Balls and Whistles

Gone Fishing

2012-01-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Or at least to eat some fish. And some oysters. Perhaps on Po'Boys. Or in gumbo. Let the good times roll, people.

And Thus Endeth the Great Bruce Arians Debate

2012-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

Today, Steelers offensive coordinator Bruce Arians announced his retirement and nary a tear was shed in Pittsburgh, except maybe by Pig Ben Roethlisberger, who was all BFF with coach Arians.

I'm no great supporter of Arians and while it was hard to argue against a guy coming off of a Super Bowl appearance, I felt that Arians' time here was over heading into the 2011 season.

Even with all the givens -- a shortened pre-season and injuries (particularly to an already shaky O Line) -- the team's offensive production was just unacceptable. If you were grading it, it might not get an F, but it certainly would warrant a solid D.

The Steelers scored just 20.3 points per game -- 21st in the league. Compare that with other elite teams. The Packers clocked in at 35.0 per game; the Saints at 34.2 per game; the Pats at 32.1 per game; and the NY Giants at 24.6 per game. Everybody talks about how offensively challenged the San Fran 49ers were all yaer, but even they scored 23.8 per game. Meanwhile, down in Baltimore, where this week future Hall of Famer Ed Reed said that his quarterback looked 'shaky', the Ravens offense managed to put up 23.6 per game.

When you stop barfing, get back to me.

And also consider this: with Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, Jericho Cotchery and Heath Miller at their disposal, the Steelers had just 21 passing touchdowns. Heck, they had just 34 offensive touchdowns in total. Four teams amassed more passing TD's than the Steelers did total TD's. You know what that kind of stat is? Not good. It's not good at all.

I'm sure Bruce Arians is a fine human being, a fine golfer and he knows more about football than I can ever hope to know. So this is not personal. It's just business. It was time for him to go.

His play-calling was too predictable -- if you want to know how many times can a team run a bubble screen, just watch film of the 2011 Steelers to find out. And, frankly, having your big QB run around, tossing off potential sackers for 6 or 7 or 8 seconds does not qualify as actual, you know, 'play-calling.' Particularly when said big oaf is scrambling around on an ankle with as much tensile strength as over-done linguini.

Simply, at the end of the day, the Steelers just didn't score enough under Arians. The offense put up field goals when it should have been putting up touchdowns. It was a problem for the team in their wild-card playoff game in Denver. You can blame Ike Taylor for the Steelers loss all you want (I don't blame you -- the game in Denver was the worst performance of 'Swaggins' entire career), but also consider that the Steelers could have, and probably should have, been up by a score of 10-0, or even 14-0, at the end of the 1st quarter. It might have been a much different game with a lead like that, rather than the overtime soul killer that it turned out to be.

In a nutshell, I'm not sorry to see the guy go. But I am very curious to see who coach Tomlin brings in as his new OC and what that will portend for the future of the team.

Perhaps he will bring in somebody he knows from previous stops in Tampa or Minnesota?

Will he go full-out West Coast style offense with his choice? After all, he was the DB's coach for the Tampa Bay Bucs under John Gruden and while Gruden didn't invent the dink and dunk offense, he certainly perfected it. So Tomlin is familiar with that kind of offense, at least theoretically speaking. He might not be as averse to the idea of a West-Coasty, dink and dunk style, over a smash-mahth style as Bill Cowher seemed to be.

Despite the fact that a quick passing offense may be anathema to certain elements of Steelers Nation, the problem with the Steelers offense has not been that it's a more pass oriented offense, but rather with the style of passing. Perhaps Pig Ben could survive a full 16 game schedule with a quick-passing offense.

As for me, whether it's West Coast or East Coast or No Coast, I'd like to see the Steelers get the ball out of Pig Ben's hands more and more quickly. They have amazingly talented, fast guys in Wallace, Brown and Emmanuel Sanders. What would make me happy would be seeing those guys get the ball in a matter of just a few seconds and then making plays downfield. Frankly, my favorite play in football is a quick slant pass. Not every team has the personnel to turn a slant into a huge play, but when you have guys with as much speed as Brown or Wallace, a 10 yard slant can turn into an 80 yard TD in a blink.

I want to see how much of his own stamp Mike Tomlin puts on this team with this choice. I want to see how much of a say in the coaching choice the 100 million dollar QB has in the process. I want to see if they'll go far outside the organization or if they'll find a familiar face or promote from within.

But mostly what I want to see is something new. Whether you liked Arians or hated him, frankly, it was time.

Worst. Pittsburgh. Sports. Week. Ever.

2012-01-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

Seriously? What in the Sam Hill is going on around here?

I'll give a box of Twinkies to the person who can point out to me a worse week, because I don't need any fancy math skills to know that this:

PLUS this:

equals the worst week in memory.

Just what have we as a city done to piss off the sports gods? Personally, I blame the Mayor.

Top Five Reasons I'm Nervous about the Steelers v. the Broncos

2012-01-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

The Steelers first playoff game is just hours away. And I don't feel well. It's my annual bout of Steelers Playoff Anxiety Disorder. It's an amorphous disorder and happens every year to thousands of people in the Western Pennsylvania area. But today, specifically, here's why I'm twitchy:

5. Health.
The Steelers head to Mile High as a veritable MASH unit -- the offense is without it's most explosive running back (and I know I've been critical of Rashard Mendenhall from time to time, but he looked really good to me the last few weeks), the line is missing monster center Maurkice Pouncey and Pig Ben is limping around on an ankle that's about as sturdy as under-cooked bacon. (Mmmm ... bacon.) On the other side of the ball, who knows how well or how long LaMarr Woodley will play on that gimpy hamstring. And of course, Ryan Clark (the team leader in tackles with an even 100) cannot play or he might actually, you know, die. I'd feel a lot better if at least some of those guys were healthy.

4. Scoring.
Bruce Arians has a Super Bowl ring. He has made another trip to the Super Bowl. I have tried and tried to like the guy. I tell myself -- and it's true -- that he knows way more about football than I do. And yet, I don't trust the guy calling a big game. At the end of the day, who else is to blame for the Steelers woeful scoring this season?

This was the year the Steelers offense was going to explode, with a line anchored by Pouncey, a stable of wide outs that would make most NFL QB's drool, an RB with a pedigree, and an under-rated but wildly reliable TE. Plus, Pig Ben for all 16 games (no nettlesome sexual assault accusations or suspension) this time. And while I didn't expect the Steelers to rival the Saints in terms of points scored, I do think that a better OC would have turned that much talent into more points. Yup. I said it. Arians is just not in the caliber of the best OC's out there. I think this is an important point to make -- any time I (or any other fan or writer) lob criticism at Arians, that doesn't mean that I think he is incompetent. I don't mean that at all.

What I do mean to say is that Bruce Arians is not among the Top 10 OC's in the game; perhaps he is in the bottom half, even. (Near the top of the bottom, but in the bottom nonetheless.) With Pig Ben, third-down Antonio Brown, Mike Wallace, et al., they should have averaged more than their pitiful 20.3 points per game. [The only playoff team with a worse scoring average -- you got it -- your Denver Broncos at 19.3 ppg.] Even worse, the Steelers averaged just 15.6 points per game on the road. Personally, I think they need to put at least 24 up on the board to win without giving the entire 4-1-2 area code a coronary. Beyond which, if the Steelers are up to their usual tricks of getting field goals rather than touchdowns, that feeds right into the Broncos game plan to keep it close and hope for the best in the waning moments of the game.

3. Elvis and Von. (That would make a great cop show, wouldn't it? Elvis and Von. Tuesday nights on NBC).

At any rate, the Broncos defense has looked a little worn out to me the last couple of weeks, but don't overlook Von Miller (beast) and Elvis Dumervil. They are such speedy pass-rushers that they can be back on Pig Ben in a flash. When he is 100% healthy (is Pig Ben ever 100%?), and if he has a split second of awareness that the rush is coming, he can often shake off speed rushers. But currently he makes Quasimodo look fast and graceful and I worry that Miller and Dumervil will get into his grill all day long. And we know this -- when hit with a quick, unexpected rush, Pig Ben sometimes coughs up the ball. The Broncos needs breaks, they need for flukey things to happen to win this game. A couple of QB fumbles would fit that bill, would it not?

2. Run Defense.
What's the one thing the Denver Broncos offense does really well? Run.

What's not quite up to the usual standards? The Steelers run defense. Face it, the Steelers under LeBeau have been like the Navy Seals of defenses against the run. But not this year. Ranking eighth in rushing defense for the Steelers is akin to finishing dead last. Anything outside of the top three in the NFL is a shock.

Even more telling -- all four Steelers losses have come against good rushing teams -- the Houston Texans, the Ravens (2x's) and the San Francisco 49ers. In fact, the Steelers, who hadn't given up 100 yards to a single running back since Ken Starr was chasing around after a stained, blue dress, gave up 107 to Ray Rice in the season opener. (I keed. It was more recent than that, but not much.) Then they gave up 155 to Arian Foster. And the 49ers controlled the game with a sustained ground attack, if not a big game for a single player.

I'm just saying -- the Broncos run well and the Steelers aren't what they once were against the run.

1. Not Road Warriors.
Everybody wants to point to the year the Steelers won the Super Bowl as the six seed in the AFC, winning three road games to get to Detroit. These Steelers? Ain't those Steelers. The 2011/2011 version are 5-3 on the road this year. Let us, for the moment, ignore those three (at Baltimore, San Fran and Houston) losses and, instead, take a look at some of the wins the Steelers have amassed on the road this year.

First, their 23-20 win against the feckless Indianapolis Colts, which was about as much fun to watch as the entire Ingmar Bergman collection. The Colts have been a season long embarrassment and yet it took a Troy Polamalu fumble return and a late drive by the offense to beat the worst team in the NFL. As stinky and unsatisfying as that was, somehow, the win over the Kansas City Chiefs felt even worse. The Chiefs were lead by none other than Tyler Palko. Eegads. And yet it was another nail-biter, another game in which I had to admit: this team is bad stinky on the road.

What's more depressing than Bergman? Watching the Steelers and the Chiefs on a Sunday night. (Oh, if you answered Sergei Eisenstein to that question, you were also right, but wrong in this particular instance.)

This year more than most years, the Steelers really do play to the level of their competition and this is particularly apparent on the road. I'm not a betting person (I'd rather light a cigarette with a 50 dollar bill than gamble), but if I were a betting person, I'd take the Broncos and the (eight) points. I suspect it will be a close game. A close, low scoring game. Just typing that actually made the bottom drop out of my stomach.

Still, my prediction is -- Steelers 17, Broncos 13 and about 48 minor cardiac incidents in Western Pa.

The NFL Playoffs, Seeding and Reason

2012-01-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

Once again, in the land of the NFL, we have good teams traveling to play el-stinko teams in the playoffs. Last year, when the super-stinko Seattle Seahawks won the crapulous NFC West with a 7-9 record, oh did the talking heads wail. Oh, the 10-6 New York Giants didn't get to play, but the Seahawks were in. Oh, the humanity. At the time, I argued that winning your division should mean something. Even if your division is the bottom of the garbage pail. I think of it as a similar scenario to March Madness -- win your conference and you get an automatic bid. If you perform well, but don't win your conference, you should get a shot, but there are no guarantees.

Here's why division champs are important. Because the Brown hate the Steelers. And the Ravens hate the Steelers. And everybody hates Baltimore.

Because as much as I think the NFC East is often over-hyped, I do enjoy me some Eagles v. Giants match ups.

And because the Bears versus Packers rivalry dates back to the Rutherford B. Hayes administration. (Okay, I exaggerate. But it does date back to Warren G. Harding.)

There is value in rewarding a division championship with an invite to the dance. Familiarity breeds contempt, but there's nothing like seeing a bad team, one with nothing to gain from a win, clawing and scrapping, just because it will screw over a divisional rival. Petty bitterness and enmity -- that's what sports are all about. All of which is to say that the teams which are in the playoffs should be in. But if homefield advantage is just that -- an advantage -- why should teams with records of 9-7 and 8-8, respectively, be rewarded with it?

The Giants, while in the middle of a four game losing streak (admittedly to three very good teams), looked like they'd be on the outside looking in when the dust settled. But the NFC East being what it is -- vastly over-rated -- the Giants and their whopping winning percentage of .563 advance to the post-season feeding frenzy.

Worse than the just barely winning Giants are the fair to middling Denver Broncos, who didn't even win to get into the playoffs. Rather, they lost their last three games and were saved by the ineptitude of their fellow sewer dwellers in the AFC West. Heck, they lost their last game to the Kansas City Chiefs, putting just a single field goal on the board with the playoffs on the line, only to win the division anyway because the Oakland Raiders were just flat out worse.

So why do those teams get a home game? Because of some antiquated old tradition that division winners get home games? Heck, that notion dates back to the days of leather helmets, when there were no wild-card teams at all. What I'm suggesting is quite simple -- the invites to the dance go out as they always have -- the four respective division winners, plus two wild-cards. But once the invites go out, each conference will seed the playoffs by record. It's very simple.

What it would mean this year is:

In the AFC, both New England and Baltimore would have the one and two seeds, and the automatic bye. In the NFC, the one and two would be Green Bay and San Francisco, as they are. Here's where it gets fun, though.

Wild card weekend would mean --

The Saints (13-3) hosting the Lions (10-6), and the Texans (10-6) hosting the Bengals (9-7). So Saturday's games wouldn't change a bit. But both of Sunday's tilts would be flip-flopped, so that the Falcons (10-6) would host the Giants (9-7) and the Steelers (12-4) would host the Broncos (8-8).

Homefield advantage is, presumably, an advantage. You have your home fans there, you don't have a long travel day, field conditions are familiar, and so on and so forth. In the case of the Steelers (not having to go to the altitude of Denver) and the Falcons (playing in their home dome), it would be a big advantage. And, I believe, an advantage both of those teams earned through the season by compiling better records than their opponents.

Simple enough. It is logical, fair and easy. So it will never, ever happen. Enjoy the playoffs, no matter where you are.

Sunday Recipe: New Year's Pork Roast and Sauerkraut

2012-01-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

As anybody who grew up in Western Pennsyvlania knows, pork roast and sauerkraut are traditional New Year's Day foods and where I grew up, the population was so densely and predominantly Slovak, Polish and German, that we ate sauerkraut year round.

Now, everybody's family does their 'kraut differently. Some families like it super sour and others prefer it milder, almost sweet. So your mileage may vary on this.

My grandmother (the Scotch-Irish one, not the Italian one) leaned toward a richer version of 'kraut -- still a bit sour, but not sweet, rather just savory. I should say here that she was a great cook. I mean, truly great. And I think, in another place and time, with other opportunities, she might have made for a fine restaurant owner and cook. I'm not talking about opening a restaurant that serves foams and uses liquid nitrogen and the like, but a restaurant that makes just flat out delicious home cooking -- like the food you want to get at home, only better. This is my take on her sauerkraut (which she taught to my mother.)

As to the pork roast, I owe that to my friend the UConn fan. It is her grandmother's (Grandma H.) recipe. Again, I tweaked it just a wee touch.

This is a meal that is rib sticking and perfect food for long winter months. If the Steelers make it to the Super Bowl, I might even revisit it for that game.

You will need:
pork shoulder roast (a/k/a Boston butt) -- about 2 to 3 pounds
apple cider (non-alcoholic)
beer (preferably a good malty beer)
6-12 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
1 bag of sauerkraut
1 large yellow onion
1 to 2 teaspoons of beef base
Optional but tasty: 1 pound of good quality kielbassi (I only purchase kielbassi at S&D Deli in the Strip -- find yourself a good Polish Deli and get your kielbassi there. A supermarket version simply won't do.)

The prep:
For the pork: Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Now prep the pork -- nothing could be easier. Make about five or six slits with your knife tip on the meaty side of the pork roast. Jam halved garlic cloves in. Then flip the roast, make slits on the fatty side and jam halved garlic slices in there. I used about 8 cloves for my roast, but you can use more or less, depending on your tastes. Drizzle some olive oil into a baking dish (I used a glass cake dish) and put the pork in, fatty side up. Sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt and place into the oven for anywhere from an hour to 90 minutes. You want the meat to get nice and brown.

Add a splash of malty beer and a splash of apple cider to the pan, and cover tightly with foil. Return to the oven for another hour. Bear in mind, you can't really overcook this meat, so long as you keep it moist. So if you're going to leave it in longer, check it every hour and add beer and cider as needed.

When you're ready to serve, remove it from the pan and slice it on a large serving dish. Drizzle the pan juices liberally over the sliced pork.

For the Kraut: Slice the yellow onion thinly into half moons. In a roasting pan, sautee the onions with a pinch of salt until translucent. This will just take a few minutes.

Place the sauerkraut into a strainer and rinse well. Move it around and make sure you rinse all of it. Turn the heat off the onions. Add the rinsed sauerkraut, about 1 cup of apple cider, about 1 cup of malty beer (I used Great Lakes Eliot Ness this year), and the beef base.

Cover and toss into the oven which is already humming along at 325 degrees. This can cook for hours and hours. After about 1 hour, add the kielbassi (I cut it into links about 3 inches long). Also, the sauerkraut should be very moist -- you don't want it to dry out -- so if it's looking a bit dry, add more beer and more cider. After another 45 minutes, it's done. But, as I said, so long as you keep it moist, it can go for a long time.

And have a šťastný nový rok (happy new year.)

Sunday Recipe: Christmas Ravioli Filled with Mushrooms

2011-12-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, as always on Christmas Day, I made traditional ravioli. Well, they're a tradition in my family and growing up, I always felt sorry for kids who ate turkey on Christmas Day. How boring! Our Christmas tradition was always ravioli, a tradition started by my great-grandmother who left her tiny village in Abruzzo to make her way in America. Gram's traditional ravioli are filled with cheese and served with a rich, savory tomato sauce, one that is often flavored with a beef shank or some pork ribs or both. [My recipe for that sauce -- which I call Aunt Fulmay's Sauce -- is coming henceforth in a later post.]

Meanwhile, I made my traditional cheese filled ravs as family obligation dictates, but my feeling is that getting the dough right and then doing the assembly of the ravs is the hardest part, so every holiday (Christmas and Easter), I try another filling. This year, I made a mushroom filling and I have to say, for a recipe I basically made up on the fly, they were amazing -- Top Chef worthy ravioli.

In sum, if you're not a huge fan of ricotta cheese (really?) and if you want to try your hand at ravioli, try the mushroom filling. Or, do what I did and just make both. [I strongly recommend this option.]

It took me many years to learn how to properly handle mushrooms, which is to say, don't jam all the mushrooms in the pan at once, or, in the words of Julia Child -- don't crowd the mushrooms. If there are too many mushrooms in your sautee pan, they steam rather than brown. And nobody wants to eat spongey, muddy mushrooms. Trust me.

For the prep of the pasta dough and instructions for the assemblage, go to Gram's Christmas Ravioli Recipe.

For the mushroom filling, you will need:
4-5 cups of cremini mushrooms
2-3 cups of shitake mushrooms
dried porcini mushrooms
1 half large yellow onion (or one small one)
about 4 cloves of garlic, finely diced
one healthy palmful of good, fresh grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup to 3/4 cups of good ricotta cheese (I use impasta ricotta from Labriola's Market)

The prep:
You can buy packs of dried porcini mushrooms. They have a really strong flavor which I think marries well with the milder creminis and shitakes. Bring a small pot of water to a boil and add the porcinis. Reduce to a simmer and let those cook for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, clean and thinly slice the creminis and shitake mushrooms. Dice the onion and finely dice three cloves of garlic.

Heat a non-stick sautee pan with some olive oil and add about 1/3 of the mushrooms, onion and garlic over high to medium heat. The 'shrooms will release their liquid and then re-absorb it before they get good and brown. When they start to smell meaty, they're getting to the right spot. Give them a couple of stirs to try to get the mushrooms brown on all sides. When they're good and brown, they'll stick a bit to the pan. Remove them to a bowl, and then repeat this process two more times until the mushrooms are all cooked.

When the creminis and shitakes are done, drain the porcinis and squeeze the extra water out of them. I just did this with my hands. Give them a rough chop and finely dice the last clove of garlic. Sautee the garlic with the porcinis for about 5-7 minutes, then add the porcinis to the bowl with the previously cooked mushrooms. Add a pinch of salt and mix them up.

Put all of the mushrooms into a food processor and pulse until they are coarsely chopped up. Remove from the food processor and put into a mixing bowl. Add the impasta ricotta and parm. Test for salt. You might want to add a quick twist of freshly cracked black pepper, too.

And that is it for the filling. Put it to the side until you are ready to start the ravioli assembly. This will keep overnight in the 'fridge, but I wouldn't wait any longer than that because I think mushrooms lose some of their meaty deliciousness when they are chilled for too long.

Enjoy!

Sometimes I Close My Eyes and Dream of Hip Checks

2011-12-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

Last night, I dreamed that NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan suspended Penguins defenseman, Deryk Engelland. For a couple of games. As he should.

In the first period of the Pens thrilling 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks last night, Engelland left his feet and drilled Chicago's Marcus Kruger with a high hit along the boards. I'm not sure if Eggo was targeting Kruger's head, but it doesn't matter what his intentions were. He aimed high and leaped into his check. Somehow the officials missed it. Kruger left the game and I haven't seen a report on his status this morning. If, as predicted by people much smarter than I, Shanahan hands Engelland a two game suspension for the hit, Eggo should take it and say, "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"

Because NHL players need to learn to stop aiming high. Period.

The sheer number of hockey players out with concussions or concussion-like-symptoms (what is the difference here?) is alarming. The effects of missing those players should have the powers that be in the league in full-on panic mode.

Sidney Crosby, a/k/a the face of the NHL, is out again with concussion-like symptoms from an innocuous collision with linemate Chris Kunitz, just eight games into his glorious return to the ice. That all started when David Steckel, then of the Washington Caps, hit Sid in the head at the Winter Classic last year.

Philadelphia Flyers captain and defensive beast Chris Pronger is out for the remainder of the season with a concussion. And the Flyers' scoring leader Claude Giroux is out with a concussion. (Much as I hate the Flyers, this kills me. Even being out, Giroux still leads the league in points [along with Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel] and is a flat out joy to watch if you love hockey. Reports are that he might return tonight and I, for one, hope that he is fully recovered and can return to the ice.)

Last year's rooking of the year, Jeff Skinner of the Carolina Hurricanes, was placed on IR with a concussion dating back to December 7th. The Ottawa Sens are without Milan Michalek. The L.A. Kings are missing Mike Richards. The Pens have two other players sitting with concussions: heir best offensive defenseman and power-play point-man Kris Letang has been out since taking a stick to the face in Montreal on November 26th; and defensive beast and penalty killing phenom Zbynek Michalek has been on the IR with a concussion, but has been cleared to practice very recently.

That's just a small sampling of hockey players not on the ice due to head injuries -- the NHL reported that 25 players were out with concussions, allowing us a rare behind behind the cone of secrecy under which hockey operatives normally function.

It's a freaking pandemic of debilitating closed-head injuries, people.

Frankly, some concussions cannot be prevented. Clean hits can cause concussions. An innocent collision can cause a head-injury. Heck, there are always a handful of flukey accidents -- see Wayne Simmonds accidentally clipping teammate Claude Giroux in the back of the head with his knee. Doesn't get much flukier than that.

I'm not sure what the league can do to avoid those kinds of injuries. I'm going to ballpark it and say that about 25% of head injuries are due to accidents, fluke incidents and clean hits. Heck, maybe as much as 40% of head injuries are simply not preventable. [Although, it's important to point out that the quality of the helmets could be improved. Those things are flimsy and it seems like they're more for show than anything.]

But the rest of the head injuries can and should be eliminated. The league has a history of shameful inconsistency in meting out justice. You never know which NHL you're gonna get -- the one looking to eliminate cheap-shots and head-hunting, and the one that says that hockey is a tough guy sport and looks the other way. It's time for that to stop. They have to commit to eliminating unnecessary and dangerous hits to the head. Every single time one of them happens.

They need to apply 'the high stick principal' to head-hunting. A player must be in control of his stick at all times. There's no gray area for that in the rules. There's no deviation. There's no room for sussing out a player's intent. Your stick goes up, you go to the box.

Apply the same logic to head-hunting. You leap into a guy? You're out. [Suspending players for the kind of hit Engelland laid on Kruger last night would be a good start.] You put your elbow up? You're out. You clearly aim at a guy's head? You're gone.

You want to hit somebody? Do it like Brooks Orpik -- shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, hip to hip. This is a simply magnificent check on Alex Ovechkin. The league should send out tapes of this to every team in the league.

It's a game guys. Regardless of our hyperbolic, militaristic jingo about it. It is not war and the point is not to maim your opponent. The NHL can view this as an opportunity to remind all of us -- players, coaches and fans alike -- of that. It may take a couple of seasons of discipline to do it, but eventually we'll all get the message.

Top Ten Christmas Movies

2011-12-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of year when AMC has “White Christmas” on a constant loop, which might account for the fact that I believe that movie has a running time of about 28 hours. But it made me think -- if I ran a movie channel, which Ten Christmas movies would I put into rotation this time of year? (Sadly, not on the list is The Hebrew Hammer -- mostly because I haven’t seen it, so I couldn’t consider it.) Without further ado, the Top Ten Christmas movies.

10. The Ref. 1994. Starring Dennis Leary, Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey.

This movie could have been better. It should have been better. And yet, it still contains enough despair, enmity, sarcasm, dysfunction and general shittiness to make the cut. This was back before Dennis Leary annoyed me with those ubiquitous Ford commercials, 'natch.

"From now on, the only person who gets to yell is me. Why? Because I have a gun. People with guns get to do whatever they want. Married people without guns - for instance - you - DO NOT get to yell. Why? NO GUNS! No guns, no yelling. See? Simple little equation."

9. Scrooged. 1988. Starring Bill Murray, Carol Kane, and David Johansen.

It’s a weakness -- a weakness I have for Bill Murray. Also for Carol Kane. And for the New York Dolls. [Do yourself a favor and check out that embedded link.] So there ya go. And I love the original Dickens tale, but I’m not a fan of any of the movie versions. They play up Tiny Tim (the weak link of A Christmas Carol, in my opinion) and don't spend enough time on the specters (not Phil Spector, mind you.) Which is why this modern, American take, with Bill Murray, Carol Kane and David Johansen is my favorite telling of this timeless story.

"Let's face it, Frank. Garden slugs got more out of life than you."

8. The Bishop’s Wife. 1947. Starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven.

What can I say? I also have a weakness for Cary Grant. And do you know why I have a weakness for Cary Grant? Because I have eyes. [Sadly, there are no Christmas/Sports movies on this list -- but Young and Grant do go ice-skating in this movie.] It's a little sentimental, it's a little sappy, it's even a wee cornball -- hey Cary Grant plays an angel named Dudley -- it's just so sweet that I get suckered in every time.

“Ah, I am at my most serious when I am joking.”

7. Frozen River. 2008. Starring Melissa Leo.

Uplifting? Um, not so much. But c’mon. How much Christmasy treacle can one person really handle? Sometimes you need to get down and dirty and just flat out depressed. If this story of two working-poor, desperate single-mothers getting drawn into the world of smuggling humans across the border via the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River a couple of days before Christmas doesn't depress you, then you should really have yourself checked out by a psychiatric professional.

Great quotes? Again, not so much. But you can escape the forced phony cheer of Christmas for a couple of hours. Sneak out on the family with a bottle of your favorite hooch (and your favorite cousin) and pop this into Netflix.

6. A Christmas Story. 1983. Starring Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin.

Yeah, I know it’s on television like all the damned time. But the relationships between Ralphie and his parents always make me laugh. And if nothing else, this movie is worth watching just for the lamp.

“Get the glue.”
“We’re out of glue.”
“You used up all the glue on purpose!”

5. The Bells of St. Mary’s. 1947. Starring Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby.

I have a soft spot for nuns, having been educated by the Sisters of St. Joseph from K-12. Some amazing women, they were. It’s predictable, it’s hokey, it’s full of Christmas miracles and people doing the right thing, nuns teaching youngins' to box, and, last but not least, it’s got Ingrid Bergman (Ingrid Berman! for the love of god) as Sr. Mary Benedict. And yet, I love it.

“If we don't fail sometimes, our successes don't mean anything. You must be strong.”

4. Bad Santa. 2003. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, John Ritter and Bernie Mac.

Not for the kiddies. It’s rude, it’s obnoxious, it's raunchy and it's disgusting; it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. Yet it is hilarious. 'Bad Santa' is to Christmas movies what 'The Hangover' is to buddy movies. [Also, neither Bernie Mac nor John Ritter lived too much longer after making this. If I were Billy Bob Thornton, I'd be on the lookout for falling safes.]

Too many great quotes to choose from:

“How much lettuce do you want?”

“I boned a lot of fat chicks in my day, sure. But as far back as I remember, I never fornicated anybody.”

“F*ck me, Santa! F*ck me, Santa! F*ck me, Santa.”

3. Christmas in Connecticut. 1945. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan and Syndey Greenstreet.

And now we get into the old-timey movies, which, admittedly, are my favorite. But let me say -- Sydney Greenstreet -- Sydney Effing Greenstreet!? What the hell is Sydney Greenstreet doing in a fluffy, fun Christmas movie? Ah, it just makes it all the better to have the arch-villian from 'The Maltese Falcon' show up here. With Christmas charm and screwball sensibilities, Stanwyck and S.Z. Sakall as Felix Bassenak (the real cook behind her dinner), play off each other beautifully.

“Nobody needs a mink coat but the mink.”

2. The Man Who Came to Dinner. 1942. Starring Bette Davis, Monty Wooley, Ann Sheridan and, wait for it … Jimmy Durante!

Though few stars ever burned as brightly as Davis, this is Monty Wooley's show, as well as the scene stealing Durante. Wooley ends up staying in a small town (in Ohio, I think) and kinda, sorta ruins their Christmas with his larger than life persona. He's a complete panic. 'The Man Who Came to Dinner' is light on the Christmas and big on the silliness and frivolity.

“My great aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be 102 and when she'd be dead three days she looked better than you do now!"

1. It’s a Wonderful Life. 1946. Starring Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore.

I had to put it there. I still love this movie after all this time, with Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart singing 'Buffalo Girls', Clarence and George making their way through the dystopic Bedford Falls, Lionel Barrymore seething with greed and hubris, and Frank Capra's heart. Regardless of the fact that I'm curmudgeonly and cranky and dystopic myself, there's still something in me that loves Capra movies and his world-view, evident clearly in this movie (as well as 'Meet John Doe,' ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ and ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.') All evidence to the contrary, I love that Capra keeps asserting, time and again, that the little guy sometimes does triumph, that fame and fortune and power are false gods, ultimately empty and unsatisfying, that there are big victories in small moments, that there is real dignity to living a good life. This movie has never been more timely than it is right now, as the gap between rich and poor grows exponentially every day and the middle class is MIA. Fight the power, Mr. Capra. Fight the power.

Somewhere, deep down in my heart, I still believe that the George Baileys of the world are what makes life worth living. If that makes me a sucker, well, so be it.

“You... you said... what'd you say a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you'll ever be!”

Sunday Recipe: Sicilian Meatballs with a Basic Tomato Sauce

2011-12-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

It started, simply enough, with a stale hunk of bread. Really.

I had purchased a loaf of rustic Italian bread from Breadworks and used about two-thirds of it. There it sat on my butcher's block in it's paper bag. It was too hard for sandwiches, yet I left it there. Finally, that stale hunk of bread taunted me. Silently, I could hear the bread whispering recriminations as I tried to catch up on my viewings of Top Chef and Parks & Rec. I tried to get on with some writing assignments, but the bread was almost shouting at me. This went on for a solid day. The next day I woke up and thought -- meatballs.

I have to admit, this is not the first time I've awakened to the thought of meatballs. As a proper food-loving Italian-American, I grew up making meatballs. Traditionally, in my family, we always used a mixture of ground beef and ground pork for meatballs designated for spaghetti sauce, and beef at Christmas and Easter, when we served wedding soup with our ravioli. In more recent years, I started making turkey and spinach meatballs, which are a favorite in my house.

I addressed the bread. My mother's traditional beef/pork meatballs? But I just wasn't feeling it.

Okay, maybe turkey meatballs? I took the bread's non-answer as a no.

Um, wedding soup, I offered? This time, that heel of bread just gave me a blank stare. I think it raised an eyebrow. If it had eyebrows, that is.

Something new, something drastic was required. Clearly. It was time to wade out into culinary uncharted territory. I decided to try my hand at Sicilian meatballs, which are both spicy and sweet, with a kind of sneaky, addictive quality. Trust me, you're gonna want these. And don't let the ingredient list scare you off.

You will need:
1 cup of fresh breadcrumbs (more on this below)
1 palmful of fresh parmesan cheese
1/4 finely chopped onion
1 finely diced clove of garlic
2 eggs
healthy pinch of crushed red pepper
1 pound of Italian sausage (you can use hot or sweet, depending on how hot you like things)
1 palmful of pine nuts, toasted
2 palmfuls of dried currants (more on this below)

The prep (wherein I hector you about using fresh breadcrumbs):
I'm going to really strongly suggest that you make your own breadcrumbs here. The ones you buy in a can at the supermarket are (a) too finely ground and (b) dried like the Sahara. The beauty of using some stale bread is that the chunks are, well, chunkier. So instead of getting this finely ground bread dust, you get these shards of bread mixed through the balls. If you insist on using the store bought breadcrumbs, about an hour before you start mixing, add a couple of tablespoons of milk to the breadcrumbs and let those moisten up.

If you're going to take my advice, make this recipe when you've got some left-over bread on hand. Or, go buy a loaf of Italian bread, cut off about 1/4 of it, and let that piece of bread sit out over night. You want it to be stale, but not too stale. Then cut the bread into cubes and run it through the food processor. You will end up with some fine particulate bread, and some bigger chunks and shards. Put the bread aside.

In a dry, non-stick skillet, toast the pine nuts for a couple of minutes, tossing gently as you go. Put those aside.

Now, to the mixing. If you can get loose sausage, do, but if not, it's easy enough to cut away the casing and free the sausage. Put the sausage in a large mixing bowl. Add everything to the bowl at this point -- eggs, breadcrumbs, currants, pine nuts, onion, garlic, red pepper and cheese. Mix thoroughly but gently.

Cover a cookie sheet with foil (trust me, this will help with clean-up). Lightly brush on some olive oil and then make the balls. Handy tip -- run some luke-warm to cold tap water and rinse your hands repeatedly. The meat sticks less if your hands are wet. Make the meat mixture into balls -- bigger than a golf ball, but smaller than a tennis ball -- and line them up on the cookie sheet. Lightly brush the tops of balls with olive oil, sprinkle with some kosher salt and pop into an oven heated to 350. You want to bake these until the balls are lightly browned (about 20 to 30 minutes.)

As with all sausage products, I think they're better the longer they cook, so I put them into my sauce for hours before serving. (There is a recipe for quick sauce below). Also, the flavors of the pine nuts and currants and sausage do amazing things over time, so if you are planning ahead, these are even better the next day. I really like these meatballs with thin linguini, but any pasta you like will work. Mangia.

Quick sauce:
42 ounces of crushed San Marzano tomatoes (this is one large can [28 oz] and one small can [14 oz]
1 to 2 tablespoon of tomato sauce (approx.)
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 cup of heavy red wine (approx.)
palmful of dried basil
pinch of crushed red pepper

In a deep sautee pan, heat some olive oil and add the garlic. Sautee for just a few minutes, then add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Then add the wine, again bringing that to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Then add the basil and crushed red pepper. It's a quick and easy sauce that I use at least once a week. Give it a taste to see if you need more salt? More wine? Toss in the meatballs and reduce to a low simmer. If the sauce gets too thick, just add water.

Sunday Recipe: Caribbean Seasoned Roasted Chicken a'la Belize

2011-11-30T05:47:00.000-08:00

Few things say Sunday dinner to me like a whole roasted chicken and I often do a really basic Italian roasted chicken with garlic, thyme, etc., but a couple of weeks ago, I was craving a something a bit different. I started thinking about a trip I took to Belize years ago and the amazing spices of the stewed chicken I had there. Everywhere, positively everywhere, there was just amazing, rich, flavorful stewed chicken, from the tiniest hole in the wall joint to the less tiny hole in the wall joints. (What can I say -- I was in a remote area. There weren't Michelin starred restaurants -- but the food was amazing. Caribbean soul food.)

For years, I've thought about that chicken and finally I resolved to replicate those seasonings and flavors. Instead of stewing chicken parts, I thought I'd roast the whole bird.

For the spice rub:
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon of ancho chili powder
1/4 teaspoon of ground clove
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
1/4 teaspoon of white pepper
1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

You will also need:
juice of one lime
2 to 4 cloves of garlic
olive oil
whole roasting chicken (about 3 pounds)

The Prep:
In a small bowl, combine the lime juice with an equal amount of olive oil. Set that aside.

Mix all the spices for the spice rub. Set that aside.

Clean up the chicken. I usually cut off the big hunk of fat on the tail, then wash it with cold water. Dry it thoroughly with paper towels. Put the chicken in a roasting dish. Smash the garlic cloves and toss those in the cavity. Using your index finger, separate the skin from the breast meat. Jam some of the spice mix into those pockets, then rub the olive oil/lime mixture onto the bird. Coat the bird liberally with the rest of the spice mixture. Truss the legs and you're ready to roast. [Note: if you have some olive oil/lime left, set it aside. You can use it later to baste the bird.] You can do this ahead and refrigerate the chicken (I usually do the prep in the morning, then pop it into the oven later in the day.)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Roast for about 90 minutes (check it at 75 minutes, though.) [To check, insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh -- when it hits 180, it is done.] Allow the chicken to rest for 10 minutes before carving. I like to serve this with baked sweet potatoes and a simple salad. Enjoy!

The Steelers, Turnover Differential and Playoff Possibilities

2011-11-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

If the playoffs started this weekend, the Steelers would be the No. 1 seed in the AFC. Those Steelers? My Steelers? Sure. But the Steelers, despite their 6-2 record, and despite their handling of the New England Patriots on Sunday at Heinz Field, feel like an incomplete team, a less than great team, don't they? And I think that feeling at the back of your mind which is causing your skepticism is turnover differential.

The Steelers are -10. Yes, that's minus ten. It's the worst turnover differential in the AFC and, in fact, it's the worst in the entire NFL. By way of comparison, teams with comparable records, the Detroit Lions (6-2) and the Buffalo Bills (5-2) are +13 and +9, respectively.

I started to wonder if any team had secured the overall 1 seed for the playoffs with a worse turnover differential than this version of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I took a look at both the 1 and 2 seeds in both the NFC and AFC from present back to 2002.

Of all 36 of those teams (four teams in each of nine years, for those too lazy to do math), only one had a negative turnover differential -- the 2006 New Orleans Saints (the No. 2 seed that year) had a -2 turnover differential. (Which is bad, but not nearly so heinous as these Steelers.) One out of 36 -- that's a 2.77% occurrence, y'all.

So, what does this mean for your Pixburgh Stillers?

Either it's a fluke. Or the Steelers are doomed going forward.

As to the offensive end of the equation, Pig Ben & Co. have coughed up the ball 13 times through eight games. That's bad stinky, no doubt, but it's right around middle of the pack in the AFC.

Beyond which, turnovers are just part of the game. You can't win with four and five and six turnovers in a game, but to turn the ball over once? Maybe twice? That's just another day at the office for pass-happy NFL offenses in the 21st century. These are not the old Neil O'Donnell-Bill Cowher-Blitzburg Steelers. This group is offensively explosive. They can score in bunches and they can score fast. They can overcome a turnover, maybe two, depending on the timing of it.

Add to the offensive side of the ledger sheet, SEVEN of those turnovers came in one game -- versus the Baltimore Ravens to open the season. In the subsequent seven games, they've turned the ball over six times, less than one turnover per game. That is certainly a percentage with which playoff teams can live and work around. If the offense can continue to hang on to the ball they way they have (thanks in large part to vastly improved play from Pig Ben), they're in good shape going forward.

Sigh. Here's the real problem -- the Steelers defense has forced just three turnovers in eight games, or about one-third of a turnover per game. That's worst in the NFL. By a long shot. Hell, that's just downright embarrassing.

I don't think that teams can count on a crazy turnover swing. Last year's Patriots were the AFC's No. 1 seed with a +28 turnover differential. +28? That's pretty incredible and so high that it's just off the charts. By way of comparison, most AFC playoff teams in my sample years were anywhere from +2 to +18. In short, I'm not sure that a team can count on that extreme of a turnover differential, like +28, but being solidly +10 puts you in good shape for the playoff hunt.

The Steelers have a lot of ground to make up if they even want to be +1. I believe, in order to (a) make the playoffs and (b) advance in the playoffs, they simply have to find a way to create turnovers. They have to be averaging at least one (or more than that) takeaway per game. It's just that simple.

They need to force fumbles. They need to pressure the QB and force ints. Though the DB's don't have great hands (I forgive you, Ike, because you're such a good cover man), Ryan Clark, Troy, William Gay and Keenan Lewis have to start ball-hawking. They need some strip sacks -- which are the gold standard of turnovers, to my mind.

Get coach Tomlin some splash plays.

The offense is now doing their share. It's time for the defense to step up, because even though they've been winning without turnovers, I don't think they can keep doing that throughout the season.

NHL Realignment -- A Sane Solution

2011-11-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

With the Atlanta Thrashers at long last becoming the Winnipeg Jets, there is sensible, necessary talk of re-aligning the NHL. Currently, Winnipeg occupies Atlanta's former spot in the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference. Look at a map. If the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings are Western teams, then so, by god, is Winnipeg. Re-alignment is clearly necessary, just for geographic sanity.

Per the Post-Gazette this morning, the below four division re-alignment has been proposed:

That is simply asinine.

Just a wee bit of moving, and you have some much more sane alignments, keeping the East and West, each with three five-team divisions. Here's what I propose:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:

Atlantic Division:
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Buffalo
New York Islanders
New Jersey

To say the Flyers and Penguins hate each other is an understatement. To say that everybody hates the Devils is also an understatement. This makes geographic sense. Also, these are traditionally working class fan bases. Think of this as the Blue Collar Division. It fits for so many reasons.

Northeast Division:

Toronto

Ottawa
Montreal
Boston
New York Rangers

Again, there is great antipathy between the Bruins and the Rangers, and the Bruins and the Canadiens, between the Leafs and the Canadiens. And, you put four of the original six in one division. They've been hating on each other for ages. They've been hating on each other since Teddy Roosevelt was rough-riding. Every arena for every single inter-divisional game will be rocking with blood lust. How fantastic is that?

Southeast Division:

Washington

Florida

Tampa

Carolina

Columbus

Hey, Columbus is in southern Ohio. Also, it's much further east than Winnipeg, so finally Columbus comes to the eastern division. It's not as exciting a division as the first two, but it's not my fault that Columbus, Florida and Carolina pack very little natural buzz.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Central Division:

Detroit
Chicago

St. Louis

Minnesota

Nashville

You have to keep Detroit and Chicago together. It is a moral imperative. Somehow, Minnesota fits for me with this group -- the Great Lakes Division (except Nashville -- but the Preds had to go somewhere.)

Northwest Division:

Vancouver

Colorado

Calgary

Winnipeg

Edmonton

With four Canadian teams, this might be the most fun division in hockey. I expect riots. Behave yourselves Canucks fans.

Southwest Division:
Dallas
Los Angeles
San Jose
Phoenix
Anaheim

As an eastern conference habitue, I don't have much feeling for these teams. None have a really storied tradition. None are Canadian. But this at least makes geographic sense. If the fans want drama, they'll have to generate it themselves. I do understand that there's some serious enmity between the Kings and the Sharks, so that's a good thing.

There ya go. Simple. Easy. Geographically sane, if not ideal. And it preserves some of the game's best rivalries. Who do you trust? Me? Or this guy?

You're welcome, NHL.

Sunday Recipe: Beef Brisket Fit for Your Bubbe

2011-10-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not a steak eater. I'm not that much of a meat eater, really. I like it, but it's hardly my favorite thing and when I crave beef, it's usually a good burger I'm after. But every year at Passover, Geargirl makes beef brisket or, as I think of it, Jewish pot roast. And I love it, even though I usually only eat it once, maybe twice a year. With the sudden dead of winter like conditions, brisket seemed like the perfect meal today.

Warning -- this recipe is very, very easy, but it is better if you can cook it one day, refrigerate it and then heat it and serve it the next day. Give yourself two days, is what I'm saying.

You will need:
single cut (or thin cut) beef brisket, 3 to 4 pounds
6 prunes, pitted (preferably stewed)
1 can of stewed tomatoes, traditional style
about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of beef broth
about 1/2 cup of red wine

The prep:
First, invite people over. Pot roast is a meal to be shared.

Then, salt and pepper both sides of the brisket. Heat a large dutch oven over a high flame. Coat with olive oil. Brown the beef on both sides (you want it to get good and brown -- about 3 to 5 minutes per side.)

Add the tomatoes, prunes and wine. You want the beef to be about half-way immersed in liquid. So, at this point, if you don't have enough liquid, add the beef broth to get it just about halfway covered. This is important -- you don't want the beef to swim and, thus, boil. But you don't want to dry it out either.

Put the lid on and roast at 350 degrees for about two hours. It should be tender and delicious at this point.

Refrigerate the whole she-bang over night. It slices best if you slice it cold, but I have to warn, it takes a good bit of elbow grease. Slice the brisket into long strips, against the grain, on the bias. Mix it all up. Heat it in an oven heated to 225 for about an hour.

I usually serve this with roasted carrots, a really good red wine and lots of conversation. Save some leftovers for your Bubbe.

Mighty Macs, a Rumination

2011-10-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

[The real Cathy Rush and Carla Gugino as Cathy Rush in 'The Mighty Macs']

I've written a ton about women's sports over the years in this space, most predominantly football and basketball. As I reported on local women's basketball programs (Seton Hill, Pitt, Duquesne), I kept running across links and ties to Immaculata College, the little women's college that could. No matter where I went, there was another connection to Immaculata -- from my excoriating of Rene Portland, to Suzie McConnell-Serio lighting up at the memories of being coached by Theresa Grentz, to spending an entire day with the dynamo, Ferne Labati.

So I started educating myself about the real Mighty Macs, the players and the coaches. I started to read about the first women's championships. I learned about the old game that girls used to play.

Back in the 1960's, girls played an entirely different game of basketball. They played six players to a side, three each on one half of the court. Basically, three players were designated as defensive players and three were offensive players. There was no running of the floor. Players had to dribble twice with every two steps (unlike the women's game now -- dribble once for every two steps. Or, in the NBA, dribble once for every four or five steps-ish.)

The Macs were the first team to dominate when the game opened up, winning championships in 1972, 1973 and 1974, despite being a small school and, get this, despite the fact that they didn't even have a home gym, not for games and not for practice.

The influence of this one tiny little Catholic school in in the countryside outside Philadelphia, cannot be understated. I wrote a wee review of it at my other blog, Muscle Molls. The Might Macs review here or just below:

THE MIGHTY MACS TELLS AN UNTOLD HISTORY

I went to see 'The Mighty Macs' on Friday. The movie (loosely) tells the tale of coach Cathy Rush and the Immaculata College Mighty Macs basketball team during the 1971-72 season, in pursuit of a national championship. It's not a great movie (more on that later), but it is an important one.

About midway through the movie, the team suffers another depressing, humiliating loss and afterwards coach Rush (played by a very stylish Carla Gugino) decides to try something new. Late at night, while driving the team back to their rural Eastern Pennsylvania campus, she stops the van on the side of the road and orders her team out, then has them run defensive footwork drills through a puddle-filled drainage pipe late at night. She is relentless. "Again. Go! Again. Again," she tells them and the players awkwardly splash back and forth through the pipe, falling and getting back up, going back through, over and over and over.

Certainly, every sports movie of the underdog genre has such a moment. Sometimes it is a montage and sometimes it's just a single scene, but it is the turning point of the movie, the moment when the team coalesces while battling adversity, when individuals break through via sheer stubbornness and grit. You've seen it in 'Rocky'and 'Rudy,' in 'Miracle' and 'Hoosiers.'

In sum, the drainpipe is to the Macs as the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art are to Rocky.

The difference here, though, and this is what makes 'The Mighty Macs' important, is that the athletes in this instance are women. Running defensive basketball drills is very, very unladylike behavior, particularly when said drills are run through a drainage pipe, and most especially when the setting is the winter of 1971.

In 1971 we're talking about, the first season in which the women's game adopted the same rules as the men's game, which is to say, basically the rules and you and I know as basketball. There was no women's tournament to determine a championship -- why would there have been? The game they played was in no way, shape or form basketball. In 1970, while boys and men were running the floor, picking & rolling, fast-breaking and setting screens, their female counterparts were standing around the court, prohibited by rule from crossing the half-court line, from dribbling more than three times, or frankly doing anything vaguely athletic. Foursquare is more challenging, both intellectually and physically. It was a past-time which had more in common with Parcheesi than basketball.

Cathy Rush, then just 25 years old herself, entered the world of coaching right at this moment, when girls were finally permitted to, and expected to, dribble and run, and play a game which required quickness, endurance and creativity.

The movie doesn't answer the question I've always had: how did Rush master the 'new' game so quickly? I've often wondered if her youth and inexperience were a decided advantage, in that she didn't have any entrenched bad coaching habits to shed in order to suceed.

The other failing of the movie was that the players were stock, cardboard cut-outs representing one type or another. There's the black girl, the engaged girl, the frivilous girl, the big girl and the poor girl (although, the moment when the poor girl pulls on plastic bread-bags before putting on her wet boots resonates with anybody who grew up in the 1970's in a Catholic household.) The problem is not simply a cinematic one. The real-life players here grew up to influence the game immeasurably, particularly Theresa Grentz and Rene Muth (then Rene Portland.)

In women's basketball, all roads lead to Immaculata.

Portland and Grentz were integral to that Immaculata team, the one which inspired the bucket brigade (the nuns used to bring buckets to the games and bang on them), the team which won the first three women's national titles ever (1972, 1973 and 1974), and both became successful college coaches. They trained and coached some of the best players of the next generation, and mentored many who went onto coaching, too. (Of course, any discussion of Rene Portland's coaching prowess must be balanced against her noxious off-the court homophobia at Penn State.)

300 miles away from Immaculata, here in Pittsburgh, one cannot escape the reach of the Mighty Macs.

Ferne Labati started her coaching career as an assistant to Cathy Rush at Immaculata, before going on to coach the University of Miami, where she won two Big East titles. The tireless coach now works at Seton Hill, less than an hour from downtown Pittsburgh.

Agnus Berenato, the dynamic coach at Pitt, played her college ball at Mount St. Mary's where she played against teams coached by Rush (and Labati.)

Suzie McConnell-Serio, heading into her fifth year as head coach at Duquesne in downtown Pittsburgh, is a direct lineal descendant from the Cathy Rush coaching tree, having played her college basketball at Penn State for Rene Portland (McConnell was the NCAA all-time leader in assists until March, 2011, when Courtney Vandersloot passed her), then played on Team USA in 1992, a team coached by Teresa Grentz.

Over the last few years, I've been lucky enough to interview and spend time with all three of those remarkable women. Each one lit up at the chance to tell stories of her connection to Immaculata. Because they all understand that without the Mighty Macs, there's no Skylar Diggins or Maya Moore, there is no Lisa Leslie or Cheryl Miller. Personally, I would even posit that without the Macs, the road for Mia Hamm and Hope Solo is tougher, full of dark, rough terrain into uncharted territory.

Every generation of athlete looks to their childhood heroes for inspiration. For women, it's often hard to find athletic heroes and role models. So if the movie 'The Mighty Macs' is less than perfect, at least it tells the story of these women pioneers for a new generation of girls. And that's good enough for me.

Jim Harbaugh, Manners and Free License to Be a Jerkwad

2011-10-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

It’s pretty easy to get cynical about sports. It’s pretty natural to see somebody like NFL coach Jim Harbaugh act like an entitled jerk and then come to the conclusion that everybody is like that -- assume that he is simply doing what all professional athletes and coaches do. It’d be easy to think that behavior like Harbaugh’s is not merely tolerated, but actually celebrated.

I heard some of the talking head din after the handshake bruhaha, some of which framed football as war (stop me if you've heard this one before). The thrust being that it's okay for Harbaugh to be a jerk because (wait for it) -- the Lions and their coach Jim Schwartz are “the enemy.” Puh-leeze.

If you missed it, after Harbaugh’s 49er’s upset Schwartz’s Lions on Sunday, there was a bit of a dust up after the ‘handshake,’ causing Schwartz to take off after Harbaugh until they were separated.

Then, in the post-game pressers, Harbaugh dissed Schwartz with his whole, “I guess it was a hard handshake” stuff. Harbaugh’s smirk as he said it was insufferable; it actually rose to the level of an A-Rod worthy smirk, if you can believe that.

And Detroit's Jim Schwartz isn’t blameless in this either. He could have taken the high road, walked away from Harbaugh and made a mental note to himself of what a monkey's ass the guy is.

I’m not suggesting that emotion be taken out of the game. I love emotional coaches. I love guys who are engaged and engaging on the sidelines. They make the games more fun to watch and, I would expect that players (or at least some players) respond to it.

But I don't buy that to be emotional means that classeless preening and chest-thumping are also absolutely essential. Without it, Jim Harbaugh (and his team) are as feeble as Samson with a high and tight?

These are grown men. They can’t reign in their emotions for 10 second, long enough to shake hands with the opposing coach and say, “good game.” How hard would that be? How hard would it be not to bray like an ass?

I don’t want to be the PC police and I don’t endorse 'phony-ism,' but I am a firm believer in manners and in being polite. I guess you can view being courteous as being phony. You can be that dark if you want to, but to me it just means being a decent person in a civilization.

Phony would be Harbaugh sending Schwartz an extravagant birthday present. Shaking hands in a dignified way is simply being polite. And being polite is a simple standard to which we should all be held.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the sidelines of women’s football games, high school football games, college basketball games (of all Divisions) and so on, where both winners and losers behave decently. That may seem trite. I suppose the manners and sportsmanship I’ve seen on the high school level is cliched, silly and just outdated because, ironically enough, the ‘higher up’ the athletic food-chain you get, the less important manners become.

But I've got a little secret about professional sports which I am now about to share with you: They're too full of themselves. The players, the coaches, the media, the fans -- we all think these games are more important than they are.

I don’t care how good of a football player you are, that doesn’t give you license to be a jerkface.

I don’t care how excited you are about your win, it doesn’t mean you should act like a tool.

I spent a solid year with the Pittsburgh Passion women’s football team and listened to the owner, T. Conn, talk about representing with class and dignity and professionalism. Good thing she and her players actually aimed higher than the professionals.

The Curse of the Winter Classic Sweaters: A Call to Action!

2011-10-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

Baseball's fall classic is nearly upon us and my thoughts can't help but run to the sport full of mysticism and metaphysics, faith and the occult. After all, seamheads love the romance of baseball. But what they love even more than all that treacly sentimentality are their curses -- the Curse of the Billy Goat, the Curse of the Bambino, the Curse of the Black Sox, the Curse of Rocky Colavito and the Curse of the Cowboy (how were those for obscure curses for yinz?)

Personally, I don't cotton to curses or karma. I don't subscribe to the belief that mystical forces are afoot in the real world, with fairies and trolls wreaking havoc in our daily lives. I don't believe in god and if I did believe in god, I'm pretty sure he or she would be far too busy with other things than to worry about torturing the fanbase of this or that particular sports franchise.

And yet, I do believe there is patently obvious bad juju around the Pittsburgh Penguins alternate sweaters.

First, they're just too busy. My eyes go all glassy with all those baby blue stripes along the forearm and the base of the sweater. Somebody pointed out that those stripes might look better if there were little swimmers in each lane. Navy blue? Since when is navy blue a primary color in the uniform scheme for the Pittsburgh Penguins? Huh?

But you don't have to get lost in a sartorial critique to hate the alternate sweaters.

It's a matter of simple math. Do the Penguins always lose when they wear these sweaters? A quick check of my razor sharp memory says yes. Yes, they do.

Geno's knee hates the sweater so much that it starts to throb and ache at the mere thought of putting on the alternate jersey.

Did the Penguins locker room look like a MASH unit on a busy day during the season in which they busted out these beauties? Check. Was Dan Bylsma running a regular shuttle to Wilkes-Barre to bring in fresh bodies in the first season of the WC sweaters? Check.

Did the greatest player on earth sustain a severe concussion during the inaugural wearing of the sweaters? Checkmate. I don't ever want to see these sweaters again. Why do they keep torturing me with them, forcing to remember last year's Winter Classic? A hockey game that was neither wintry, nor classic. And a game that was one of the darkest moments in Penguins history.

As much as I blame David Steckel and Victor Hedman for Sidney Crosby's concussions and the miserable aftermath, I blame those fucking sweaters.

How can we lift the curse of the Winter Classic sweater?

I don't think we have to do anything silly like those Cubs fans who had a priest sprinkle holy water in the Wrigley dugout. Or worse, the Sawks fans who famously brought professional witches into Fenway. (And I'd like to know -- just how does somebody become a 'professional witch?' Can I just google that and find one in my city? Are their groups on FB or something? Is there an association or an accreditation board with continuing education credits and stuff?)

I have a simple plan, one for which no witches or priests or Imams need apply.

Step One: Ray Shero, Dan Bylsma and the rest of the brain trust of the Penguins agree that they will never, ever, ever wear these diabolical jerseys in a game. Or at practice. Or to go to the mall. Or as a sleep shirt. Or even to clean out the basement or paint the bedroom. Simply put, there is never a time when Marc-Andre Fleury should ever pull one of these sweaters over his head. Just like never.

The second step is trickier. I've given this a lot of thought. First I considered re-purposing the sweaters, perhaps installing a drop box outside the Consol Energy Center for fans to deposit the WC sweaters and thereupon, I could have them shipped to third world nations, so impoverished little children could wear them in the chilly night air. After they changed out of their New England Patriots Super Bowl XLII Champions tee's, of course. But I don't want to spread the scourge of the sweater to unsuspecting populations.

No. We have to handle it right here in Pittsburgh -- we need to exorcise the evil sweaters.

I propose that each devoted Penguins fan torches his or her alternate sweater. Yeah, yeah, I know they cost you about a buck-sixty per, but this will totally be worth it. Totally.

Douse it in nail polish remover and toss a match on it.

Put it in the backyard firepit.

Take it camping with you and use it for tinder.

Take pictures of the fire. Tweet it, text is, list it as your status update, use it as your profile picture, send it to everybody in your google circles. Post it at your blog or whatever passes for your own personal social media empire.

Do it for your team. Do it for your city. Do it for the love of all that is right and holy. Do it for future generations. We can stop the wickedness. And we can stop it now.

Hell, you still have your classic Lemieux, the powder blue Crosby and the home black Orpik anyway.

Is the NHL Really Serious About Head Injuries? Only Time Will Tell

2011-10-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night in Calgary, notorious head-hunter Matt Cooke took a flagrant elbow to the head courtesy of Flames defenseman Cory Sarich. After the hit, Cooke was very shaky and missed the remainder of the 2nd period, though he did return in the 3rd period.

Who cares if Matt Cooke gets hurt? After all, he's hurt enough guys in his time, right?

I care if Cooke is victim of head-hunting and not just because I'm a Penguins fan. I care because I think this is exactly the sort of hit the NHL can use to send a message.

For years, the league has said they were serious, but then issued suspensions in hit or miss, willy-nilly fashion. They've show little, if any, consistency and even less resolve.

With this hit, new disciplinary czar Brendan Shanahan can take a step toward eliminating head-shots by suspending Cory Sarich for this hit.

Last year, the suspension given to Cooke at the end of the regular season and which ran through the first round of the playoffs, sent a message to Cooke loud and clear. It sent a message which he says he heard. Cooke says he is a changed man and that he will play physically without cheap shots, without head hunting and without being a danger on the ice. If we can just from the very small sample we have (just two games into the season), Cooke is contributing without being a menace. He's playing hard, but clean. And it's a pleasure to watch because Cooke is more than just a big hitter -- he's a guy with legitimate hockey skills. I hope this continues. I'd like to watch him play hard for years to come, without ever seeing an opposing player laying lifeless on the ice due to a Cooke hit to the head.

One less head-hunter in the league is an absolute good. I'd like to see even more guys clean up their acts. And I'll believe the NHL is really serious about eliminating head-shots when Shanahan suspends a star like Zdeno Chara as well as recidivist goon Jody Shelley.

As to Sarich's hit, Flames coach Bruce Sutter said that was the kind of hit he didn't want to see eliminated from the game. He couldn't be more wrong.

And in Calgary, the debate rages over whether Sarich's hit was clean or not clean. It misses the point.

The message has to be this simple: If you go high with your check -- it's not okay. If you hit a guy in the head, regardless of whether or not you're intending to injure him or not -- it's not okay. If you hit a grinder in the head (not just a superstar) -- it's not okay. If you are a superstar and you hit somebody in the head -- it's not okay.

Shanahan can make his message clear to everybody in the NHL by suspending Sarich for going to Cooke's head.

This is what it means to protect players. It means pulling the trigger on suspensions for players who put dangerous hits on even the most egregious goons. It means suspending superstars who who deliver reckless, high hits. Discipline cannot only be in the form of suspending a recidivist for hitting a star.

Sunday Recipe: Pasta with Butternut Squash Sauce

2011-10-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

I love fall veggies, perhaps none more than all the varieties of squash available at this time of year. Last week, I posted a roasted cauliflower recipe (which I have made three times in the past two weeks and I intend to make again before this week is out.) Last fall, I posted a roasted butternut squash soup recipe that is one of my favorite soups of all time. Squash and pumpkin are used with pasta all over Italy, but particularly in the north, in places like Verona and Mantua, you find pumpkin or squash ravioli on every menu of every little trattoria you stumble into. I love pumpkin ravioli, but this is a much less labor-intensive way to pair pumpkin with pasta. It's a very simple recipe, but you need to start your prep about an hour before you want to eat, because you have to cook down the veg for a long time, so, be warned.

You will need:
2 butternut squashes (or other squash or pumpkin of your choosing)
2 large yellow onions
about 6 fresh sage leaves
freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 c. heavy cream or half n half
good quality parmesan cheese
1 lb. of penne or trofie or some other short cut pasta

The prep:
Cut the onions in half longwise and clean. Then slice into thin half-moon shapes.

Clean the squash with a veggie peeler. Again, cut in half lengthwise and clean out the seeds. Then slice into thin half-moon shapes.

In a deep sautee pan or a soup pot (I use a soup pot), over high heat, add some olive oil, then the onions and a pinch of salt. When the onions are soft and starting to brown, add all the squash, then reduce the heat to low. Add the sage. Continue to cook this way for about 35 minutes, stirring occasionally. Eventually, the onion and squash will become very soft and creamy and sort of melt into each other.

At this point, bring another pot of water to a boil for your pasta.

When the veg. are soft, put the squash into the food processor and give it a nice whirl. It doesn't have to be perfectly creamy, but you don't want huge chunks of squash, either. I let the processor go for about a minute. Return the squash to the pot, add a healthy grate of nutmeg, and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper. Continue to cook over low heat.

As to the pasta, pumpkin sauce is often served with penne, but any short-cut pasta will do. Personally, I like something with a little bite to it, so I tend to use ligurian trofie. But if you don't have access to a good Italian market, penne works really, really well.

When the water is at a rolling boil, add a big pinch of salt, then the pasta and stir well.

When the pasta is about 5 minutes away from being done, add a healthy pinch of parmesan cheese and a dollop of cream or 1/2 n 1/2 to the sauce. Give it a stir and taste for salt. Remove about one-half of the sauce to a bowl and keep to the side.

When the pasta is about a couple of minutes away from al dente, drain and add the pasta to the sauce. Cook about a minute. If you need more sauce, you've got some set aside. If you don't need the additional sauce, save it for another day.

Serve with freshly grated parmesan and enjoy.

Sunday Recipe: Perfect Roasted Cauliflower

2011-10-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

I love fall and winter vegetables. I love the idea of roasting cauliflower, but it's often either overcooked mush, or too crunchy for any use other than crudite. The idea of a cauliflower gratin is appealing, but most takes are just too cheesy, more like melted cheese with just a hint of cauliflower.

Last week, I hit the farmer's market and returned home with several heads of cauliflower, determined to make the perfect roasted cauliflower.

I think I succeeded. This dish is the perfect fall or winter accompaniment to a roasted chicken, pork roast, pot roast and it would make a terrific Thanksgiving side.

You will need:
1 head of fresh cauliflower
about 8-12 fresh sage leaves
2 to 3 slices of good Italian or French bread
1 cup parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil

The prep:
Clean the cauliflower. Pull off or cut up bite sized florets, leaving the coarse core behind.

Texture is as important as flavor. I find the roasted cauliflower often retains a bit too much crunch. I deal with that by blanching the cauliflower before roasting. Toss the cauliflower into the boiling water for about 2-3 minutes. You just want to take the harshest crunch off the veg.

Remove from the water and toss it in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper.

If you are planning ahead, cut some bread and let it sit out for a couple of hours to get stale. If you haven't planned head, don't worry about it. The bread crumbs can be thicker (which they will be with fresh bread), so don't sweat it. Run the bread, with the sage leaves through the food processor.

Place the cauliflower into a baking dish. Top with the bread crumb/sage mixture. Spinkle on the parm. Drizzle just a bit more olive oil on it. Cover with foil and bake at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes, so that the cheese and bread crumbs get nice and brown.

I am so making more of this today.

Top 10 Highlights of the 2011 Pirates Season

2011-09-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Pirates wrap up another losing season, finishing 72-90, their 19th straight losing season, an unbelievable milestone, albeit one with which you don't actually want to be associated.

At the beginning of the season, I wondered what was enough for fans? How much progress would be enough for your average black and gold bleeding Pittsburgher? Did they have to make the playoffs? Post a winning record? Or just make significant improvement over past season?

At the start of the season, I went on record with a prediction of 66 wins. I'm happy to say that they exceeded my expectations. What I really didn't see coming were the high highs and awful lows. Unlike previous seasons, this team was anything but boring. I could have lived without the entire month of August, when they dropped 22 games in a single month, but, as I said, at least this year, they kept my attention from wire to wire.

I've come up with the Top 10 most memorable moments of this Pirates season and I don't think I could even name 10 moments for the entirety of the Jim Tracy and John Russell eras combined. [Well, maybe I could in a John McEnroe 'you cannot be serious!?' way.] Onward.

10. Tigers Series. It was early in the season, but this was my first inkling that I might have some fun with this team. Kevin Correia was in his early season form (which is to say still really good) and Max Scherzer (2.98 ERA) was on the hill for the Tigers. PNC Park was nearly full. Down by two-runs, the Pirates touched him up in the 6th inning and then got to the bullpen in the 7th. It was the first time in about four years that I thought baseball might be fun again.

9. Tony Watson's first appearance. I have a soft spot for this kid. The Pirates and the Diamondbacks were tied up at 1-1. Sadly, Jose Veras was having one of those wild nights to which he is prone (walk, single, hit batsman). Clint Hurdle took a flyer on Watson. In his first major league appearance, Watson entered a tied game, with just one out and two inherited runners. What the hell. You only live once, kid. All he did was strike out the next two batters. I dunno about you, but I think Watson's got a very bright future.

8. Alex Presley homers in Toronto. With injuries all over the place, the Pirates brought Alex Presley up from the minors for a three game set in Toronto. In his second at-bat ever, Presley sent a rocket over the right field fence. I don't think it's any accident that the wheels started to come off for the Pirates when they lost Presley to injury.

7. Beating the Brewers. Yeah, I'd like to beat the Brewers more, but still ... at least the Pirates got off the schneid. Picture it: PNC Park, the second game of a twi-night double header. The Pirates haven't beaten the Brewers since the Clinton Administration. (Okay, it was more recent than that, but it felt that long.) They already lost the first game, but in the second game, Brad Lincoln gave them six solid innings and, finally, after he exited, the long dormant offense woke up and chased Zack Greinke in the 7th, putting up seven runs. It was a thing of beauty. And way, way overdue.

6. 11th inning walk-off home run versus Cardinals. Another team that gives the Pirates agita is the St. Louis Cards, lead by the wholly irksome Tony LaRussa. Albert Pujols owns the Pirates like they are his prison bitch and he has more home runs in PNC Park than any other human being, living or dead. When the Cards come to town, it's usually a nightmare for Pirates fans. But this year, amid that execrable August, there was one single bright spot -- Garrett Jones' 11th inning, walk-off dinger versus the redbirds on August 15th. LaRussa looked like he had been constipated for a solid month when that ball sailed over the Clemente Wall. Few things make me happier than a disappointed LaRussa.

5. Jeff Karstens' pitching gem versus the Astros. Anybody who reads this blog at all, knows that I love Jeff Karstens. I think he's solid. He's a great pro. Karstens just goes out and goes to work every five days. No complaints, no whining, just gives his team six or seven solid innings. Every time. But to pitch a complete game shut out on just 83 pitches? Amazing. Simply amazing.

4. Little Michael McKenry's 3-run dinger versus the Cubs. It's a Friday night. PNC Park is just about full, the Pirates are 46-42 at this point, and the place is just electric. It's been a back and forth battle all night. In bottom of the 8th, down 4-3, Neil Walker is on 1st base. There are two out and they don't have many more chances to pull this game out. A Lyle Overbay single moves Walker to 2nd and Josh Harrison brings Walker home to tie the game. Up to the plate steps little Fort McKenry. At this point, it's important to remember that McKenry was the seventh catcher used by the Pirates. He was hitting just .242 in 61 at bats with just two extra-base hits (both doubles). He was not, nor is he a power hitter. And I remember thinking, 'c'mon, just get a single, just a little flare, a gork, a ground ball with eyes ... a dying quail ... c'mon.' He drove the ball deep, deep into left field, up to about two rows right under the scoreboard. It was the kind of pandemonium we haven't seen at PNC until this season. I hope we see many more celebrations like this one in 2012 and beyond.

3. 19 inning loss to the Atlanta Braves. Yeah, this is a low-light, but it is a game that you will never, ever forget. And at least the baseball gods smited the Braves. Just like the Buccos, they're watching the MLB playoffs, too.

2. Joel Hanrahan versus the Boston Red Sox. The third highest payroll in MLB. A likely MVP in Jacoby Ellsbury. One of the absolute best hitters in baseball, Adrian Gonzalez. Mr. Clutch (and also one of the largest human beings I've ever seen standing at home plate) -- David Ortiz. On Friday night, with a two-run lead, the Hammer came out of the pen and sat down Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and A-Gon to preserve the win. The next night, in nearly identical circumstances, in front of another standing room crowd, in a light rain, Hanrahan got Ortiz to ground out weakly, then Ellsbury flied out. After Pedroia doubled, the stage was set for Hanrahan's finest moment -- a swinging strike out of Adrian Gonzalez. Positively electric.

1. Extra inning win over the Phillies. That the Phils are the class of the national league is a foregone conclusion for me. It's an all-star line-up from top to bottom and the pitching rotation is even better than that. The Pirates have like zero chance against these guys, right? Sure, about a third of the fans at PNC were Phillies fans and I know there were chartered buses traveling east to west on the turnpike, bringing in even more Phils fans for the second and third games of this set. But the best of the bunch was the first, the Friday night nail-biter that ended with Jose Tabata driving in Xavier Paul with two-outs in the bottom of the 12th. I really don't know what else I can say about that game, and I feel sorry for you if you missed it. But I know what Bob Prince would say. We had 'em all the way.

What were your favorite moments of the Pirates 2011 season? What do you expect or want from the team in 2012?

Dear Notre Dame: Shut It

2011-09-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

And the seasons, they go round and round and the ... gah, all the conference jumping, conference raiding, money grabbing and hypocritical posturing drove me to quote Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell, y'all.

As you may recall from our last installment, Pitt and Syracuse are bolting from the Big East to, em, more upscale accommodations the Atlantic Coast Conference. West Virginia wisely tried to piggy-back along with Pitt and 'Cuse, but they were flat-out rejected by both the SEC and ACC, per this report at CBS Sports.

Hey, it's a dog eat dog world out there in college sports.

Meanwhile, from his seat up on high, balancing upon his golden dome of judgment, Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick weighed in on Pitt's move. Per the USA Today:

"I'd like to know how much of these discussions are: What's right? What is the best thing for the larger enterprise, and how many other schools would be adversely impacted?

"I don't understand it," Jack Swarbrick said as a new round of conference hopping in college athletics moved into high gear Sunday. "How do you vote as a collegiate president on something that has the potential to provide some benefit for your institution and the conference you're affiliated with but has a very negative consequence for a host of other members of the academy, as presidents like to call it?

"I just don't know that that's happening."

Not to put too fine a point on this, but Notre Dame can suck it.

Here's the deal. The conference shifting? It's all about football money. Nobody gives one rat's ass about women's soccer or men's wrestling. Even basketball is left out of these considerations. It's all football, all the time.

But it's not even about quality -- it's just about viewership. West Virginia has been the best, most consistent football program in the Big East since the last raid, when Boston College, Va. Tech and U. of Miami bolted for the ACC, so the SEC and ACC can say what they want: the real reason WVU is the wallflower in this little conference shake out dance is they don't bring much to the party in terms of television markets. The closest big(ish) market to WVU is Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh is dominated by the Steelers, Pitt and Penn State. In that order.

It's about football television money. Not to beat a long dead horse.

I know it. You know it. Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg knows it. And Jack Swarbrick sure as hell knows it. And yet, he felt comfortable basically calling Pitt out for leaving a sinking conference:

Countered Swarbrick, "It would be one thing if you could say, look, what it does is painful but at the end of the day what it does is fix some significant flaws or issues. But I don't think the case for that is very strong. And certainly, what it does to impressions of the industry and relationships between institutions that have reason to work together for a host of reasons beyond sport isn't good.

"It's not healthy."

I can tell you what could have made the Big East 'healthy,' to use Swarbrick's term, what would have made the Big East stable and very likely impervious to the constant re-alignments and raids on weaker conferences: the addition of Notre Dame football.

Oh, sure. Go ahead Fighting Irish -- Be a member of the Big East for all other sports but football. Take advantage of the amazing competition in men's and women's basketball and all the air-time Big East basketball gets on ESPN broadcasts. Revel in the men's tourney at Madison Square Garden. But the one single thing that you could do to stabilize the Big East, you won't do. I do believe that dictionary.com changed their definition of "disingenuous" to include a photo of Swarbrick.

I honestly don't care what Notre Dame does in terms of it's football program. It's their prerogative to go their own way with their football program and their own television stream protecting them. What they have forfeited, though, is the right to comment on other universities saving their skins.

I'm not a fan of the conference re-alignments. I remember the Oklahoma-Nebraska showdowns from my childhood and it bums me out that we won't see that anymore (unless Okla. ends up in the Big Ten, too). I'd hate to see the Texas v. Texas A & M games become a thing of the past. I generally don't care for all the conference jumping. Change is bad.

But it is what it is and this shake out is far from over. Had Pitt and Syracuse just stood pat, stuck their heads in the sand, and ended up holding a bag of crap in a decimated Big East, with no options for moving ... Well, let's just say that pretty much everybody involved with athletics would have been off to the guillotine.

Four 16-team super conferences are coming and they are coming sooner, rather than later. Pitt and Syracuse saw the hand-writing on the wall. And then acted according to their own best interests. Would Notre Dame have done any differently? Really? Really.

Anarchy Reigns in the NCAA -- Pitt, Syracuse to the All-Cash Conference

2011-09-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Atlantic Coast Conference Council of Presidents has voted (unanimously) to accept the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University as new members, after Pitt and Syracuse petitioned for admission.

Oh, there's the talk of academic chops and prestige and all that; Pitt and Syracuse are fine universities, as are the schools in the ACC, but let's be honest all of these moves are motivated by one thing and one thing only: football.

Or, I should say, football money.

A primer on the college football craziness and mendacity

The college conferences have been playing at some mutated meld of musical chairs and a house of cards for years now, with the gridiron techtonic plates in constant motion. This all started a few years ago, when Boston College and the U of Miami moved from the Big Beast to the ACC and of course, the Big East then shamelessly raided Conference USA. Natch. Then the dust settled for a while.

In June of 2010, things really heated up and we saw the first signs that the Big 12 wouldn't last through the year 2012. To recap (and I'll try to be brief, even though it's kind of impossible): Nebraska announced that they were leaving the Big 12 for the Big Ten, making the already 11-team Big Ten a 12-team conference; and diminishing the Big 12 by one, thus leaving them an 11-team conference. Got that? Oh, and Colorado announced that they were also leaving the Big 12 to move to the Pac-10 (if you're doing math at home, that makes the Big 12 a 10-team conference and the Pac-10 an 11-team conference, with the Big Ten being a 12-team conference. And I was told there would be no math ...)

If you ever get confused reading this (and I'm confused writing it), just remember one word: MONEY. That should clear things up.

I seem to have been distracted by the Big 12 and I promise to get back to the Big East/ACC in a second, but it's important to keep in mind the big pink elephant in the room, or should I say, the big orange longhorn in the room -- the University of Texas, the crown jewel in the Big 12's toppling crown. Those guys are starting their own television network. This is important why?

Because this is all about television. Or should I say, television money. Television football money.

If Texas were staying put, the Big 12 might could have the wherewithal to go raid some other conferences for talented team, but with UT creating it's own, all for me, revenue stream, the conference doesn't have much to sell. Oklahoma is a good draw nationally, but doesn't occupy a coveted market. At the moment, Texas and Oklahoma are standing pat in the Big 12, but both of those regents are meeting later this week, so I don't seriously expect that to last much longer.

Like a canary in a coal mine, Texas A&M is trying to get out to join the biggest powerhouse football conference, the SEC, a move which has been held up by a Baylor lawsuit, but ... I expect A&M to be in the SEC fold sooner, rather than later.

Meanwhile, back in the Big East, TCU announced a jump from the Mountain West Conference to the Big East. It is, regardless of performance, nearly impossible to get a shot at the title game coming from a non-BCS conference, so Texas Christian was trying to position itself for a shot at the title game. Oh, sorry, Horned Frogs. You just make a geographically idiotic move to a conference that is about to crumble. Whups. Good luck with the cost of sending your wrestling team to UConn a couple of times a year. Good times.

So, to be clear: The ACC adds Pitt and Syracuse (bringing the total to 14 football schools) and it seems pretty likely that they're looking to go to 16 teams total, so they'll be wanting to add two more teams, preferably solid football programs in big television markets. ("Uh, Rutgers, I have the ACC holding on line one ...")

And don't forget, Texas is now saying very flattering things about the ACC and you know, the ACC has to be more excited than Ron Jeremy just before they roll tape.

What does it mean for Pitt fans?

Ah, the heart of the matter for me. I know that as far as football is concerned, it's a step up, in terms of competition, what with Georgia Tech, Clemson and Virginia Tech, but I'm a Pittsburgher, which is to say, a Luddite. I still haven't gotten past the fact that JoePa got his panties in a bunch and put the kibosh on the Pitt-Penn State rivalry, so you can imagine what I think about losing the Backyard Brawl, now.

Where it really matters to me though? I will miss Big East basketball. I know, I know, the ACC has teams like Duke, UNC, NC State, Maryland. There are some amazing basketball programs, with storied histories and legacies. I get it.

But it's a different style, an extremely different style. The ACC plays polite basketball. They play by the rules. The Big East -- in terms of hoops (of both the men's and women's varieties, I would point out) -- play right up to the line of the rules and just a step over it. They play the most physical defense you'll see on a basketball court. Teams in the Big East take pride in that. It's as physical as Steelers v. Ravens. It is a brand. Nothing ever summed up the Big Beast to me as much as DeJuan Blair going all Rowdy Roddy Piper on Hasheem Thabeet.

Big East basketball grabs you by the throat, punches you in the solar plexus and leaves you gasping for air. And begging for more.

So I'll miss that. I really miss the Big Beast. I'll miss Jim Calhoun. I'll miss the 15-rounders versus UConn and Georgetown. I'll miss Madison Square Garden for the conference tourney.

For the women, this means no more terrifying trips to Rutgers' RAC, no more measuring yourself against the finest program in the country over the last decade, no more trips to South Bend to play Moffet McGraw's Irish. No more pressers full of Geno Auriemma and C. Vivian Stringer -- two of the best AND most entertaining coaches in the world. And that makes me sad.

I'm sure I'll learn to get myself worked up for Pitt v. UNC or Pitt v. Maryland, but it just won't be the same.

Down the Home Stretch, What to Make of the Pittsburgh Pirates?

2011-09-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've checked in here at Bucco Central, too long actually, but I've been meaning to catch up with the Pirates for some time. What have I missed?

Well, oh, let's see, there was, oh yeah, there was a 10 game losing streak that put a stake right into the heart of an otherwise freakishly fun season. That put them in such a quagmire, they couldn't dig themselves out.

What did it? What was the beginning of the end for an otherwise magical summer? Well, most everybody keeps pointing to the crushing 19 inning loss at Atlanta, which, no doubt was one of the worst, most painful losses a team can suffer, but I don't think their problems started because they ended up on the wrong side of an atrociously heinous call.

Rather, I think that 19 inning marathon took a lot out of them, regardless of the outcome. Worse, it came just five games into a 20 game stretch without a day off. They played too many innings, with too much travel, against really good teams, with no time to rest regular players (which Clint Hurdle really makes a point of doing), and worse, no time to rest any of the pitchers, either the bullpen guys or the starters. Frankly, I was shocked that Hurdle didn't go to a six man pitching rotation to get them through that stretch, but he probably didn't want to lose a position player to bring Brad Lincoln into the starting rotation.

Right at the same time, mind you, the wheels came off Kevin Correia. Sadly for me, I was at PNC Park for Correia's worst game ever -- a two-inning effort, in which span he gave up four home runs (that's gotta be like, a record or something), 10 hits and eight runs. I've seen addled octogenarians throw more heat at batting practice than Correia was throwing that night.

Just to give you an idea of how dramatic the change was: Correia's April ERA was in the rarified air of 2.90; in May, it climbed up to 4.15, a respectable, workmanlike ERA; in June it climbed up another notch to 4.46, which a team can still win with, provided they can score some runs. And then it all turned to shit. His awful 6.08 July ERA climbed up to 8.41 in August and now he's landed on the 15 day DL. Probably fortunate for his bloated ERA, which could easily climb into double digits with another two or three appearances.

One of the other huge factors, to me, was the loss of Alex Presley. A 26 year old rookie is not supposed to be an impact player: if you make it to the ripe old age of 26 in the minors, well, that's typically where you end up.

And yet, the diminutive (they guy is only 5' 9" and about a buck-sixty) outfielder is electric. I personally think that his going on the DL three games before that brutal loss in Atlanta had as much to do with the Pirates fall from grace as anything. From his call-up on June 28th through his injury on July 22, with Presley in the lineup, the Buccos were 12-8. Once he was out of the line up (from July 23rd to August 24th), they went 10-22. I know the team is bigger than one guy, but you cannot deny his unusual gift for starting rallies, stealing a base at just the right moment, getting a hit right when they need it most. His loss really hurt them this year, but looking down the road, I think the Pirates have really found something in Presley.

Here are some bullet points, a couple of things that happened to the team that set in motion the pieces that lead to their horrendous July and August:

One. The Cinderella pitchers turned into pumpkins, which is to say, Paul Maholm and Kevin Correia both turned to clay. Both are now injured, but even before they hit the DL, neither looked like the pitchers we had seen in April, May and June. Teams with a proper No. 1 pitcher (say, Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers, or Roy Halladay for the Phils, or ... you get the idea), can stop skids just by sending that guy out there to the mound. Despite the fact that Correia was the Pirates No. 1 guy, nobody ever really thought he was a proper No. 1 pitcher.

No, what the Pirates have, and what pitching coach Ray Searage has made the most of are five guys who would be the third or fourth pitchers on other teams. And you can win a lot of games that way -- the Pirates did -- but when the wheels start to come off, you don't have a brakeman. That's just what happened. Nobody could stop the skid once it started. It was a runaway train without brakes.

Two. Injuries. Yeah, every team has them, but the Pirates lost Jose Tabata for a large stretch of the season. They ran through six catchers. They lost Derrek Lee as soon as they signed him. They lost the electrifying Presley. I could go on, but one of those injuries leads me into my next point.

Three. Bullpen. They were, by and large, a bright spot that I thought would be absolutely dismal, but they were without the services of Evan Meek all season long. I think that really hurt the 'pen. The amazing Joel Hanrahan is not perfect, but he's the best closer we've seen since Teke. Meanwhile, Jose Veras is just too wildly inconsistent to be a proper 8th inning set up man. Sometimes, he is over-powering, but other times he's so off that he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat. A healthy Meek might have only been the difference between where they are and another, say, four wins. [Four wins may not seem like much, but in the middle of a bad slide where you can't buy a win, a win or two in the first weeks of August might have helped to pull them out of the vortex of despair where they were stuck.]

Four. Run production. This has been a problem all season long, but some how, during their magical run in June, while they weren't scoring many runs, they were scoring timely runs: Michael McKenry's clutch dinger against the Cubs on July 8th; Tabata bringing in Xavier Paul against the Phils; Presley hitting a triple to bring home Brandon Wood against the Astros. And on and on an on. But without Presley, and without Tabata, and with Hurdle using Garrett Jones very little, there were just no timely hits. Hell, maybe the fairie dust just ran out for the Pirates hitters, too.

I now interrupt this column for a (several) paragraph(s) or to devoted to the perceived need for a power hitter. All year, everybody's been wanting a power hitter for the Pirates, harping away that they have to have a home run guy and that would be the answer to all their woes. Er, wrong.

It would be nice to have a big bopper in the lineup a'la Mark Teixeira or David Ortiz or Prince Fielder. But those home run guys? They carry fat-ass price tags and I'm not sure the price-tag is worth the run production for a team like the Buccos. I'm not sure you want to give one-tenth of your total payroll to one single player, even if he does hit 30 four-baggers a year.

What the Pirates really need are guys who can hit for average consistently. There were so many games this year when a timely single would have done it, would have brought in one or two runs and cracked the game open. As the most recent example, I give you the Pirates v. the Cubs, just on Sunday. Up by a score of 1-0, Jones led off the 2nd with a double. Already, there are zero outs with a man in scoring position. Ronny Cedeno singled and Jones moved to 3rd. So we've got men on the corners, again, with nobody out. Next up, McKenry worked a walk. So the bases are loaded with nobody out. Morton struck out swinging. Presley popped up. Josh Harrison flied out. A single single and the game is 3-0, with perhaps more runs to come. Would a grand-slam have been nice there? Sure. But I would have settled for a two-run single.

The 2011 Pirates have: hit into 110 double plays (2nd worst in the NL), struck out 1,113 times (3rd worst in the NL), and accounted for just 1,718 total bases (3rd worst in the NL). According to teamrankings.com, they leave an average of 13.57 men on base per game (3rd worst in the NL). If that's all too SABR-metrics-y for you -- the team batting average is a measely .244.

It's just this simple -- they don't need home runs, they need better hitting. And by better, I mean more frequent, 'hit 'em where they ain't' sort of hits. They don't need to be swinging for the fences, so much as taking what the pitcher is giving them and dropping the ball into gaps.

And so, with Steelers season upon us, things are back to normal around here, which is to say, it's pretty much Steelers talk all the time because the Pirates find themselves not just out of the playoff race, but out of a race to .500. [Not technically, mind you. Mathematically, they could finish .500 if they were to win 16 more games. Out of 21 games remaining. You can view that as a possibility if you chose to. Me? Not so much.]

But there's some good news, even through the bad -- thoughts I will expand when the season is over for real, but, for now, suffice it to say that I have hope for next year. Beyond which, and perhaps more importantly, the Pirates made baseball fun again. At least up to the All-Star Break, it was a real blast, more fun than I've had in a long time as a Pirates fan. They've shown a willingness to build through the draft (and actually spend on the draft.) They have the right skipper and a whale of a pitching coach. They showed a remarkable amount of smart, savvy restraint at the trading deadline this year. My confidence in Neal Huntingdon has grown in leaps and bounds this year. So more on all of that, on Andrew McCutchen, on Neil Walker, on Jeff Karstens, et al., at a later date.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled NFL action, Pittsburgh.

Sunday Recipe: Fregola Sarda with zucchini and cherry tomatoes

2011-09-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

On one my many visits to Labriola's Italian Food Market, I noticed some artisanal pastas which I felt compelled to buy. Generally, pasta is pasta and while certain cuts go better with specific sauces, preferences are largely personal. I, for example, hate and will not eat rigatoni. Go figure.

Fregola Sarda are little round pastas (bigger than acini di pepe, but not quite as big as a dried currant), so I bought them and thought I would use them in a soup, maybe whip up some wedding soup (to be posted at a later date) But the fregola sarda were unlike anything I had ever seen -- coarse and golden brown. These are rugged little pastas, very appropriate for the rough island of Sardinia (turns out the 'sarda' is for 'Sardinia'.) It is made like acini di pepe (or really, almost any pasta), but after it dries, it is then toasted or baked, which gives it a rich flavor you don't normally find in pasta -- all toasty and warm and almost caramelized. Think about that -- caramelized pasta. (Band name?)

This is a very simple and traditionally Sardinian dish and one that it sure to go into my regular rotation, so long as I get lay my hands on fresh zucchini and cherry tomatoes from the kids at Freedom Farms. In the winter, when zucchini and fresh tomatoes are a distant memory, I'll try dropping these in some soup.

You will need:
2 small to medium zucchini
1 small basket of cherry tomatoes
1 package (about 8 ounces [dried]) of fregola sarda
a good sized hunk of parmesan cheese
quality extra virgin olive oil

The prep:
This is perhaps the simplest prep of any recipe I've ever posted.

Put a large sauce pot of water on to boil.

While that is coming up to a boil, slice the zucchs in half lengthwise, the slice them into thin half-moons.

When the water reaches a rolling boil, add a big pinch of salt and the fregola sarda. Stir immediately as this pasta tends to stick. Fregola sarda has a long cooking time -- 12 to 14 minutes.

While the pasta is boiling, coarsely grated the parmesan cheese. I used the largest holes on my box grater. Then slice the cherry tomatoes in half.

When the pasta is about 2 minutes from being done (and by done, of course, I mean al dente), add the zucchini. Give it a quick stir. The zucchini will bring the temperature of the water down a bit, so it will take a minute to get back up to a rolling boil. Cook until the pasta is al dente. [I wish I had some handy trick to pass on, but my trick for testing the pasta is to taste it. There is no magical eyeball test.]

Drain the pasta and the zucchini, then remove to a large bowl. Sprinkle liberally with freshly ground black pepper, the tomatoes, a handful of the parm and a liberal application of quality olive oil and toss.

Serve it with the remaining parm and a good finishing olive oil (I am particularly fond of Cosimana e Ferrari, which you can pick up at the Pittsburgh Public Markets, if you're in the 'hood).

Some Undeniably Cool Women Athletes

2011-08-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was checking out Dave Zirin's blog, The Edge of Sports and it prompted me to write a post for Open Salon about several cool women athletes.

As part of my book on the Pittsburgh Passion women's full-contact football team, I've been up to my eyeballs in researching the history of women and sports. The attitudes -- even those of medical professionals -- might shock you. From disparaging to downright hysterical, women and athletics is a combustible mix. But now is not a time for a didactic discussion of history and the sociological and psychological effects of some truly asinine ideas on women athletes. Now is the time to celebrate some really cool women. Go to: Can Women Athletes Be Cool?

Sidney Crosby Still Battling Concussion Aftershocks

2011-08-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

If you didn't feel the earthquake, then perhaps didn't log on to any hockey news websites yesterday. Because I'm not talking about the quake that rocked the Nation's capital, but rather the aftershocks of internet reports that Sidney Crosby, once again, shut down his off-season workouts, something that Sid's agent angrily refuted, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story.

Even if, as his agent says, Crosby has merely 'adjusted his summer workout' (which I translate to 'scaled back' his notoriously demanding workouts) on his own, isn't that a bad sign, too? This is a guy for whom too much training is never enough. If he's scaling back, that is completely counter to everything he had ever done in his entire life prior to the Winter Classic.

It's Crosby's completeness that makes him the best player in the NHL -- he can score and he plays defense, he is always two or three steps ahead of everybody else on the ice. He scores gritty goals by parking near the net in heavy traffic and he can shoot from the outside. He has moves and grace and speed. He is surprisingly strong, given that he's not really a big guy.

Lots of guys in the NHL are fast and strong, lots of players possess great hands and great moves. And being an ultimate competitor is merely the cover charge for entry into the NHL. Very few, if any, are all of those things at once. Sid excels at everything.

I would argue that what really sets him apart is not vision or speed or hands, but two other things: (one) his acute hockey mind and, (two) his unbelievable work ethic.

After his rookie season, he said he wanted to get better at face offs. So he did. I have zero idea how a guy trains to get better at face offs, but in recent seasons, Sid has been the best face-off player on the Penguins squad.

Then, it was said that he was too much of a set-up man, more of an assists guy than a pure scorer. So he started planting himself at the net, using his soft hands and quick reflexes to score more. Then people said he couldn't score from the outside, so he started working on his outside shot. Before his concussion(s) last year, he had scored from every spot in the Consol Energy Center except the executive washroom.

Sid's already tremendous career is a testament to the combination of those two things: his brains and his discipline. And I'd posit that those two things -- his ability to intuit a way to improve and then the discipline to do that -- are inextricably linked, connected, perhaps even fused. He decides to elevate some element of his game, figures out a way to do it, and then applies himself. That puts him ahead of everybody else and, with the benefit of a long career, puts him in the class of the best of all time. But if you take that part of his game away -- his ability to prepare -- he's a good player, maybe even a great player, but not the best.

It is up in the air if Crosby will be able to report to training camp on time, per NHL.com. Granted, some players don't like to practice, but this is Crosby we're talking about. He'd practice three times a day and then go play a game if he could. Then practice again. If he doesn't come to training camp, it's because he simply cannot.

How many times do I have to say it? Head injuries. So, so tricky. If I could go back in time, I'd have David Steckel trip him and snap his ACL. Or hook him so severely that he needed Tommy John surgery. Because if Sid were recovering from that type of injury, I'd be 100% confident in his ability to return to the ice and dominate.

But this concussion (or rather, two back to back concussions) have kept him from practicing. If he can't practice, he can't play. The concern now has to be, will he play at all in 2012? Or ever again?

Have we seen the last of Sidney Crosby?

He has to protect himself and his future. I won't blame him one bit if he shuts it down for good, but, my god, what a loss for Penguins fans and hockey fans everywhere.

Coach Pat Summitt Diagnosed with Dementia

2011-08-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Sports Illustrated reports today that the University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt has publicly announced that she has been diagnosed with dementia. I should say, the Great Pat Summitt has been diagnosed ... because she should always be referred to as the Great Pat Summitt.

In typical coach Summitt fashion, here's what she told the Knoxville News Sentinel:

"There's not going to be any pity party and I'll make sure of that, ... I feel better just knowing what I'm dealing with. And as far as I'm concerned it's not going to keep me from living my life, not going to keep me from coaching."

I have poked a bit of fun at Pat Summitt here in my blog, I call her the Queen, and The Summitt, and even The Grande Summitt (I think) but it's been in good fun. Even if I didn't always root for her team, I've always loved watching Summitt. Almost single-handedly, she dragged women's basketball onto the front pages of the sports sections. For years, for decades really, she was the face of women's basketball. She carried the sport and, in doing so, she carried all female athletes and all of us. I love her for that.

I love watching her passion on the sidelines. I love what a badass coach she is. I know, for a stone-cold fact that I wouldn't last 30 minutes in one of her practices. I mean that as the highest compliment. There are few coaches -- in any sport -- that I respect more than coach Summitt. (One of these days, I'll rank the Top 10 coaches of all time in any sport at any level and I'm guessing that Summitt's going to land in the Top 5.)

So today's news made me truly, deeply sad. Just in your bones sad. I wish her, her team and her family all the best. And I hope that Summitt can find a way to coach for a good while longer at Tennessee. Still I have to admit, dementia is a scary bastard.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information's website, "Most types of dementia are nonreversible (degenerative). Nonreversible means the changes in the brain that are causing the dementia cannot be stopped or turned back."

Summitt is tough and brave and strong. Basically, in a National Championship, my money's on Summitt. In a street fight, my money's on Summitt. In a battle against most diseases or illnesses, my money would always be on Summitt. No question.

But when it comes to dementia, I haven't heard many success stories. I don't think it can be 'beaten,' but if anybody can find a way to thrive despite dementia, this lady is it. Good luck, coach.

Sunday Recipe: Spicy Roasted Fra Diavolo Sauce served over Polenta

2011-08-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

This time of year in Western Pennsylvania, if you are a gardener, you are probably inundated with hot banana peppers. If you are not a gardener, you probably know people who are over-run with banana peppers. Of, if you're like me, you can't resist buying a huge box of hot peppers from your local farmer's market. (Freedom Farms rules, by the way.) Stuffed peppers are really popular, but beyond stuffing them, what to do with these fresh, spicy gems?

I've started roasting them by the bushel-full. They keep all their heat, but the roasting adds an amazing smokey flavor. Plus, the skin (which can be nasty) is removed in the process. The smell of the peppers on my grill brings out my neighbor who moved here from San Antonio, so every time I grill hot peppers, she tells me it smells like home to her. Instead of making something Mex or Tex-Mex with them, I use them primarily for a quick sauce. You can serve the sauce over any type of pasta, but I think it pairs best with polenta. (Whether the flavors end up being Italian or Mexican, the combo of hot peppers and corn meal is, is a perfect marriage of flavors and textures.)

You will need:
6-10 hot peppers (this is a judgment call -- it depends on how much spice you like)
10-12 bell peppers (or one big, big jar of roasted red peppers)
1 large can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
1 shallot
1 cup of wine (white or red -whatever you have on hand)
polenta
2 cups whole milk, 2% or skim milk
1 cup of parmesan cheese
good olive oil (as always)

To make the roasted peppers:
Heat your grill as hot as you can get it. I have a gas grill, so it's pretty easy to just set all the burners on high and go to town. Line the peppers up on the grill and char them -- you want some nice blackened pepper skin. Depending on the size of your grill, you may have to do this in batches. After they are all charred/blackened, remove them to a large glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let this sit for about 30 minutes, although I usually let them sit for an hour because they're easier to handle.

If you've never roasted peppers before, this is the fun part. Just peel off the skin (it's all dry and crinkly, so it comes off pretty cleanly. Pull off the tops and pull out the seeds and the inner ribs. DO NOT run these under water when you do this. You lose some of the pepper flavor that way.

You now have roasted hot peppers, an ingredient you can use in a variety of ways (below).

If you're roasting your bell peppers, too, simply repeat the process with them. Or, you can go to an Italian market and buy a large jar of good roasted red peppers. There's no shame in this short-cut.

To make the sauce:
Run the roasted peppers (both sweet and hot) through the food processor to make a puree; toss in the garlic and shallot and puree those as well.

Heat a deep sautee pan stovetop, and drizzle with olive oil and add the pepper puree and a pinch of salt. Simmer that for about 5 or 10 minutes. Add the can of San Marzano tomatoes and the wine; bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. This is a fast sauce (once the peppers are roasted, that is), so just let the sauce simmer while you turn your attention to the polenta. One last thing, I like my sauce to be really creamy, so I run about three-quarters of it through the blender to get it really smooth.

To make the polenta:
I use Colavita polenta, but follow the instructions on the package -- usually it's one-half the package (or about 1 1/3 cups of polenta) and 4 cups of liquid. I use 2 cups of water and 2 cups of skim milk. Bring the water and milk to a boil in a saucepan, add a pinch of salt and then slowly add the polenta, stirring furiously as you add it. Continue to cook (stirring constantly) for about 5 to 8 minutes -- you want it to thicken to the point where your whisk almost stands up in the polenta. In the last minute of cooking, toss in a healthy palmful of parmesan cheese and stir until that is absorbed. Remove from heat.

Lightly coat a large glass baking dish with olive oil and pour the polenta in, smoothing it out. Let the polenta rest for at least 10 minutes. (Tip: I often make the polenta hours ahead to save time at dinner; it keeps well for several days in the refrigerator.)

Cut the polenta into squares (or rectangles or triangles, whatever suits your aesthetic sensibilities). Heat a non-stick skillet, drizzle lightly with olive oil and pan-fry the polenta squares until crispy on both sides.

Serve with the roasted fra diavolo sauce and some grated parmesan cheese.

Using the roasted hot peppers as an ingredient:

One of my favorite cookbooks is Tom Colicchio's "Think Like a Chef," because it is not simply a collection of recipes (it has those), but because it is constructed in a very chefly way, which is to say, you create elements and then put those elements together to create dishes. One of the elements in Colicchio's book is roasted tomatoes. When you make the roasted tomatoes you create an ingredient that can then be used for a variety of other dishes: roasted tomato, eggplant, zucchini lasagne; or roasted tomato risotto; or sea bass stuffed with roasted tomatoes; or carmelized roasted tomato tarts (transcendent); and there are more, but you get the idea. This time of year, when tomatoes are in full season, I roast many batches and freeze them for use in the winter. I use the roasted tomatoes in some of the pasta sauces I make and I make salsa with the roasted tomatoes, too, but there are endless uses for good roasted tomatoes. Recipes for the salsa and the basic roasted tomatoes here.

The roasted hot peppers work the same way. They freeze well. I top burgers with them (any are good this way -- turkey, black bean and beef). You can use the roasted hot peppers in salsas instead of fresh peppers. Or use them to spice up some roasted pork or chicken. Like the tomatoes, there are endless uses for the roasted peppers. So get roasting.

Reactions to Steelers v. Eagles in the Preseason

2011-08-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Dream Team came rolling into Heinz Field and, amazingly enough, the Steelers didn't just say, "oh, you signed Nnamdi Asomugha and Jason Babin (and Vince Young and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie). You have Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson. We're scared. We forfeit."

Amazing.

And this is why I love media hype. Some idiot says, "it's like playing on the Dream Team" (Exhibit A: Idiot -- Vince Young), the media runs with it like a starving dog with a Tuscan steak, prompting the rest of us jump on the Philadelphia Eagles Haters Bandwagon. All Aboard! (The NFL: bringing you knee-jerk Pavlovian responses since 1958 ...)

It's times like this when I miss Lee Flowers. You just know he would have been calling the Eagles 'paper champions' in the locker room last night. Ah, good times.

At any rate, here are some other thoughts about last night's game:

If the late, great Myron Cope were here, I know just what he'd say: 'He went up there like Nijinsky. Nijinsky!'

-- Go down, Troy. For the love of all that is holy, go down! We know from experience, as goes Troy Polamalu, so goes the Steelers defense. The last thing that team needs is for Troy to be dinged up before the meaningful games ever start. However, his interception before his reckless zigging and zagging was vintage Troy. Please stay healthy. Please.

-- The maturation of Ziggy Hood. I admit, I was a bit impatient with young Mr. Hood, but he's grown into a very good, competent defensive end. Welcome to the bigs, kid. [You know what kills me? Restraining myself from making shameless Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars references. Kills me. Every time. It actually gives me physical pain.]

-- Is the offensive line going to be a triage unit again this year? Jonathan Scott went down on the first play from scrimmage. Marcus Gilbert, the team's 2nd round pick from Florida, came in and, despite one holding call, looked very good, quick and smart out there. [Dear Mr. Colbert, please always draft offensive linemen from Florida. Thanks.] But then Gilbert went down with a hyper-extended knee, so the team had to shift Tony Hills from guard back out to tackle. And it's a shame because the beat reporters were saying that they felt Hills really showed something when moved to guard. Meanwhile, Scott says that he has an 'inner-Godly' feeling that he'll be okay. For what that's worth.

-- The clock is ticking on Keenan Lewis, but he's looked pretty good to me. We all know that he spent good portions of the 2010 season in Mike Tomlin's doghouse for general stupidity. Hence, I dubbed him, "The Stupid" (although that title had been originally conferred upon Anthony Smith some time ago.) It seems to me that there is somebody on the roster every year who can be called "The Stupid" and I hope that Lewis passes the dubious title on to somebody else this year -- he's speedy and he might be the second best CB they have on the roster right now. Fingers crossed.

-- When he's not busy fumbling or tweeting inanities, Rashard Mendenhall sure can run. He looked spectacular last night.

-- If you play fantasty football (and I don't), and if you have the chance to snatch up Antonio Brown, you'd be an idiot not to do so. He's lightning fast, he finished the season so strong last year, and with the injury to Emmanuel Sanders, he's getting way more reps this year. I believe he's going to have a monster year.

-- As my friend Smiley says, I'm really liking me some Cotchery. Wait, that sounds dirty. Jerricho Cotchery is going to be a nice addition to the receiving corps this year.

-- Wait. The Steelers have a kicker on the roster named Swayze? Yup. Swayze Waters. How much you wanna bet his mom's favorite movie is 'Dirty Dancing?' Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

-- The ageless Dick LeBeau. Honest to god, that guy hasn't aged one day in like 20 years. It's freaky.

The Pittsburgh Pirates Say: Who You Callin' Cheap, Bub?

2011-08-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Back here in the Burgh at Bucco Central:

Late on Monday night, the Pirates signed their top two draft picks -- Gerrit Cole and Josh Bell, spending $17 million dollars in bonuses to do so. These bonuses put the Pirates in front of every other team in terms of spending on the draft and, in the Neal Huntington era, they have spent about $47 million on the draft, the most of any club in MLB.

Not to cheerlead for the Pirates, but can we stop saying that they're too cheap? Or not trying anymore? Just because they may fail, just because this particular team hit a losing streak of bibilical proportions (I was expecting a plague of locusts to descend upon the clubhouse any second), just because Pedro Alvarez is positively painful to watch at the plate, doesn't mean they aren't actually trying to win.

I get it. I understand the frustration. I was one of those who said, 'they don't want to win.' To be honest, if they weren't actually using the script from 'Major League' as a 'how to' guide, they just didn't care about winning or if they did, they didn't care enough to hire people who actually understood what it would take to win.

It's hard to think otherwise, given all the awful managers, salary dumps, the moronic veteran signings, the mis-handling of Rule 5 drafts [shivers], and steering clear of top draft picks, particularly those represented by Scott Boras or Drew Rosenhaus. [Both of those guys are scumbags of the lowest order and I cannot figure that neither of them has an entry at Dickipedia. But still no excuse for Daniel Moskos over Matt Weiters. Really? Really?! ] Basically, at best it was a half-assed effort by the Pirates organization. Yeah. Ugh. Moving on.

In the last couple of years that draft timidity is gone. Or at least mostly gone. What I'm saying is not that they've drafted perfectly but they are trying to draft well. We all know about Alvarez' struggles, but everybody with a brain involved in MLB said he was the guy to draft. The Pirates drafted him anyway, knowing he'd come with a huge price tag and knowing that they'd have to deal with the ultra-noxious Scott Boras. It is to the Pirates credit that they drafted Alvarez (the best player available by everybody's estimation), and then signed him. If Pedro really does flame out over the next couple of years, I can't hold Huntington, et al responsible for that. That's on Pedro himself. Period.

[Which reminds me -- I believe Scott Boras is the No. 1 reason that Pittsburgh fans turned on Alvarez faster than a meth 'ho can turn a trick. All small market fans and civilized people hate Boras with the heat of 1,000 suns. As they should. The guy is a creep. But if you think I'm exaggerating the Boras Effect -- read this from ESPN's Jerry Crasnick from September, 2008.]

Fast forward to this year. Knowing that, once again, Boras was in the picture, the Pirates first selected Gerrit Cole and took masher Josh Bell with their second pick. Some MLB analysts felt that Bell could have gone as high as the ninth or tenth player taken overall, but he had stated his desire to go to the University of Texas. Some clubs stayed away. But the Pirates didn't. They took a chance that they could get him, knowing that they would get a compensatory pick (one spot lower than he was taken) next year. It was a good risk to take, the kind of risk they had shied away from in previous seasons.

Here's what I know about anything in life: if you apply yourself, if you work hard, if you have a plan and execute it, if you devote yourself towards attaining a goal ... you still may fail. That's the sad truth.

But if you don't try, you will always fail. Guaranteed.

Happily, I believe these Pirates are actually trying to put together a winning club. With zero guarantee of success.

Meanwhile, in other big Bucco News:

The second happiest man at PNC Park last night had to have been home plate umpire Jerry Meals when Garrett Jones launched an 11th inning home run that cleared the right field seats altogether, bounced once on the riverwalk and landed in the drink. It was a great game from the Pirates, full of the kinds of things they were doing throughout May and June that had the city a-buzz:

-- another solid start from Jeff Karstens. Not as sparkling a start as we've seen from him in the past, but still, a start good enough to put his team in a position to win.

-- it's wonderful to have Jose Tabata back in the leadoff spot. Man, did they miss that guy.

-- a huge three-run dinger from Andrew McCutchen. It all works for the Pirates when Cutch is racking up RBI's.

-- great glovework from Ronny Cedeno, starting a spectacular double play in the 7th inning.

-- tremendous fielding and speed in the outfield with Xavier Paul robbing Yadier Molina of a sure line-drive double to lead off the 11th, and then McCutchen committing felonious theft of Albert Pujols' shot to the gap to end the 11th.

-- another solid outing from the bullpen. Especially stalwart were Jason Grilli (getting the Pirates out of the 6th inning jam) and Chris Resop who took them through the 10th and 11th. The bullpen has been all hands on deck all year, but last night was one of the very few times we've seen Joel Hanrahan stumble, so it was nice to see Grilli, Resop and Jose Veras pick him up.

-- a clutch hit from Neil Walker. In these two games against the RedBirds, he's gone 5 for 8 with 2 RBI and 3 runs scored. More to the point, he's hitting the ball with authority, right on the button, just about every time up to the plate. I think we can state, officially, that the slump is over.

-- and the homer from Jones. I have to wonder what Jones' numbers might be like had he gotten more starts, both in right field and at 1st. I know they wanted Matt Diaz to face left-handed pitching rather than Jones .... and I know they got Lyle Overbay to be the everyday 1st baseman. But still ... it's worth thinking about.

Later in the week, I'm going to take a look at what went wrong for this Pirates team after the All-Star break and ruminate on what they have to do to make this season a success, even now that the playoffs are out of reach. But today is a day for pleasant thoughts. So today I'm just going to enjoy the afterglow of last night's victory over the Cards.

Gone Fishing, New England Edition

2011-08-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

Gone fishing. Or rather, to haul lobster pots. Or rather, to eat the lobsters that somebody else has hauled. Back in a flash. Good god, I hope the Pirates are out of this tailspin by the time I get back to the Burgh. See yinz.

Derrek Lee a Bucco and Other Random Trade Deadline Thoughts

2011-07-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

Back here at Bucco Central ...

Late last night, your Pittsburgh Pirates completed a trade for Derrek Lee from the Baltimore Orioles. Per the Post-Gazette, the Pirates had to give up single A prospect Aaron Baker in the trade -- no big whup. Also, the Pirates will be responsible for $2.6 of the money owed to the power-hitting 1st baseman this year. Again, no big whup.

I think this is going to be a great deal for the Pirates.

As to the grumbling that the Pirates didn't do enough at the trade deadline (to go after guys like Hunter Pence and also Carlos Beltran), I understand it. I understand the disappointment, but I'm going to posit that it wasn't because a lack of trying.

Beltran had a no-trade clause in his contract and, from what I heard at either MLB TV or ESPN (or both), he refused to come to Pittsburgh. You pretty much have to expect that kind of rejection after stinking out loud for 18 solid years. Who wants to date Steve Buscemi if you can go out with George Clooney? (And yeah, I just compared my favorite baseball franchise to Steve Buschemi. Weird.) If the Pirates make a serious run at a division title this year, more and more guys will be willing to come here, but it's going to take a few years of winning to be able to lure top quality free agents.

Pence is a different story. Unlike both Lee and Beltran, he's under contract for another year, so he's not really a rent-a-player in a strict sense. Plus, I expect the Phillies will hang onto him for many years, because he's a terrific young talent and also, let's be frank, because the Phillies can afford to pay him. [People seem to forget, the Phils have a larger payroll than even the Boston Red Sox and only the Yanks are ahead of them on the ledger sheet. It is frustrating watching the rich get richer.]

The other factor to consider in the negotiations for that cannon-armed viking is that it is likewise possible the Houston Astros didn't want to deal their best player to an inter-divisional rival. In fact, I think they would be foolish to trade their best player to the up and coming Buccos. Houston should be looking to get back to the old status quo, wherein the Pirates (not the Astros) are permanent residents in the basement of the NL Central. Let's not forget, they have had success relatively recently -- it was only in 2005 that they went to the World Series. While they're pretty atrocious this year, they don't want to be chasing the Pirates streak of futility. Moreover, they don't want to have to play against Pence 15 times or so next year. I can't say I blame them.

And, as enamored of Pence's talents as I am (and I am), I would also posit that the gaping black hole at 1st base is a more pressing need than the right field and while my Bucs would be better with Pence, the outfield will be greatly improved when Alex Presley is back from injury. And get that much better when (if) Jose Tabata comes off the DL, too. I don't know that either Presley or Tabata has a strong enough arm for right field, but they give Clint Hurdle more and better options out there. Besides, I'm not sure anybody on the Pirates roster has a good enough arm for RF other than Xavier Paul, who is also perhaps their best base-runner and has won two games for the Pirates because of his hustle on the basepaths. Paul is a valuable guy, but I can part with any of the rest -- Garrett Jones, Matt Diaz and Steve Pearce. And I can part with them yesterday. Jones has been a disappointment, but he has jacked the ball out of the park 10 times this year, which puts homer-less Diaz is the man on the gangplank.

Meanwhile, let the Lyle Overbay bashing begin. Actually, I'll leave that to others. I come to bury Overbay, not to bash him. He seems to be a good guy, the beat reporters around the team confirm this, as have the media in Toronto. Maybe it doesn't matter as much as it did in years past, but Overbay is not one of those Pirates signings -- and you know who you are Derek Bell, Pat Meares, et al.

But you can't ignore Overbay's complete lack of production. He has under-performed wildly. It has gotten to the point that I actually dread his at-bats.

Ostensibly, Lee will replace him (I'm not sure what the Pirates are doing to do with Overbay), but let's compare some numbers: Lee has 12 homers, to Overbay's 7; he has more RBI and more hits and he's played in 17 fewer games; Lee's batting average is 20 points higher, too. Overbay has only 119 total bases and if you want to go all SABR-metrics, Overbay has 'created' just 33.6 runs. In fairness, Lee has 135 total bases and 'created' only 37.7 runs, so it's not like the Pirates are replacing Overbay with Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard, but still, it's an upgrade.

And here's where I go all glass-half-full on PiratesNation: Lee has been knocking the snot out of the ball in the last two weeks (near .300 in ba and with nine RBI in the last 10 games), so if that trend continues, he can be the bat that keeps the team in the race. On a team with such good pitching, it can take just one hitter getting hot to ignite the whole team. Perhaps Lee can be that guy?

I don't think that even the SABRmetrics guys keep stats on how many times a player is stranded on base, but both Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen have languished on the bases while Overbay flails away at the plate. We're going to have to live through Pedro Alvarez' learning curve. There's no getting around that. But it's possible Hurdle will insert Lee into the five-spot in the line up and he can bring home Walker and Cutch. More run production would be good enough for me, but Lee can also take Alvarez off the hot seat, so the move is doubleplusgood.

Just minutes before the trade deadline, the Pirates acquired left-fielder Ryan Ludwick from the San Diego Padres. Ludwick's stats this year are not impressive, but he has had better seasons (let's hope he has one starting today), plus he gives Hurdle more options in the outfield besides Jones, Diaz and Pearce. One of those guys is bound to be the odd man out when Ludwick arrives, though.

What say you? The trade deadline closes in a short time. If this is the only move the Bucs make, is it good enough for you? Is it evidence of a good faith effort to win? Or are you horribly disappointed in Neal Huntington and the Pirates front office?

Pirates Playoff Ticker stands at 36 games. Let's knock that down to 35 today in Philly.

Worst Call in MLB History? Top 5 Worst Calls in MLB History.

2011-07-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

Back here at Buccos Central:

When I saw the video of Jerry Meals' safe call at home plate (yeah, yeah, so I fell asleep in the 14th inning -- wanna make something of it?), I channeled my inner-Gene Hackman and shouted, "Do you have pigeon shit in your eyes?" This call is bad. Horrendously, obviously bad. The throw is in, McKenry swipes him, but Meals makes the safe sign before Julio Lugo touches home plate. I'm not sure how a base-runner can be called safe before he touches the bag (or plate as the case may be) ... Still, as heinous as this call is, I don't rank Meals' call as the worst in baseball history (although it's so pathetic that I understand David Schoenfield's point.)

At any rate, here's how I rank 'em:

1. Don Denkinger calls Jorge Orta safe at first base in the 1985 World Series. If you haven't seen the video, here it is. I have to rank this at the top because it's a World Series, people. The call turned the Series and the Royals went on to beat the Cardinals. (I would also posit that it was Game 6 and the Cards could have gone out and won Game 7 but didn't.) No matter how you parse the aftermath of the call, it is dreadfully bad and deserving of the No. 1 spot.

2. Jeffrey Maier catches Derek Jeter's "home run" in the 1996 ALCS. And I'm not even from Boston, but any moron can see that this is fan interference. How umpire Rich Garcia blew this, I'll never know. Again, context is important here. This is in an American League Championship Series game, so it is weighted accordingly.

3. Jim Joyce blows out call in Armando Galarraga's Perfect Game (2010). This one just made me sad. I have no idea how Jim Joyce misses this obvious out at first base. It's not a bang-bang play. Dude is out by a step and a half.

In an ordinary game, it's a bad call, but Galaragga is on the verge of a perfect game here; not just a no hitter, but a perfect game. According to Baseball Almanac, there have only been 20 perfect games in the history of MLB, so this would have been just the 21st such game in 135 years. Heady territory for Mr. Galarraga. It still bums me out. However, I have a huge amount of respect for both Galarraga for the way he handled it and for Joyce, who admitted that he blew it. The blown call has a nice denouement, too. The next day, Joyce was working home plate of the Tigers game and Jim Leyland sent Galarraga out with the line up call. It was a very touching moment. Video Here.

4. Matt Holliday's phantom tag of home plate. So it's game 163 of the 2007 season. The Colorado Rockies are playing the San Diego Padres to go to the playoffs. Matt Holliday ties the game with a triple. Then, while still perched at 3rd on a sacrifice fly, he tags up and races home for the winning run. Except there's just one niggling problem. Holliday never touched home plate. In fact, as I write this on July 27th, 2011, he still hasn't touched home plate. Just saying. Video here.

5. Jerry Meals calls Julio Lugo safe at home before he even touches the plate. The game is dragging on. Everybody's tired. They've played 19 innings. There are just no players left to swap out for pinch-hitters and the like (except Joel Hanrahan.) We've seen everything. Stolen bases. Pick offs. Home runs. Players tossed. Reliever used to working one inning, working three and four and five innings. It's just an amazing battle. By now, it is well after 1:00 am. Julio Lugo is on 3rd base. There's one out. Scott Proctor grounds to 3rd and Pedro Alvarez makes a speedy throw to Fort McKenry at the plate. Lugo is out, as you can see here, but Meals calls him safe so everybody gets to go home.

Here's what I am thinking was going on in Meals' mind: "God, I'm tired. And my feet hurt. Seriously, it's after one in the morning. I don't get paid enough for this shit. What I really need is a pizza, a beer and some hotel PPV (wink). SAFE!"

But I could be wrong about the beer and pizza part.

Honorable Mention: Chuck Knoblauch's phantom tag in the 1999 ALCS. I so didn't mean to hammer the Yankees in this list, but it is what it is. Another case of the Yanks benefiting from bad officiating in the playoffs. I'm not sure that getting this call right would have changed the outcome, but it's just so obvious that Knoblauch whiffs on his tag of Jose Offerman that, watching from his home, Stevie Wonder got the call right. Again, I say to ump Tim Tschida -- do you have pigeon-shit in your eyes? (I can't find a video of this -- just more evidence of nefarious Yankees shenanigans -- so if any readers find one, send me the link.)

Pirates NL Central Ticker stays at 37 games.

(Note -- this article altered from it's original form due to author stupidity.)

My Pittsburgh Pirates Wish List

2011-07-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

Back here at Bucco Central ...

Our fearless leader, Clint Hurdle is telling his charges to just live in the moment. Talk about your ultimate existential man. I, too, try to live life that way, but I can't help but think of all the ways in which the stars need to align for our small-payroll, small-ball, national media darling, little engine that could Pittsburgh Pirates to make a serious run at the playoffs. So I've taken the liberty of making a wee wish list.

At the top of my wish list is a giant bazooka-armed, .302 hitting (with 62 RBI) Viking in right field, which I realize is a bit like me wishing I owned an Alberto Giacometti sculpture. It'd be a nice idea, but even if I sold two kidneys, I couldn't afford one. And the Pirates should not sell two kidneys, which is to say, give up too many top prospects to get Hunter Pence. They can't give up Starling Marte, Stetson Allie, and Jameson Taillon, no matter what they're getting in return. [I'm relying on better baseball minds than mine that these three are the best prospects in the system.] You have to give up something to get something worthwhile in return, but I don't think they should decimate the farm system, even for a guy like Pence. Basically, Huntington has 'won' some of the key trades he's made -- Nate McLouth to get Charlie Morton, Nyjer Morgan to get Joel Hanrahan, Xavier Nady to get Jose Tabata. He doesn't want to end up on the wrong end of a trade and it's sounding like the Astros want too much in return. Caveat Emptor.

All of which means, I'm going to assume that they can't get Pence, so here's the rest of my Pirates wish list:

-- For Huntington to lock up Andrew McCutchen. Did you know that the Pirates most indispensable man only makes $425,000 this year? Yeah, that's a ton in the real world, but in baseball terms, a mere pittance. It just seems so wrong that Lyle Overbay makes more than 10 times more than 'Cutch. So, pay the man. Pay him now. Keep him here. Forever, preferably.

-- A healthy Evan Meek. I'd love to have Meek as an option in the bullpen again, but a healthy Evan Meek could be nice trade bait, too, particularly since they signed Jason Grilli.

-- The ability to hit curveballs for Pedro Alvarez. This is well covered territory, but Alvarez needs to hit. He needs to get his strike out percentage down from one K for every three at bats. This team struggles to score as it is. The last thing they need is Pedro killing rallies with ugly strike outs. I'd also like to see more patience at the plate from him. Here's a for instance: Last night, he came to bat with the Pirates up 3-0 in the top of the 8th and looking to add on an insurance run or two. With two outs, Braves reliever George Sherrill had just issued back to back walks to Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen. On a 3-1 count, facing a pitcher with shaky control, Pedro took an off-balance swing at a curveball that was way outside the strike zone. I know he was guessing, figuring that Sherrill would feed him a strike to get to a full-count, but perhaps he should think less and take more. Just a thought.

-- For Brad Lincoln to contribute from time to time down the stretch. Last night, during the Buccos win over the Braves in Atlanta (can't those idiots retire the 'tomahawk chop' already?), Greg Brown and Bob Walk were discussing the fact that James McDonald has an ERA under 3 when he's pitching on five or more days rest, and an ERA over 5 (maybe even over 6), when he's pitching on just four days rest. Which is to say, during a run like the one they are in now -- 20 games without a day off -- it would be nice to use a sixth starter a couple of times, something the Pirates cannot do if they feel that Lincoln is not up to it.

-- Since we're talking about pitchers, somebody asked me who on the Pirates roster, other than Andrew McCutchen, did I think was untouchable? And I'll tell you who -- Jeff Karstens. He's maybe not untouchable, but if I were Huntington, I'd need to have a superstar on the table to even consider moving Karstens. So my wish for him is -- continued good health. In a Pirates uniform. For the remainder of this season and for many seasons to come.

-- A good back up for Michael McKenry. I think the Pirates have found something in Fort McKenry, and I'm not alone. But as gritty as the guy is, he does need a day off from time to time. And we all know how I feel about the undistinguished Ryan Doumit, even when he's healthy.

-- For Joel Hanrahan just to be Joel Hanrahan. I have some very fine Pirates memories over a lifetime of watching baseball and I have to say, every time Joel Hanrahan comes onto the field at PNC Park to protect a small lead has been positively electric, and right up there with some of my memories from the 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's. Perhaps none was better than Hammer striking out Adrian Gonzalez when the Bo'Sawks were in town. Hanrahan has swagger and charisma and attitude (along with a fastball in the high 90's) that infects the whole ballpark. I do love me some Hammer Time.

Daily Pirates Ticker: 37 wins to go.

Maybe the Other Shoe Will Not Drop on the Pirates 2011 Season

2011-07-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

Back at Bucco Central ...

The excitement is just so intoxicating, so, dazzlingly, temptingly intoxicating. The Pirates winning -- and sitting on top of (or close to the top of) the NL Central -- it's like a blend of Proseco and crystal meth for 'Burgh fans. We've waited so long.

Now, the question you have to ask yourself as a fan is: do the Pirates have to win a title this year to satisfy you? Because these Pirates? They're not built for that kind of battle. Not yet.

As was well established on Friday night here, if the Pirates pitching isn't perfect, and things start to turn into a dinger-o-rama, they're screwed. They simply are not constructed to win games which turn into home run derbies, a fact which was doubly reinforced on Saturday, when they endured a 9-1 thumping (ouch) from the squad lead by the haircut that's one part Pete Rose, one part Neil Diamond and all parts hideous. Or as other people call him, Tony LaRussa. It was a series which, appropriately enough featured Albert Pujols going yard -- his 27th homerun at PNC Park, more than anybody in the history of that ballpark.

It was the kind of three-game stretch (including the bummer of a loss to the Reds), that reminded me of the past 18 years of putritude and, I couldn't help it -- I had a knee-jerk reaction and I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Pirates. It was downright Pavlovian.

But these Pirates reminded me on Sunday that they are the kind of team that can battle and that will battle, no matter how much they play the part of David to the Cardinals Goliath. (I'm not sure there's a better 3-4-5 batting order than Pujols-Matt Holliday-Lance Berkman. Talk about an un-level playing field.) They did it by holding the Cards batters inside the park (except for a solo shot by Colby Rasmus in the 6th innning), playing small ball, playing defense, and using their speed to eek out a 10 inning win. While right field has been a giant vortex of disappointment, Xavier Paul has been the single bright spot out there, twice winning big games for this team with this kind of electric hustle.

It is the perfect blueprint for them. It is how they have to win games against the elite hitting teams in MLB. It is a style of baseball I enjoy, but they are limited. No doubt.

I'm on board. I believe in these Bucs, If they keep the core together -- Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez, Joel Hanrahan and, yes, little Michael McHenry -- I'm on the bus. I am infatuated. With this group and Clint Hurdle at the helm, I can think of worse ways to spend my summer evenings than watching young players (the prospects we've heard tell about for 'lo these many years), and ride along with them as they win and lose, fall down and get back up, and witness a team learning now to win.

Sunday's win was the kind of win that reminds me of why baseball is still fun, and it deepens my attachment to these battling Buccos daily. Still, I need to remind myself from time to time that these guys are over-achieving. They are thrilling and captivating, but they are over-achievers.

For now, that's good enough for me. If they lock up 'Cutch, and Walker, I can believe that Ogden Nutting is serious about keeping the main ingredients together for a long run. If they do that, and if they show patience with Alvarez, and if we see the other young guys like Chase d'Arnaud and Alex Presley being coached up and mentored, if they keep battling and playing exciting baseball, I can wait another year or two or three for a title. If they fall short of the division title, will that be good enough for you?

Still, I'm keeping up my division title ticker, though.

NL Central Pirates Ticker: 38 Wins Needed

[Photo: Peter Diana, http://www.post-gazette.com]

What Will It Take for the Pirates to Win the NL Central?

2011-07-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Back in my lair at Bucco Central, with 95 games under our belts, I'm already starting to wonder just what it will take to win the NL Central.

I'm gonna say 90 games.

It's partly hunch. To be honest, this is not the best division in MLB. There is no one great team here, but there are three good teams -- the Brewers, the Cardinals and the Pirates -- teams which I believe over the next two months are going to beat the crap out of each other, keeping any one team from running away with the division.

Last year, the Reds won the division with 91 wins. The year before, it was St. Louis with 91 wins. The year before that, it was the Cubs with 97 wins (a fluke year, both because of the high number of wins and also, the Cubs. The Cubs? Really?) Before that, the Cubs took it with just 85 wins, and before that, the Cardinals did the same with only 83 wins. (Oh, that the Pirates had this miracle season back in 2006 -- they might have run away with the division.)

In a nutshell, historically, you don't have to win 97 games to win this division. Generally low 90's will do it and I'm going to guess that this year an even 90 wins will take the Central. Sitting on 51 wins, that means the Pirates need 39 more wins.

Their current 51-44 record (downright gaudy compared to other seasons) charts out to a .537 winning percentage. If you apply that winning percentage through the entire season, that maps out to 87 wins.

But if you consider that they need to win 39 of the next 67 games (or so I believe), that's a winning percentage for the remainder of the season of .582. [Which would make the winning percentage for the entire season .555]. Can they bump up their wins that much? And if so, how?

As is well established around these parts, the Pirates have done it with pitching, pitching and more pitching. [Who knew? Good pitching wins ballgames. Wow. Somebody should alert the media.]

Kevin Correia anchors the staff. Not Cliff Lee, not Justin Verlander, not Tim Lincecum, but Kevin Correia. No offense to Correia who has performed wonderfully and much better than expected, but nobody could have seen this coming from a guy who has a career ERA of 4.49. Prior to this season, had thrown just one complete game. He is having the year of his entire life.

Then there's the amazing Mr. Karstens, a scrappy middle-reliever turned team stopper. I should have posted something about his sparkling 83 pitch complete game masterpiece against the Astros last Friday. His ERA last year (when he started 19 games) was 4.92 and the year before that (when he started just 13 games) was 5.42. Not exactly the kind of resume where you see this season coming -- the lowest ERA in the NL for guys who have pitched at least 20 games at 2.34, with 11 quality starts. If I get a vote for MVP right now, I'm voting for Jeff Karstens.

Lefty Paul Maholm had been the face of futility to me, by virtue of his being one of the longest tenured Pirates. [Well, to be fair, the real face of futility is Ryan Doumit: Maholm is just his understudy.] Maholm's ERA last year? 5.10. His ERA this year? 3.06. How in god's name did he (and pitching coach Ray Searage) shave two full runs off his earned run average?

The whole rotation is rounded out with Charlie Morton and James McDonald, both of whom are performing world's above what we've seen from them in the past. McDonald had his most impressive start ever last night. People are comparing Morton to the great Roy Halladay (he's not there yet, people) and J-Mac has turned into an at least reliable, if wild, starter.

Add to the magic of the starting five, the bullpen heros. Tony Watson gave them three scoreless innings on Monday night. The much-maligned Joe Beimel came in to get just one miraculous strike out last night. The suddenly reliable Daniel McCutchen. Chris Resop and Jose Veras have trouble with consistency, but are occasional terrors to opposing hitters. They still make me nervous, but you can see what Searage and Hurdle see in both of them. Then of course, the team has the luxury of calling on the Hammer to close out games.

Other than Hanrahan, every one of the staff arms has out-performed my expectations and I see this season as a minor freaking miracle to date. But even if we can keep the magic going, even if all of the pitchers can keep pulling rabbits out of their hats, I think to get those last four to five wins to get them the division crown, Karstens, Hanrahan, et al will need help in the form of runs.

They need a bat. Or two. 90 wins. I think they're one serious bat away from that.

Dear Mr. Nutting,

Please let Neal Huntington go shopping.

You can make money with winning baseball. A wee example to prove my point:

In 2010, on Tuesday, July 20th, the Pirates hosted their divisional foe, the Milwaukee Brewers. 13,000 were in attendance.

Last night, on Tuesday, July 19th, the Pirates hosted their divisional foe, the Cincinnati Reds. 26,000 were in attendance.

Now, I don't know how those extra 10,000 people work out in terms of dollars and cents, simply from the sale of the tickets, through the sale of merchandise, food, beer, etc., but I'm guessing it's a nice chunk of change. The kind of chunk of change that would justify spending a little on a hired gun to help the team make a serious playoff run.

Oh, and sorry about all those times I called you a greedy weasel or other words to that effect. I promise I take it all back. (Unless you instruct Huntington to make salary dumping moves. Then the greedy weasel stuff stands.)

Sincerely,

Pirates fans everywhere

Ticker starts now: 39 games to go.

[Photos: J-Mac from skysports.com; Maholm from isportsweb.com]

Pittsburgh Pirates Entering Make or Break Time

2011-07-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

Back here at Bucco Central, your Pittsburgh Pirates are all alone in first place in the National League Central, one-half game in front of both the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Oh, it's all fun and games here, what with all the scoreboard watching, trade rumors and generally silly joy.

Which brings us to: are you a glass half-full, or half-empty sort of person? Because the Pirates schedule for the rest of this month is a like a deadly version of Wipeout. You can either view this stretch as a waiting pitfall. I'd understand if you did. Or, you can view it as an opportunity to put a little distance between themselves and the Cards, Reds, and BrewCrew. And see how they stack up against the elite of the NL. I'm gonna go with the latter. I'm going to look at this as a great opportunity for these guys.

First, they finish up a three-game set with the Reds tonight and tomorrow. Then they have the Cards in over the weekend for three tilts. Then they go to Atlanta for a four game set with the Braves, then to Philadelphia for three games against the Phils. Let's put that in terms of record and payroll.

-- two games against the $75 million dollar, 47-49 Reds (a team which won the division last year, it should be pointed out.)

-- three games against the $105 million dollar, 50-45 Cards.

-- four games against the $87 million dollar 57-39 Braves.

-- then three games at the unfriendly confines in Philadelphia against the $173 million dollar, 59-36 Phillies (Last year's NL East division winner and perennial candidate to win the World Series).

If you want to know if the accomplishments of your $45 million dollar, 50-44 Pirates have all been a mirage, the rest of July should give you a really good idea.

These Pirates have played some really excellent teams and done well this season, most memorably against the Phillies and the Red Sox. Those were the most exciting baseball games we've seen in these parts since Jim Leyland was last fined for smoking cigarettes in the dugout at Three Rivers. But the difference is, I'm not sure we expected much when the Phils came to town. I think most of the talk around here was that if the Pirates could take one game from them, that would be good enough. Same mindset was in place when the Sawks came to the 'burgh. (Admittedly, that was the mindset of the fans, not the players and coaches.) But it will be interesting to see how this group of over-achievers navigates these heavy-weight match-ups now that there are expectations. I may regret saying this later, but bring on the big boys.

[Photo: Christopher Horner for pittsburghlive.com].

Is Third Base Cursed Land for the Pittsburgh Pirates? And Man-Games Lost.

2011-07-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, back at Bucco Central ...

Pirates 3rd baseman Pedro Alvarez continues to toil away in AAA ball, having come off the disabled list a few days before the All-Star break. It is important to remember who Alvarez is -- the guy who was supposed to be the power bopper the Pirates have long needed, the guy drafted to be the savior of the franchise. I screamed, you screamed, we all screamed for Pedro.

The numbers: Before going on the DL, Pedro had been to the plate 125 times. He had two dingers and 42 strike outs. And yes, for all of you Douglas Adams fans, that's forty-two strikeouts. So yeah, he was whiffing about a third of the time at the plate. The strike-out rate is no better in his brief stint in Indianapolis where, in the course of 10 games, he's been to the plate 34 times and struck out 13 times, with zero home runs.

The Pirates drafted him to be the guy. In fact, I recall fans saying that if the organization didn't draft Pedro, it was a sign that they weren't trying, that it would be a replay of the draft wherein they showed how scared they were to draft a potential star -- so scared that they selected Daniel Moskos rather than Matt Wieters. So, I think we can all agree that, when the picked Pedro, they did draft the guy for whom there was universal acclaim and hope.

Third base has been a giant miasma of whiffs, salary dumps and suck in Pittsburgh. Before Pedro was called up, Andy Laroche was on the hot corner; nobody thought he was a long-term solution.

Before that, of course, it was Jose Bautista, who they Pirates just ... just ...whiffed. A whiff of such monumental proportions that I get a pain in my lower abdomen every time I flip on SportsCenter to see that Joey Bats launched another long-ball for the Blue Jays.

And, of course, when we discuss despair at 3rd base, we can never forget David Littlefield's lasting gift of shit to the City of Pittsburgh: his trade of Aramis Ramirez to the Chicago Cubs for a bag of used jock-straps and batting practice balls.

I took the time to look at who has worked 3rd for a significant period of time, other than the aforementioned Alvarez, Laroche, Bautista, and Ramirez. It's a who's who of 'who the hell is that guy?' Ready?

Joe Randa, Jose Castillo, Ty Wiggington, Bobby Hill (Bobby Hill???), Chris Stynes, Ed Sprague, Doug Strange (wasn't he the keyboard player for The Doors?), Charlie Hayes (they would have been better off with Isaac Hayes in there), Jeff King, and Steve Buechele. Phew. That just gets us back to 1993. I just can't keep going now.

The Pirates have been so bad for so long, that its hard to stick by young guys who are struggling. How do you know when a guy is a bust? How long can you tolerate his strike out percentage? Particularly if you, as the Pirates inexplicably do, find yourself in the middle of a race for a division title? You have to win and win right now. If the Pirates were in the middle of another crapulous season, they could just toss Pedro Alvarez out there and let him work through his struggles, right?

But we have to face the harsh fact -- there is no guarantee that the success the battling Buccos are having this year will repeat next year or the year after that. They have to try to win the division this year. Can they do it with Pedro's rally killing every-third-at-bat strike out percentage?

He creates a distinct problem. They can't give up on him like they did Bautista, that is for certain. At this point, he still is the future of the franchise, the 'instant offense' guy they so desperately need. The fact is, Pedro is one of the keys to the club's long-term success. They don't need to shop for a big bat if Pedro ever learns how to hit major league breaking stuff.

I have no idea what to do with the kid. Maybe lots of at-bats at AAA will help, so they should just keep him there and continue with the status quo? Maybe they should have the batting practice pitcher throw him nothing but curveballs until he learns how to freaking hit one? Maybe, like Ricky Vaughn, they should get him some new eyeglasses?

Meanwhile, I love the hockey stat of 'man-games lost,' so here's the baseball version, for your battling Bucs:

Starting pitcher Ross Ohlendorf has been on the DL longer than I can even remember (did anybody even remember he was supposed to be the fifth man in the rotation?), but with pitchers you can't count every game as a man-game missed. Let's just say that he's missed every game that Karstens has started, which is to say, 16 games for Ohlendorf. [I'm on record as saying I think this ended up being a positive for the team (no offense, Ross) because Jeff Karstens is maybe the most reliable guy on the staff.]

Alvarez went on the DL following the April 30th game versus the Colorado Rockies and has missed 65 games.

Then, they lost catcher Ryan Doumit (missed 42 games), and then the other catcher, Chris Snyder (29 games missed). I think they've had six different guys behind the plate, none of which are very exciting prospects at the plate mind you.

Left fielder Jose Tabata has missed 15 games.

Short-stop Ronny Cedeno -- 11 games lost.

Throw in Evan Meek -- unavailable to the Pirates out of the pen for much of the season. He has appeared in 17 games this year, and been unavailable for the rest. According to the Post-Gazette, he'll be out at least until late July. For what all that is worth. They sure could have used a healthy Meek last night in Houston when Jose Veras alternated between trying to nibble around the strike zone and just throwing big grapefruits up there. But your mileage may vary.

[Photos: Alvarez -- sportsillustrated.cnn.com and hardballtalk.nbcsports.com; Tabata -- rotoexperts.com]

How Much Pressure Is on Team USA to Win the Cup?

2011-07-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

How much pressure?

All the pressure in the world.

More pressure than can be measured by existing technology.

More pressure than Freddy Mercury and David Bowie memorialized in song, which they described, if memory serves as, 'under pressure - that burns a building down.'

This group of athletes, to their credit, created this intense pressure by winning through a set of unbelievable circumstances in the quarterfinals. Let me be clear - a women's athletics team got the attention of an entire nation, a nation which remains a male-centric sports culture even in the 21st century. But Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe and Hope Solo got our attention.

They profited as the German fans turned against first Fifa, then against Marta, then all of team Brazil. And then something else happened. It wasn't just anti-Fifa sentiment. It wasn't just disgust with Erika's shameless flopping. Rapinoe, Wambach and Solo, as well as Ali Krieger and Shannon Boxx, won those fans over. The Dresden fans were cheering for them, not just against Brazil, not merely against referee Jacqui Melksham.

It was a transcendent comeback. With it, they captivated America, too.

I hate to rain on everybody's parade here, but transcendent though this victory may be, it will be an impermanent moment if they do not go on to win the World Cup.

I started to make a list of the most dramatic finishes in sports -- Joe Carter's walk-off home run, the Colts-Giants 1958 NFL Championship game, Kirk Gibson's, "I don't believe what I just saw," home-run, the Immaculate Reception, Lorenzo Charles' unlikely bucket to win the 1983 NCAA championship, the Catch, the Miracle on Ice, etc., etc.

In so doing, I realized that each of the above moments either won a championship (Joe Carter, Lorenzo Charles, Alan Ameche), or happened on the way to a championship (the Catch, Miracle on Ice, Kirk Gibson).

We remember these moments, not in a vacuum, but in context.

The Niners' dynasty was built upon Dwight Clark's catch.

Charles' unbelievable dunk won the NCAA tourney for the huge underdog Wolfpack.

Even the Immaculate Reception, which didn't lead directly to a championship that year, marks the beginning of the Steelers' dynasty. If that team hadn't gone on to win Super Bowls, I don't think Franco Harris' grab and run would have a statue memorializing it at Greater Pitt airport.

The youngins may believe that the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team defeated the terrifying Red Army team to win the gold medal, but for those of us who watched, we can never forget that game was the semi-final. They then defeated Finland in the Gold Medal game. Without that gold medal victory, nobody remembers Mike Eruzione. Or twitchy Jim Craig. Only die-hard hockey fans would remember Herb Brooks. Without that gold medal, the "Do You Believe in Miracles?!" game drops down on the list of most dramatic sports moments. I'd actually posit that the gold medal alters Al Michaels' career arc, too.

If Team USA loses the semi-final match to Team France today, or, if they go on to lose in the final to either Team Sweden or Team Japan, all of that attention, all of that passion for soccer, and the interest in women's soccer in particular is gone. Wiped clean. Without two more victories, all that buzz is vaporized, lost to the mist.

I have a friend who says that soccer is the sport of the future. And it always will be. For most of my life, soccer apologists have told me that the sport is ready to turn a corner in the US of A. That this one particular game will do it. Or that tournament will be the tipping point. Or this player will drag it onto the front pages for good. Blah, blah, blah. Personally, I don't really care if it never gets bigger than it is right now. I'm not futbol activist.

But if anybody can start a wee love affair with soccer on American soil, I think it's this team, this women's team. They have such a moment at hand. I hope they're up to it.

[Photos: Wambach header -- timesunion.com; Rapinoe hug -- faithandcompromise.tumblr.com; Solo save -- nydailynews.com]

Questions Answered and Grading the Pirates

2011-07-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Here at Bucco Central, about a month ago, I wrote a post asking if Pittsburgh could ever be a baseball town again? Now that we're sitting smack dab in the middle of the dreaded All-Star break, I can say this:

Question. Answered. In the affirmative.

Just one quick example:

-- Attendance at the Pirates game against the Cubs, the Friday before the All-Star break: 37,140.

-- Attendance at a comparable game in 2010, also right before the all-star break, also against a division rival (the Milwaukee Brewers), also on a Friday night: 27,767.

Where'd those extra 10,000 fans come from?

Winning. It's such a simple formula. Nobody goes to a baseball game because they can hear .38 Special and all of their hits like, "Hold on Loosely," and "Hold on Loosely," and, er, um, "Hold on Loosely." (Okay, this is Pittsburgh, so probably some people go to a baseball game to see .38 Special, but not that many.) I've been to four sellouts this season -- four -- which, I think may be more sellouts than they had all of last year.

Behold, the power of winning.

Back in March, had you told me the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates would be 47-43 and 1 game out of first place in the division, I would have very kindly given you detailed directions to the Western Psych Step-Down Unit.

I also would have assumed that the Pirates built a record like that around Pedro Alvarez' bat. Going into the year, I figured the best way the Pirates could win would be with Alvarez generating a lot of instant offense. Get Jose Tabata and Andrew McCutchen on base in front of him and watch Pedro jack the ball into the PNC Park topiary.

But the Pirates, as you may have heard, have done it with pitching, more pitching, stellar bullpen pitching, and a shut-down closer who gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when the Pirates are nursing a lead going into the 9th. Joel "Warm Fuzzy" Hanrahan. But most people just call him "the Hammer."

Let's grade it out, position by position:

Starting Pitching: A. If I'm grading the pitchers individually, it has to look like this: Karstens - A; Correia - A; Maholm - A; Morton - B; McDonald - B. But as a group? Definitely an A. Using the formula of 7+ innings with 3 or fewer runs as a quality start, they have 19 such quality starts. Using 6+ innings as the cut-off, they have 45 such starts. Like I said, starting pitching -- A (leaning towards A+ if Morton can find his groove again.)

Relief Pitching: A-. Though the starting pitching has done such amazing work, the bullpen has been great, as well, if a little less steady. Chris Resop shows flashes of complete and utter dominance, but when he's off, he is off. Same with Jose Veras. Daniel McCutchen has been steady Eddie for the team though and, the kid, Tony Watson has been good with occasional signs of great. Daniel Moskos is a lingering headache from the David Littlefield era (you don't use your No. 1 pick to get a middle of the road, middle reliever), but at least Ray Searage and Clint Hurdle are getting some decent innings from him.

Closer: A+. What can I even say about Hanrahan? In addition to the saves, I think his confidence, the way he works on the mound, his presence, gives the whole team an emotional lift. You can't tell me that going into the 7th and 8th innings of games, Andrew McCutchen isn't always thinking, 'If I can just get us ahead by one run, the Hammer will close it out ...'

1st Base: C. I know, I know, Lyle Overpay. I get the joke. But I still like the guy, for some reason. Clearly, the Pirates signed him to get more from his bat and he hasn't lived up to his reputation as a great glove guy with 8 errors this season. They need more from him. At the bag and in the batter's box. Period.

2nd Base: B. Neil Walker's 59 RBI's lead the team, but I'd like to see that average up. Way up from where it is at .264. The good news is that, in the last 7 games before the break, he hit .475, so maybe he's turned a serious corner in terms of making contact. He's turned 59 double plays in the field, and I really like his presence on the field more than anything else. I think he's just a good, steady leader for this team.

Shortstop: B-. Ronny Cedeno's a vacuum cleaner in the field and I really enjoy watching him work out there, but he's got a 10 cent head at the plate. We've seen Chase d'Arnaud out there for 9 games and he's less steady in the field, but a much better batter. Yeah, he's only hitting .221, but I've never seen d'Arnaud try to bunt with the bases loaded. Just saying.

3rd Base: Incomplete. The Pirates did not use their #1 pick on Pedro Alvarez in order to test out guys like Brandon Wood, Josh Harrison and d'Arnaud at this spot., so I'm not going to grade them, just Alvarez. He was not performing well (at the plate at least) before his leg injury, averaging 1 strike out for every 3 at bats. I know that home run hitters whiff more than contact guys, but with only 2 home runs for his 42 strike outs, something is rotten in the state of Pedro. That said, I think Alvarez knows how to hit minor league pitching. He has to learn how to hit major league pitching and how to weather slumps, etc. When he comes back, he has to play every day, even if Hurdle has to move him to 7th or 8th in the batting order.

Catcher: B. This was a hard grade to give out, given that the Pirates have had 7 different catchers behind the dish through the first half of the season. Based purely on performance (both defensively and offensively), I'd have to grade the position with a lower grade than a B, but ... that the Pirates have managed to raid the trash heap and keep chugging along is impressive. Okay, I admit that the grade did get a little bump upwards based on Michael McHenry's dinger last week against the Cubbies. It's hard not to root for McHenry.

While we're here, I'm not a fan of Ryan Doumit. God, it feels good to just get that off my chest. He just reminds me of the bad-old days of Jim Tracy and John Russell and David Littlefield. That is probably unfair to him, I know. And I also know that he's a better hitter than McHenry, or at the very least, has much better power numbers. But McHenry's defensive ability is exponentially better than Doumit's; moreover, let's not overstate Doumit's bat -- he ain't exactly Stan Musial at the plate. When/if Doumit's healthy, I'd still rather see McHenry as the regular catcher, with Doumit giving him a rest and being used in pinch-hitting situations. Or bundled in a trade and sent away, but that is for another post.

Left Field: B+. I'm a big Jose Tabata fan. I just am. I'd like to see the strikeouts come down and the stolen bases go up, but I think the guy is an exciting player who has only begun to mine his potential. His speed in the field creates outs for the pitchers. In equally exciting news, the same can be said for his replacement, the 10 year-old Alex Presley. (Just kidding. Presley's 14 years-old.) I was looking forward to seeing the kid, mostly because I like to get a look at some of the prospects, but he is making a strong argument to stay with the big club even when Tabata returns. I probably would have graded Tabata by himself as a B, but Presley's been so fun, I had to bump the grade up slightly.

Center Field: A+. That was easy. He hits, he flies, he makes spectacular catches. The kid is electric. He is the most exciting player I've seen around here since Barry Bonds was lithe. I'm not kidding.

Right Field: C-. This is a disappointing spot. Well, I guess disappointing isn't the right word because I didn't expect all that much from the platoon of Matt Diaz and Garrett Jones. Right field is a spot where you need some pop in the bat. Jones has it, but his hitting is so inconsistent. Diaz is on my rat's ass list, which is to say, if he leaves, I don't give a rat's ass. I love Hurdle swapping them out to put the speedy Xavier Paul in there late in games, but Paul is a contact hitter and a speed guy, not a power hitter. I think he has value to the team, but I think that's more as a utility outfielder and a defensive stopper late in tight games.

If the Pirates are in the market to bring on some talent at the trade deadline (and Ogden Nutting says that they may be), this is clearly the spot they need to upgrade, more than catcher, and even more than 1st base. But, again, the question of whether the Pirates should buy, sell or stand pat is grist for another post, one that I feel coming on very soon.

[Photos: topiary -- countingbaseballs.mlblogs.com; Veras -- bleacherreport.com; Walker - sports.yahoo.com; McHenry -- timesonline.com; McCutchen -- post-gazette.com]

USA! USA! U.S. Women Win Wild Game Over Brazil

2011-07-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

It seemed impossible. Everything was against them.

They were down a goal, on an officiating gift, no less.

They were down a player, on another officiating gift from Referee Jacqui Melksham. (Does this look like a red card to you? Seriously?)

They were facing Brazil and Marta, arguably the greatest player in the world. To say nothing of Christiane, who has got to be a top 5 player herself. Whassup with the Brazilians all being 'one-namers?' They're all just listed at the Fifa roster by first names. No kidding. And to think I always thought you needed to do something remarkable, like Pele, to be a one namer. Like Oprah. Or Elvis. Or Cher.

Sitting on that one goal lead in OT, the Brazilians were working every possible angle, taking 'gamesmanship' to the point where one might call it, oh, I dunno, cheating. Or at the very least a crass degeneration of the rules. (Yes, Erika, I am looking at you.)

One of the reasons I always enjoyed the women's game more than the men's game (yeah, I said it) was that there was less shameless flopping, and where there was an occasional flop, it didn't drag on and on, the length of an Orson Welles movie. If you've watched 15 minutes of soccer in your life, you know what I'm talking about. ESPN even made an hilarious commercial about it, here.

But with time dwindling away, Erika laid there, in a performance worthy of Cher back in her Oscar days, dragging out the delay of game for more than three minutes. (And to think, studies had proven that women bounced up faster.)

It made me sad, really, that this tremendously talented team resorted to these tactics, that they went around that bend, down that rabbit-hole, into the realm previously inhabited largely by their male compatriots -- relying less on talent and will, and more on shameless fakes and feints. Puh-leeze, ladies. God bless those German fans -- those hisses, whistles and boos weren't all reserved for the ref -- they were directed at the Brazilian team, and Marta herself. