To Absent Friends - Mike Ditka

 

Mike Ditka

1939-2026

How I Think of Him - As A Pitt Guy

Mike Ditka died this past Friday at the age of 86.   If ever there was a character of "football tough guy" right out of central casting it was Mike Ditka.

Born in the western Pennsylvania steel town of Aliquippa, Ditka went to earn All-America honors at the University of Pittsburgh from 1958-60, and he may very well be the first guy that I, as a little kid, identified with Pitt football.  I was too young to ever see him play at Pitt, but I remember when he was drafted by the Chicago Bears and immediately became a star in the National Football League, virtually "inventing the position of tight end as we know it today" as all the ESPN pundits put it in their eulogies this weekend.  He had a twelve year career in the NFL, six with the Bears, two with the Eagles, and four with Dallas, where he played on the Super Bowl VI championship team.  He was a six time All-Pro, and a member of the NFL's 75th and 100th Anniversary Teams.

I do have a specific memory of a game that Ditka played against his hometown Steelers. It was at Forbes Field on November 24, 1963, the weekend of President Kennedy's assassination.  The game was neither telecast nor broadcast. The teams played to a 17-17 tie that day.  Ditka had 7 receptions for 146 yards, including one catch and run that covered 63 yards wherein Iron Mike seeming broke about a half dozen attempted tackles.  You no doubt saw that run and may not have realized it when various highlights of his career were shown on the news this past weekend.  Chicago went on to win the NFL championship that season.

Ditka went on t0 greater fame as head coach of the Bears, where he guided the 1985 Bears, generally conceded to be one of the great single season teams of all time, to the championship in Super Bowl XX.

It was at this point that Mike Ditka became a figure in the popular culture and not just a football guy, thanks in large part to the famous "Da Bears" sketch on Saturday Night Live, where he forever became known as "Da Coach".  After his coaching career ended, he went on to do TV commentary for three different networks over three different decades.  He also became a ubiquitous commercial pitchman for a myriad of products and services, where he became almost a caricature of himself, always playing the role of "Mike Ditka".

I know that Chicago is claiming Ditka as one of their own, but to me, he will always be a "Pitt guy" from Aliquippa, PA.

To conclude, allow me to cut-n-paste the closing paragraphs from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Noah Hills in his column from yesterday's Sunday edition sports pages.

He was the rare example of a star athlete who also went on to experience success as a coach, analyst and entertainer. And he managed to do so without ever allowing anyone to sanitize, dilute or constrain a single iota of who he was — a gritty, grouchy, quintessential Western Pennsylvania football guy.

We might see another tight end play the game like he did. We might see another Super Bowl-winning coach match his intensity. We might see a former gridiron great have equal success in the media, be it through covering sports or acting on shows or in movies.

But we will never see anyone do all of this with the unique aura of Iron Mike Ditka. He was one of a kind from start to finish, an Aliquippa-born and bred star who can never be replicated.

RIP Mike Ditka

To Absent Friends - Eva Marie Saint

 

Academy Award winning actress Eva Marie Saint died this past week at the age of 102.  Hers was a remarkable acting career that began with a television production of "A Christmas Carol" that was made in 1947, and continued well into the 2020's.  IMDB lists only 86 acting credits for Ms Saint, which surprised me but what a resume!

She had made over two dozen acting appearances on the then new medium of television when director Elia Kazan tapped her to play Edie Doyle, the young Catholic school girl who befriends longshoreman Terry Malloy, played by Marlon Brando, in 1954's "On The Waterfront".  It  is one of the great American movies ever made.  It won eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and it led to a remarkable career in movies, television, and stage.  Besides her appearance in "On The Waterfront", her best known role was no doubt that of Eve Kendall in Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest" (1959).  She played a....well, I'm not going to tell you because it would be a spoiler (even for a 67 year old movie) and the romantic interest of Cary Grant.  It also contained THIS SCENE which, for my money, is one of the sexiest ever filmed in a movie. 

(ASIDE:  If you have not seen either "On The Waterfront" or "North By Northwest", stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and find them and make it a point to watch them over the next weekend.  You will not be sorry.)

Eva Marie Saint appeared in many other significant films, among them "Hatful of Rain", "Splendor In The Grass", "Raintree County", "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming", and even "Superman Returns" in 2006.   She also continued to appear on television shows including playing Cybill Shepherd's mother in six episodes of "Moonlighting" (1986-88), and, of course, two appearances on "The Love Boat" wherein she appeared in two consecutive episodes (S 6, E 18&19) playing the character "Aunt Helena Georgelos".  I think I have to look up those two episodes.  They have to be streaming on some platform or another.

