Steelers Sunday Night Fever: Stayin' Alive

Joe Haden with the key play off the game.

After three weeks of consecutive Steelers losses and the sturm und drang  that goes with such a streak, Rooney U pulled off what many, including The Grandstander, who placed a legal wager on the Patriots at -3 at the newly opened sports book at The Rivers Casino on Saturday morning, thought was impossible: they defeated the evil New England forces of Belichick, Brady, and Gronk 17-10 under the cold dark early evening skies at Heinz Field last night.  Entering the weekend with a 1/2 game lead over Baltimore, and knowing that the Ravens won earlier in the afternoon, and knowing that they have to play 11-2 New Orleans next Sunday, this game with the Pats was about as close to must win game as you could possibly get.

Here's what the Steelers had going against them, and how it all shook out:

• James Conner was still out with an injury, and rookie Jaylen Samuels, who showed very little the week before against Oakland, had to play.  He rushed for 143 yards and caught two passes for 30 yards, each of which resulted in critical first downs.  He may well have been the MVP of the game for Pittsburgh.
• Ben Roethlisberger threw two interceptions, and was flagged for intentional grounding that proved critical during a Steelers drive in the second half.  It was not his best game, BUT he also threw two TD passes in the first half and completed several key third down passes.
• Yips-afflicted kicker Chris Bosworth missed a near chip shot FG that loomed large, especially when playing Brady and the Pats, BUT he also made a longer FG late in the game that extended the lead to 17-10.
• The Steelers defense gave up a TD on New England's first possession of the game that was so bad, it looked like  they only had nine guys on the field, BUT although we didn't realize it at the time, that was to be the only time NE was to put the ball in the end zone all night.
• That same Steelers defense, which all season long has appeared not to realize that you were allowed to intercept the opposing QB's passes, came up with a critical one when Joe Haden (see photo at top of this page) picked  one off inside the five yard line when Brady appeared to be driving the Pats to a score.
• As they did in last year's loss to New England, the Steelers could not manage to get just one more first down late in the game, and that gave Brady and the Pats the ball with 2:30 in the game on their own 25 yard line.  How many time had we seen that movie before?  Somehow, though, this time the Steelers managed a different ending.  Brady did drive the Pats down to inside the Steelers twenty yard line, BUT then threw three straight incompletions, including one on fourth down, and for the first time in what seems like a thousand years, Mike Tomlin's Steelers came away with a "W" over Bill Belichick's Patriots.  The game and the victory were both gut-wrenching and euphoric.

It has been mentioned on some national shows today that in that game, Tom Brady looked every bit like a 41 year old dude out there playing quarterback last night.  I am not saying that this is the end for the Golden Boy, nor am I writing off the Patriots as a Super Bowl contender, but those Pats last night didn't look like some of the Pats teams that we have seen over the years.  No, I am not saying that the end has arrived for New England, but are we seeing the beginning of the end?  Like I always say, watch but don't bet.

And a word about Mike Tomlin, whom the vast majority of yinzers in Steelers nation (not to mention Steelers Legend Rocky Bleier) wanted fired after the loss to Oakland last week.  He will get little, if any, credit for yesterday's win, but he obviously held that team together during what was a seemingly turmoil filled week as the team's (and, to be honest, his) greatest nemesis was coming to town.  He obviously did something right in preparing the team for this game.  Of course, there will be a lot of people who will never admit that.

That win also assured the Steelers of a winning season.  They can finish no worse that 8-7-1.  That will be twelve winning/non-losing seasons in Tomlin's twelve seasons at the helm.  Yeah, that's a guy who deserves to be fired, alright. Pffft!!!!

Finally, on personal note, I made a friendly wager with my cousin Jan Spencer, a resident of Maine and a New England fan.  The wager involved photos that we would have to post on Facebook if our team lost.  To her credit, before both teams left the field after the final gun last night, she posted the following photo on Facebook:

#goSteelers

She certainly was a good sport about the whole thing.  However, there exists a very real possibility that the Steelers and Patriots could meet up in the post-season, so I am sure that she will want another crack at me should a rematch take place.  To which I say...You're on, Janice!

As I type this, it is a little over twenty-four hours since the end of last night's game, and to my knowledge, there has as yet been no pronouncement from Rocky Bleier.  Stay tuned.

"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" Season 2 (No Spoilers!)

