Pittsburgh, PA; Everything Baltimore and Washington Would Love to Be

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/200972-pittsburgh-pa-everything-baltimore-and-washington-would-love-to-be

Does it burn you up, Washington D.C.? Does it hurt to see what your hockey franchise could be in the near future? The Pittsburgh Penguins, among the most hated pro sports franchises around these parts, took the impossible and converted it into a glittering reality for hockey fans.

How about it, Baltimore? You are a blue collar lot. Your city knows how to get down and dirty. You love hard-hitting defense and a smash-mouth running attack. Yet in the moments that count, the Pittsburgh Steelers can hang their hard hats on unshakable nerves and a fan base that lives and dies on every tackle evaded by Ben Roethlisberger.

Two metros with Three Rivers envy. Pittsburgh, at least in the ranks of professional sports, is everything we want to be.

Sure, colleges and universities dot the periphery of our collective metropolitan conscience. Fine art is accessible to the masses, a sprawling nightlife beckons to all that enter the limits of both cities, and the surrounding counties are a safe haven for those who just want to tour the concrete jungles on occasion.

There is more culture on I-295 than in the whole of Pittsburgh, but the Steel City continues to lord one thing over yuppies of the mid-Atlantic: championship-caliber sports.

For as much as we enjoy the trappings of city life, Baltimore and Washington leave much to be desired in the pride delivered by championship-winning teams. The Ravens unexpectedly delivered the goods in 2000, and while they’ve been consistent enough, they are never the favorites to win their own division, let alone the Super Bowl.

As for Washington pro football, we don’t even have to go there. Daniel Snyder continues to drive the crown jewel of the city into the ground, while Ted Leonsis has turned the city’s dunce cap into a shimmering crown of glory, making the Washington Capitals the franchise closest to competing for—and winning—a league championship. A championship that figures to run through Pittsburgh, at least for the near future.

We hate to admit it, most less-than-intelligent fans based here won’t. But Pittsburgh fans reign supreme in this axis of a sports rivalry, and so do their teams. We could say that they don’t know how to handle their success, but success itself is always the best response.

We yearn for your excitement. We envy your homegrown love for your teams and wish we didn’t have to suffer folks who move to our cities to work while holding their allegiances to other squads.

We hate the fact that you have fans all over the world, that Dan Rooney is savvy and beloved, and that your hockey star can be a crybaby and still find success.

And yes, we especially hate the fact that your rapid transformation into a Boston-like collection of ignorant, arrogant jerks is well-deserved. Lord knows how much we want to show off the jackass inside of all of us, if we only had the chance.

The Day Dawns

By the time I go to sleep again, I will experience a once in a generation event and be either ecstatic and drunk with joy or incredibly disappointed and wondering if I'll ever experience joy again.



I was 9 the last time a day like this happened. Almost 30 years later it has come around again.

Championships have been won. Game 7's have been played. Do or die's have been contested. But nothing compares to a Game 7 in the Finals.

Courtesy of the Pirates, if you can believe that, Pittsburgh had a run of 3 from 1960 through 1979, that being the last one and the last time a road team has won a Game 7 in a Final round of the NHL, NBA or MLB. Not since then have we seen something like this.

The Steelers have played 4 Super Bowls since the last Burgh Finals Game 7. Won 3 of them. But that is a one game matchup. Sometimes, like in February, it takes a bit for the game to heat up, for emotions to come to a boil.

Not in a Game 7, the last of a long series that forces emotions to the fore and hatred for the rival.

The Pirates have all but faded, but their last gasp provided perhaps the most painful Game 7 collapse in history. But it wasn't the final round. Even if Espy catches the ball, Lind fields it like the gold glover he was, Berryhill gets called out on strikes like he was, and yes, Bonds earns a series ending assist, there was still more work to do.

Tonight, or early tomorrow morning, no matter what there will be nothing more to do. Both teams go home. But one gets the prettiest present in all of sports to share with their fans and family all summer long. After a season pushed as far as it can go, that is the reward. Both have come as far as they can, but the teams and their fans will depart will remarkably different feelings and memories from today.

I am somewhat removed from the glow that is burning in both Pittsburgh and Detroit, unable to join the thousands in the Burgh on this collective roller coaster. This time, unlike in 1991 when I drove all day from Tennessee to the Igloo (getting lost and winding up in Kentucky along the way) for Game 2 vs the North Stars and got to witness 66 splitting Chambers and Wilkinson and enjoyed the Pens return with the Cup with thousands of others at old Pittsburgh International, this time I'll be watching from afar.

But even that didn't take 7 games to win. And even Game 7 heroes like Kasparaitis and villains like Volek and Fitzgerald will take a back seat to a Finals Game 7 hero.

Because this day is unlike any other. It's Game 7. Stanley Cup Finals. In the schoolyard for all the marbles.

And sometime Friday morning, I'll fall asleep with memories and emotions that I know won't likely come around again for a long long time, if ever.

Let's Go Pens!

Meet You In the Schoolyard for all the marbles...

Nobody does it better: Mike Lange in Game 6

Zach Duke's Resurgence

Where Have You Gone Andy van Slyke has seme great insight into Zach Duke's sterling performance last night:

After reading Tony La Russa's comment about Zach Duke last night (according to DK, he told reporters, "You saw Duke pitching, right?" when asked why his hitter struggled last night), I decided to go in to the PitchFX and look around a little bit to see if I could find more of an explanation than "he's throwing a little harder this year" to attribute his turnaround to. I mean, he is throwing a little harder, I think (I haven't really compared, but last night Pitch FX spots his fastball right around 89 all night), but there's got to be more to it, right?

The first thing I noticed on the graphs from last night is how nasty his curveball looks against right-handed hitters. I pulled up the full chart with pitches and outcomes and sorted the changeups. There are two that are misclassified fastballs (I think), so that leaves us with 12 pitches, all thrown to righties. He threw ten for strikes (both balls were to Pujols) and of those ten strikes, two were fouled off, four were hit for ground outs, three were swinging strikes, and one was a called strike. That's a really good pitch.

Next up is the curve, which he threw 30 times for 19 strikes. Those 19 strikes resulted in four foul balls, seven called strikes, two swinging strikes, two groundouts, a flyout, and a single. In total, he went to his change or curve 42 times with only 13 balls. Of the 29 strikes, only six were put in to play and only one of those went for a hit. I don't have time to compare this with a start from last year (I will at some point soon, I hope), but those numbers strike me as being really, really good.

Still, we at least partially have an answer; it's not just an improved fastball that's making Duke better. He's throwing some really good off-speed stuff as well.

Sunday Papers

• Anyone paid attention to ol Ollie Perez's fortunes with the Mets? How about a 9.31 ERA? And how about a trip to the minors. I didn't like giving him up, but he's done nothing consistently in NY to show he's become a valuable pitcher.

• Empty Netters had this photo of Sid's almost goal yesterday. That looks prety close to over the line. A video review wasn't done if I recall. Why not?

• The Pens looked slow after a great start. Maybe because there weren't as many Pens fans in the phone booth as normal? Both sides have to be better for Game 2.
• Did you know not to pick up a rattlesnake by the lips? Did the Pens just ask a pregnant looking woman when she is due? And another where's Geno question.
  
• Ross Ohlendorf is 3-2 with a 3.48 ERA. Need more evidence that the Bucs flirtation with .500 will end soon?
• For a team that once had a Super Bowl winning roster made up entirely of players who played only for them, it's kind of amazing to look back at how few Steelers complete their careers in black and gold, especially since 1982 or so.
• Willie Parker and Larry Foote are more alike than you think.
• Steeler minicamp is in full swing. Which means you'll be hearing aboout a lot of guys who will be riding the bench in the fall.
  
• The bad economy hits the Kentucky Derby. Kentucky still happy:

Churchill Downs returned $127,825,423 to bettors on the Kentucky Derby Day race card, which amounts to 82% of total wagering, the track reported. The Commonwealth of Kentucky benefited from $789,241 in revenues generated through the state’s excise tax on pari-mutuel wagering.