I also remember seeing Eva Marie Saint being featured in a long interview with Robert Osbourne on Turner Classic Movies within the last ten years or so.  She was in her nineties at the time, and I remember it being a terrific and delightful interview.

RIP Eva Marie Saint.

Trivia: At the time of her death, Eva Marie Saint was the oldest living Academy Award Acting Winner.  That honor now goes to actress Lee Grant, who is 100 years old.

With Cary Grant in "North by Northwest" 

and Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront"

As Edie Doyle in "On The Waterfront"

As Eve Kendall in "North By Northwest"

More On Sam McDowell

 

In the thirty-six hours following THIS ABSENT FRIENDS post abut Sam McDowell, I realized that I sort of glossed over his accomplishments in his post-baseball life.

McDowell's career came to an end in 1975 largely due to his alcoholism.  Stories in his obituaries make note of the fact that Sam was "booted out" of baseball because of his condition.  Soon after that, McDowell found himself $190,000 in debt due to a failed business venture, his wife left him and took their two kids with her, and Sam found himself selling insurance and living with his parents, all while still battling his alcoholic demons.

No mention is made of what the turning point was that caused McDowell to check himself into Gateway Rehabilitation, but that is what he did.  After becoming sober, he enrolled in  the University of Pittsburgh and obtained a degree in Sports Psychology and Addiction.

He then became an addiction counselor for the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays, earning a World Series ring with the Blue Jays in 1993.  He then served in similar capacities with the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) and the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association.   In 1998, he founded the City of Legends Retirement Community, a community for retired professional athletes.

The obit that appeared in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette included this quote from  McDowell:

“I truly believe, with all my heart, the greatest thing that ever happened to me was that I was an alcoholic and found out about it,” McDowell told the New York Post in 2001. “Had I never known and had not been thrown out of baseball, I would not have the great life I have now. I would not have the education. I would not have learned how to live and love. Every day is a kick.”

The term "redemption story" has become a cliche, but Sam McDowell's life after he threw his last pitch truly embodies that term, and his accomplishments there exceed any of his accomplishments on the diamond. 

Again, RIP Sam McDowell.

To Absent Friends - Sam McDowell

 

Sam McDowell

1942 - 2026

Seeing the news last night of the death of Sam McDowell strikes a chord for all graduates of Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh.  Sam was a classmate of my older brother Bill, Class of 1960, and even as a nine year old, I can remember that McDowell was quite the sports story in Pittsburgh back in his senior year in high school.  He pitched for Central, and was one of the most highly scouted high school players of that time.  This was before the days of the Major League entry draft, so promising prospects like McDowell were able to sign with any team, usually the team that offered the most money to these "Bonus Babies", and at the age of seventeen, shortly before graduation, Sam McDowell signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians for the then astronomical signing bonus of $75,000.  I remember my Dad telling the story that at Central's Commencement Ceremony that spring, McDowell received a standing ovation when his name was called to receive his diploma.

McDowell went on to have fifteen year career in the majors from 1961-75, eleven of those season with the Indians.  He was everything he was supposed to be.  He once appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the headline "Faster Than Koufax?" He led the league in strike outs five times, twice posting over 300 K's in a season.  He started 346 games and had 103 complete games (will anyone ever have the many again given how the game is played today?), and had 23 shutouts.  His career W-L record was 141-134 with a 3.17 ERA.  He was traded by the Indians in 1972 and then spent two seasons with the Giants, two with the Yankees, and closed his career in 1975 when he appeared in 14 games with his hometown Pirates (2-1, 2.86 ERA).

For all of that, McDowell's career also comes with regret for what "could have been".  At some point during that career, McDowell became a victim of alcoholism, and, by his own account, it derailed and ultimately ended his career.  To his credit, McDowell became sober and spent his post baseball life offering counseling services for those victimized by alcohol and substance abuse.   In that role, there is no telling how many lives that he may have saved.

Let me close by sharing a couple of "two degrees of separation" stories about Sam McDowell.

I mentioned that my brother Bill was a Central classmate of Sam's. When recounting stories about him Bill would recall how when school ended in their junior year, McDowell was just another boy at Central, but when he returned that fall for his senior year, he had somehow turned into a full grown man over the summer.  Bill also recalls how everyone looked in awe whenever Sam threw snowballs across the Quadrangle that year.

Like most really good amateur schoolboy players, McDowell pitched for the Little Pirates, a traveling amateur team that was sponsored by the Pirates.  My brother-in-law Jim was a catcher who also played for the Little Pirates, although he was three years younger than McDowell.  One year on our Outer Banks vacation I asked Jim if he played with McDowell on the Little Pirates.   Indeed he did, he told me, and that his first year with the team was McDowell's final season, and that he, then 14 year old Jim, had to catch a game that was being pitched by 17 year old Sam McDowell.  Sixty years after the fact, Jim would like say that he can still show you the bruises he got trying to catch McDowell's fast ball.  I asked Jim was it obvious that on a team of very, very good high school age players, was it obvious that McDowell was better that everyone else?  "It wasn't even close" was his response.

RIP Sam McDowell.

On The Pirates and The Steelers

PIRATES 

Paul Skenes deals in the Bucs 2-1 

win over the Cardinals

Linda and I toddled on down to PNC Park on Thursday afternoon to take in the Pirates final home game of this 2026 season, a season that was both promising and disappointing.

(Interestingly, we were in attendance courtesy of two free tickets that I received from Pirates prexy Travis Williams that resulted from my written exchanges with him following a Pirates screw up earlier in the season. I wrote about that incident in THIS POST back in July.  Free tickets are nice, but I'm pretty sure that the same foul up that I experienced in July will happen yet again to 2027.)

The weather was nice, Paul Skenes pitched very well although he did not get the decision, and the team won it's 81st game of the season, assuring they will NOT have a losing season.  They now sit at 81-79, and a win either today or tomorrow will give them a winning season, a fact that will no doubt be trumpeted loudly by the PR hacks in the from office.

PIRATES  2026 - THE GOOD

• The emergence of pitchers Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler as solid major league starting pitchers.
• The astonishing number of home runs that the team has hit, led by Brandon Lowe with 34 of the teams total of 184
• Konnor Griffen making the team at age 19 and being signed to a long term nine year contract
• Mason Montgomery becoming a solid MLB closer
• Solid performance from free agent signee Ryan O'Hearn
• Very good offensive numbers from Oneil Cruz

PIRATES 2026 - THE BAD

• A substandard and disappointing year by his standards from Paul Skenes, although you would take a guy who gives you 32 starts, 10-11 W-L, 3.82 ERA, 200 K's and a 1.12 WHIP almost every time, this was definitely not the Paul Skenes of '24 and '25.
• Injuries that caused key players like Cruz, Griffin, O'Hearn, and Spencer Horwitz to miss huge chunks of the season
• A preponderance of "bullpen games", a development of baseball in the 21st century that I positively hate.
• Don "Donnie" Kelly's sometimes mystifying managerial decisions
• The bullpen which was, despite Montgomery (see above), awful.  How many games were lost because of horrible performances by the relievers?

PIRATES 2026 - THE UGLY

• New pitching coach Bill Murphy's agonizing sloooowwww walks to the mound to counsel his pitchers.  Always made me wish that one of those pitchers would have just hauled off and punched him in the face.  Radio guy Joe Starkey gave him the tremendous nickname of "Mosey Murphy", the comic brilliance of which was no doubt lost on all but longtime fans of Duquesne basketball.
• Did I mention the bullpen?  That was truly awful and ugly all season long.

At the beginning of the season, Pirates leadership in the persons of Bob Nutting, Travis Williams, and Ben Cherington made it clear that the goal for 2026 was nothing less than making the post season.  Well, they fell short, and in fact, hard as it might be to say about a team like the Pirates, they significantly underachieved for this season.  The question now becomes who, if anyone, will be held accountable for what can truly be called a disappointing season?

STEELERS

So far, the Steelers have given us a lackluster 20-13 win over Atlanta wherein the offense scored one touchdown, and an ass-kicking 20-3 loss to New England wherein the offense scored zero touchdowns.  The lasting image of that New England game, and let's hope that it will not be the lasting image of the season, will be his god-awful hit that Aaron Rodgers took:

How does anyone, let alone a 42 yer old man, 

get up and keep playing after this?

The knee jerk tendency after this 1-1 start is to say that the years have finally caught up with Aaron Rodgers and that there is nothing left in the tank for him.  That may well be true, but he has had nothing, and I mean nothing to work with thus far.  It starts with an offensive line that has done nothing but do an impression of Swiss cheese, and a #1 receiver in DK Metcalfe who's done nothing but drop passes, and a running game that has been non-existent, which also traces back to the woes of the offensive line.

Hey, the Patriots played in the Super Bowl last year, so it's no shame to lose to them a Gillette Stadium, but, man, that was a sheer debacle last Sunday, as you can see from Rodgers' body language when he was mercifully pulled near the end of the game, and Mason Rudolph was give mop-up duty.

Tomorrow, the Steelers take on what appears to be an improved Bengals team at Acrisure Stadium. Cincy is favored, but this is a traditional divisional rivalry, and the Bengals can always be counted on to be the CINCY BUNGLES when these teams meet, so who knows? Perhaps we will be singing a different and a happy tune tomorrow night but it's probably not the smart way to bet right now.

The Steelers Hall of Honor and Museum

On September 2, well ahead of my Surprise Birthday Party,  I received an early birthday present from Linda: A trip to the Steelers Hall of Honor Museum.

The Steelers opened up this space within Acrisure Stadium two years ago, and it was high time we got around to visiting.

The place is a museum to the history of the Steelers and the Rooney Family, Art Rooney Sr., The Chief, and Dan Rooney in particular.  You begin your self-guided tour of the place with a terrific twelve minute movie tracing the history of the team. Lot of great stuff packed into this twelve minutes, believe me.  One of the cool things about the movie is that while viewing it, you are sitting in seats from Three Rivers Stadium.

An Aside:  You can couple your tour of the Museum with a tour of Acrisure Stadium, which we chose not to do.  The whole experience was reminiscent of our tour of Lambeau Field in Green Bay that we took in 2024.  In fact, the docent at the Steelers Museum told us that the Steelers consulted closely with the folks at Lambeau Field as they were putting together their own Hall of Honor and Museum.

There are lots of interactive video screens throughout that highlight each decade in Steelers history.  Three are also reproductions of the offices of both Art and Dan Rooney.  

Rather than talk, I'll just share some photos we took.

Interesting correspondence received by 

The Chief and Dan over the years

All of the mannequins are the actual size of the players depicted, and the uniforms on them are game worn unis of those players.

As you might have expected, there was some space dedicated to the NFL Draft held in Pittsburgh last April.

"The Pick Is In!!"

Your tour ends in the actual Hall of Honor.  Here are some photos that I took of the Hall and of just some of the Honorees:

As it always does at places like this, your tour ends up in the museum gift shop, or, in this case, the Steelers Pro Shop where I went in and loudly said, "Shut up and take my money!"

Okay, all kidding aside, this was a most enjoyable two hours or so spent touring the place.  If you are a Steelers fan, or even just a football fan who might be visiting our fair city, a visit to the Steelers Hall of Honor Museum is well worth your time.  It gets Four Stars from The Grandstander.

There are all kinds of great pictures and quotes throughout the place, but one that I especially like is from Troy Polamalu during his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech, and I will close this post with it:

Who Would You Pay To See?

Over the weekend my friend Dan sent a message within a text group of the "Top Five Pittsburgh Athletes who are most worth paying to see in 2026". Before I reveal what he wrote, I will say that this is a very subjective topic, as my comments on the matter will show.  Example, if you don't give a damn about baseball in general or the Pirates in particular, you aren't going to pay to see them even if they reincarnate and trot out a lineup featuring Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Honus Wagner, and Barry Bonds.

Here are the five that Dan picked in order:

1. Sidney Crosby
2. Konner Griffin
3. Olivia Babcock
4. Braxton Ashcraft
5. Mason Heintschel

Sorry, Dan, but the only guy on your list that I would pay to see is this guy:

I will also say that Dan's Pitt Panther loyalty is showing up big time here, and that is okay.  Olivia Babcock may well be the best female collegiate volleyball player in the nation, but she plays a sport that is a niche sport.  Of course, if this is a sport that you love, you certainly would pay to see her play, so maybe she should be on such a list, but with all due respect, she would not be on mine, and I suspect that she would not make the list of most other Pittsburgh sports fans.

And a big NO on Mason Heintschel.  Watched him play against a bad Syracuse team on Saturday, and while he may become a very good to great Pitt QB one day, right now, he's not even at Nathan Peterman's level of play.

Konnor Griffen?  Maybe. Braxton Ashcraft?  He had a breakout season but right now, if I had my choice to pay to go to one of two Pirates games, and Ashcraft was pitching one of them and Paul Skenes the other, I'm going to the Skenes game. He is the one Pirate I would spend money to see.  Despite the poor, by his standards, season in 2026, we have seen what he can do, and the mere chance that he will recapture his 2024-25 dominance makes him THE guy that I Would Pay To See.

I will say this about Griffin.  If I go to a Pirates game and if for whatever reason he is NOT playing that night,  I'm not happy, but he is not the sole reason I'm paying to go see the Pirates.

And Dan notes that there is no Steeler on the list.  Football is such a team game, it's hard to say that outside of a star quarterback or a stud runner or receiver, you're really going to see the team and not any individual player. Having said that, TJ Watt sure is fun to watch.

So who would be on my list?  I guess I would say that there are only two athletes in Pittsburgh that I would pay specifically to see, and they would be Crosby and Skenes.  That's it, that's the list.  However, here are some other athletes that I would pay to see.

• LeBron James
• Victor Wembanyama
• Caitlin Clark
• Patrick Mahomes
• Tom Brady* (retired)
• Shohei Ohtani*
• Lionel Messi*
• Alex Ovechkin*
• Conor McDavid*

There are no doubt others, but these are just off the top of my head.  The guys with the asterisks ARE guys that I actually have paid to see.

 

Happy Birthday To Me: Linda Pulls Off The Surprise Of A Lifetime

 On Friday, September 11, I turned 75 yers old.  That same day, Linda's sons Jeff and Justin flew in from their homes in Raleigh, NC.  They were in town to attend a family wedding for a cousin of theirs the following day and were staying with us.  The next day, Saturday, Linda left the house to help set up for a retirement party for a client of hers at Rico's Restaurant.  I was to come by later to attend the retirement party and allow Jeff and Justin to say hello to the retiree before they took off for the wedding.

Then, I walked into Rico's private dining room.....

...only to find out this was a surprise birthday party for me!

How surprised was I? Maybe this picture below will give you a hint.

I consulted a thesaurus and came up with thirteen different synonyms for "Surprised" (flabbergasted, thunderstruck, dumbfounded, and gobsmacked to name a few), and they don't even begin to describe what came over me when I walked into the room and saw over seventy people from all walks of my life in there waving customized Terrible Towels while "Renegade" played over the speakers.  Sproule, Madden, Mulzet, Dinnin, and Moellenbrock family members, co-workers from my Highmark BCBS days, guys from my North Side Brunch Gang and their wives, SABR friends, Church friends, and even folks from my grade school at St. Philomena's.

But the biggest and best Star of the Day was Linda.

It turns out that Linda had been planning this party for the last fourteen months.  Yes, you read that correctly.  FOURTEEN MONTHS!!!  That she was able to plan and pull this off without me ever getting even a hint this was going to happen, and, yes, I was totally clueless, and that all of those invited guests were able to keep such a secret from me was a feat of planning, logistics, and secrecy that had not been seen since Eisenhower headed up the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  Throughout the afternoon, people kept asking "Did you not have ANY idea this was happening?" (I did not), and "Linda is amazing that she pulled this off." (yes, she is).  In the days following the party, she has been telling me stories of how she did this, and who helped, and what she had to do and how hard she had to work to keep the wool pulled over my eyes.  Did I mention that I was totally clueless?

Those "behind the scenes" folks who deserve special recognition? Sarah and Nick, Sue and Nick, Kelly and Andy, Jeffrey, Justin, Kurt, Jacquie, Haley, Cindy and Tom.  Plus all the folks who arrived at Rico's early and helped with the set up.  

Did I mention the Entertainment?  Linda arranged to have a local magician, Eric Meredith of Pittsburgh, there to perform some slight hand tricks at each table, and he was amazing.

Eric does his thing!

Linda also made a wonderful speech welcoming and thanking everyone, and saying some very special things about me.  Those words will remain with the people who were there and they will also be forever in my heart.  Did I say that I was "speechless"?  Well, not so much that I didn't get a chance to express my gratitude and appreciation for all that was done for me that day and to all that were there.

It was an amazing and unforgettable day for me.  I could go on and on, but will instead just close this out with one more shout out to my REMARKABLE wife, Linda, and some of the many photos from the day.

 

The Rooms Where It Happened

Do you sense a theme with the table assignments?

Custom made.  

Would Myron Cope have approved?

The "wedding" that Jeff and Justin were attending was

 to be a hippy-ish outdoor wedding in a field.  

Hence, the informal dress.  Did I mention that I was clueless?

With Jeff, Sarah, and Justin

Me and brother Jim

A couple of badasses!

My Dinnin Family

Maureen, John, Jim, Jack and Lisa

With Jim and Nancy and our 

niece and nephew Karen and Bill

My Mulzet Family

Kurt, Sue, and Nick

With Linda's lifelong best friend Cindy and her hubby, Tom

My Moellenbrock Family

Jim, Judy, Ann, George

With Kelly and Andy

Key Players in "The Secret"

My Madden Cousins, Casey and Cheryl

Holding a pic of my mother, Ruth Madden.

We share the same Great-Grandparents

My cuz, Casey, with my pal, David, who 

travelled from Tennessee to be there.

After keeping this a secret for fourteen months, 

Linda decided to cut loose!

Normally, she would not like a pic like this posted, 

but she said it was okay this time.

Thanks to everyone who attended and shared that amazing day that Linda gave me.  I will cherish it, and her, forever.