It wasn't until Amazon's delightful comedy, "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" swept the Emmy Awards this fall that we got around to streaming, okay, watching (is it cool or pretentious when one says that they "stream" a TV show or movie?) this terrific show, but better late than never as the saying goes.  When the show began, Miriam "Midge" Maisel was a happily married woman in New York City in 1958.  The personification of the "Jewish American Princess" stereotype, she had it all, a loving husband, two kids, a fabulous New York City apartment and an even more fabulous wardrobe.  Then, her husband, who aspires to be a stand-up comic (he does Bob Newhart routines at a Greenwich Village club at night) announces he is leaving her (he's having an affair with his secretary), and Midge's life changes dramatically.  She moves in with her parents (who have an even more fabulous apartment) and discovers that she has knack for stand up comedy. She hooks up with Susie Myerson, the assistant manager of that same Greenwich Village club where Joel has tried to perform, who becomes her manager, and starts her career as a stand up comic.

We absolutely love the character of Midge, played wonderfully by Rachel Brosnahan. Even when life kicks her in the teeth, she remains constantly positive and upbeat.  She still loves 

Rachel Brosnahan as Midge

her husband, Joel, and it is in her dealings with him after the split where she only shows moments of fear and self doubt, but she continues to troop on, and she is positively delightful.  It must also be noted that the characters that surround Midge are also terrific.  Alex Borstein plays Susie, the foul mouthed but secretly insecure manager.  Tony Shaloub and Marin Hinkle are Abe and Rose Weissman, Midge's parents.  

 Brosnahan and Borstein

Midge and Susie

Zegan and Brosnahan

Joel and Midge

Brosnahan, Hinkle, and Shaloub

Midge, Rose, and Abe

Michael Zegan is Joel Maisel, Midge's husband, and, Kevin Pollack plays Moishe Maisel, Joel's father.  They are just terrifically drawn characters.

Season One ended with Joel discovering that Midge is the gifted comic that he wanted to be, and she appears to make  a breakthrough in her fledgling career.

Season Two became available on Amazon just last week, and in what is both the blessing and the curse of streaming TV series, we watched all ten episodes over the course of seven days.  (What, we have to wait ANOTHER YEAR for Season Three!?!?! Damn.)  If anything, Season Two has proven to be even better that the first season.  I promised No Spoilers, and I will live up to that, but here are some of the highlights of Season Two:

• Terrific on location scenes (and story lines) in Paris for Episodes 1 and 2.
• Episodes 4, 5, and 6 center around the 1959 summer vacations of the Weissman and Maisel families at a Catskill Mountains resort.  These three episodes alone make watching this series worthwhile.  A scene of Midge doing an "initials dance" at the resort is wonderfully staged and played by Brosnahan.  Also, long shots focusing on the cottage when the Weissmans arrive and the unpacking of the car when the Maisels arrive are simply hilarious.
• Episode 8 and the Yom Kippur break fast dinner at the Weissmans...fabulous and hilarious.
• Midge's breakthrough appearance on a cheesy New York telethon.
• The reappearance of comedienne Sophie Lennon, Midge's nemesis, as played by Jane Lynch.

Season Two ends with hints of big changes for many of the characters.  Makes you wish Season Three was available like RIGHT NOW.

If you have access to Amazon Prime video and have not watched "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", stop what you are doing right now and start watching.  Yeah, I know it is the Christmas season, and that you are busy with a hundred-and-one other things to do, but, really, put them aside, maybe take a day off from work, and start watching right now.  Two seasons, twenty episodes, each about an hour, give or take a few minutes, in length.  Twenty hours.  You could have it all watched in less than one calendar day.

You won't be sorry.

This and That.....

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box....

Back on November 18, I wrote a post entitled "Quite  A Football Weekend for Pittsburgh" wherein I waxed rhapsodic about the recent fortunes of the city's football teams.  We were coming off of a six week stretch where the Steelers had gone 6-0 and Pitt had gone 5-1.

Since that post, the Steelers have gone 0-3, and have not looked at all good in doing so, and Pitt has gone 0-2 and looked even worse.

Guess it's all my fault.

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The Steelers now have a one-half game lead over Baltimore in the AFC North. The Steelers have a schedule of Patriots, @Saints, Bengals. The Ravens schedule is Buccaneers, @Chargers, Browns.

Hope I'm wrong, of course, but, frankly, I'm not liking the Steelers chances of making it to the post season.

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Then there are the Pirates.  Here's what our favorite baseball team has been up to this Hot Stove Season:

• Traded a marginal outfielder and a marginal infielder to Cleveland for a utility infielder and two pitching prospects.
• Signed oft-injured free agent outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall.  Once a top prospect of the Indians, Chisenhall has spent much of his career, it seems, on the DL.  It is hoped that he will adequately fill in for Gregory Polanco until he is able to play sometime in June.  Chisenhall will then become the fourth outfielder.
• Re-signed Jung Ho Kang to a more team friendly contract (always important to the Bucs).  
• In news just in, they traded pitcher Ivan Nova to the White Sox for a 19 year old pitcher and $500 K in "international slot money" which no doubt excites GMNH.

