones (Herself a Western Pennsylvania-er) (Is that even a word? Gawd I'm so excited!!!) for helping to make this possible. The Pirate family figured it would be a much more lucrative venture than a 3 game series against the Red Sox. Odds are that most tickets would have been purchased in advance. So we wouldn't have been able to make the extra cash that the 'gameday' price increase would have brought us. So please join me and the extended Pirate family in 'rockin' June out with a bang. Thank you, Bobby Nutting. P.S.---To quote the brilliant David Cassidy 'I Think I Love You'.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that I don't recognize the man in the photo. Who is he?
ReplyDelete