And while the Pirates were doing all of this, the Cardinals engineered a trade with Arizona for Paul Goldschmidt.

Who should feel more optimistic at this point, Pirates fans or Cardinals fans?

Actually, of the moves listed above, the one that may - MAY! - have the most impact on the 2019 squad will be the re-signing of Kang.  If - IF! - he can regain the home run stroke he exhibited in 2015-16, he will give the team some middle of the line-up power that they sorely lacked in 2018.  I will remind you, though, that Kang had had exactly six (6) at bats and two (2) hits over the last two (2) major league seasons.  So he is far from a sure thing as the Bucs get ready to open Spring Training in couple of months.

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If we have learned one thing of value over these last few football weekends it is this existential fact:

Bad Steelers losses = better and funnier episodes of Pittsburgh Dad.

To Absent Friends - Sam Nover

Sam Nover

1941 -  2018

Former TV Sports newsie at Pittsburgh's Channel 11 Sam Nover died this past week at the age of 77.  I am late to the post here in acknowledging Nover's passing, and nothing that I can write would top what sports writer John Mehno wrote about him in his column today.  I highly recommend it to you:

https://johnmehnocolumn.blogspot.com/2018/12/altoona-mirror-december-9-2018.html

I certainly remember when Nover arrived on the Pittsburgh scene back in 1970 with the charge to shake up a moribund Channel 11 newscast with edgy and hard hitting reporting and commentary, which in his oft times abrasive manner he most certainly did, as Mehno describes in his column today.  I also remember Nover hosting a sports talk show on KQV in the evenings when that station decided to take on the Myron Cope and Stan Savran shows on WTAE back in the day that I like to consider the "golden age" of sports talk radio in Pittsburgh.  Interesting to note in Mehno's column that Cope and Nover detested each other.

And he did get that final sit-down thirty minute interview with Roberto Clemente.  That's quite an epitaph.

When I saw that Nover was only 77 when he died, I was surprised to realize that he was only ten years older than me, which means he was all of 29 years old when he arrived in Pittsburgh.  

RIP Sam Nover.

To Absent Friends - Ken Berry

Ken Berry

1933 - 2018

Actor Ken Berry died this past Saturday at the age of 85.  His acting career spanned almost forty years, and included featured roles in three long running TV sitcoms: "Mama's Family" (1983-90; 130 episodes), "Mayberry RFD" (1968-71; 78 episodes), and "F Troop" (1965-67; 65 episodes).  Of the three, "F Troop" had the shortest first run, but may have been the one that lived and will continue to live the longest in syndication and reruns.  For me, Berry will always be remembered as the naive, stumbling, bumbling Captain Wilton Parmenter, commander of the hapless F Troop, stationed at Fort Courage somewhere along the western frontier "where Indian fights were colorful sights, and nobody takes a lickin'..."  In reading his obituary, it pleased me to see that Berry himself said that his two seasons on "F Troop" were the favorite experience of his career.

In amongst those three long running shows were the usual array of appearances on shows like Love Boat and Fantasy Island and various television variety shows.  His last listed acting credit was on some long forgotten show called "Maggie Winters" in 1999.  Apparently, he had a peaceful and happy retirement doing "whatever and wherever (his) day took him", as he put it, "usually to doctors' offices."

RIP Ken Berry.

The "F Troop" Gang

"Jane, not in front of the men."

Clemson 42 - Pitt 10

There was to be no repeat of Pitt's stunning 2016 upset of undefeated Clemson in last night's ACC Championship Game.  When Clemson running back Travis Etienne was sprung for a 75 yard touchdown run on the first play of the game, followed by Pitt going three and out on their first series, which included a couple of penalties and a sack, the outcome was pretty much known.  Pitt is not in the same class as Clemson and this was anything but a fair fight, as indicated by the eventual final score of 42-10.

So, let's not dwell on the game itself, and instead ponder just where Pitt is right now, football-wise.

A few years ago, amid some coaching turmoil (Wannstedt?Haywood? Graham?  Who can remember?), someone asked me just what, as a fan, would you want from Pitt.   After thinking about it, I came up with the following thoughts.....

1. No, I don't want Pitt to become a football factory like Alabama, Ohio State, or any of a couple of dozen others you can name.  I like it that Pitt seems to think that the University's purpose is to, you know, educate people. (Full disclosure:  I am just a fan of Pitt's sports teams.  I did not graduate from or attend Pitt.  Nor do I give Pitt any money, other than the money for my season football tickets.)
2. As a fan, I would like to go into any given football season with a reasonable expectation that the team will be competitive in its conference and have a reasonable chance to win more games than it loses.
3. Play in a bowl game every year, and play in a higher level bowl game every third or fourth year.
4. I would like to see Pitt compete regularly for its conference championship, and maybe even win it once every four or five years or so.
5. Maybe, possibly see the team catch lightning in bottle every other generation or so, be ranked in the Top Ten and maybe, possibly complete for a spot in the CFP.

And what has happened in the four years of the Pat Narduzzi Era?   Pitt has gone 8-5, 8-5, 5-7, and 7-6.  They will play in some mid-level Bowl again this year and will finish either 8-6 or 7-7.   Certainly not spectacular, but the team has been competitive within the ACC, and has won more than its lost.  When I have gone to Pitt football games over the last four seasons, more often than not, I have been entertained. 

More significantly, I think, the 2018 Pitt team was different than the earlier three Narduzzi teams in that the team got better as the season went along, and, yes, I say that even though I am well aware of that horrendous egg that they laid in Miami to close out the regular season.   I mean, after that loss to North Carolina (and just why can't HCPN beat the Tar Heels?), who among us ever saw Pitt winning the ACC Coastal Division?

Also, despite the one-sidedness of the game, Pitt was playing in the ACC Conference Championship Game last night.  That is not an insignificant achievement.  (See Point #4 above!!)  So, all things considered, I think that reasonable people should be happy with the course that Pitt is on, football-wise.  As for me, all things being equal, I look forward to renewing my football tickets for 2019.  Although, I would like to see perhaps nine or ten wins in Year Five under HCPN.

In conclusion, I am going to dwell on one aspect of last night's game.  Pitt takes the second half kick-off with a touch back.  They come to the line, are completely unprepared to run a play, are in danger of being penalized for delay of the game, and have to take a timeout to avoid the penalty.  They burn a timeout with 15:00 on the clock in the third quarter.  How does something like that happen?  Who is responsible for something like that?  I mean what were they talking about in the locker room at halftime that could have led up to such a foul-up?  Crap like that drives me nuts!

To Absent Friends - George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

1924 - 2018

President of the United States

1989- 1993

Vice President of the United States

1981 - 1989

Public Servant

I never voted for George H. W. Bush, who died last night at the age of 94, but I admired the man greatly.  To me, he truly defined what it meant to serve the country and the public.   Long after he left the White House I read a book called "The Flyboys: A True Story of Courage" by James Bradley.  The book centered around a group of US Navy airmen who were shot down and/or captured by the Japanese during World War II.   One of those flyers was George Bush.  Find and read that book to get a chilling story of the experiences that helped shape the man.  It certainly changed how I felt about him.

Some of the best stories being written of George Bush  today  concern the things that he did after he left office.  For example, this note that he wrote and left in the Oval Office on the morning of January 20, 1993 - perhaps his last note as President - to his successor, Bill Clinton:

Nothing partisan there, is there? Only a concern for the future of the country.  It speaks volumes about the man.

Then, of course, there was his teaming up with former President Clinton for numerous humanitarian purposes, most notably, hurricane relief efforts in the United States.   Those efforts and the President's lifetime of service were also recognized by another of his successors, who awarded him the Presidential Medal pf Freedom.

And for all of his service, I once remember hearing him say that perhaps he was proudest achievement was seeing one of his sons also serve as President of the United States.

The most eloquent tribute I read today came from our Forty-fourth President, Barack Obama, who said, in part...

George H.W. Bush’s life is a testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling. And he did tremendous good along the journey. Expanding America’s promise to new immigrants and people with disabilities. Reducing the scourge of nuclear weapons and building a broad international coalition to expel a dictator from Kuwait. And when democratic revolutions bloomed across Eastern Europe, it was his steady, diplomatic hand that made possible an achievement once thought anything but – ending the Cold War without firing a shot.

It's a legacy of service that may never be matched, even though he’d want all of us to try. 

After seventy-three years of marriage, George and Barbara Bush are together again now, two points of light that never dimmed, two points of light that ignited countless others with their example – the example of a man who, even after commanding the world’s mightiest military, once said “I got more of a kick out of being one of the founders of the YMCA in Midland, Texas back in 1952 than almost anything I’ve done.”

What a testament to the qualities that make this country great. Service to others. Commitment to leaving behind something better. Sacrifice in the name of lifting this country closer to its founding ideals. Our thoughts are with the entire Bush family tonight – and all who were inspired by George and Barbara’s example.

RIP George H.W. Bush.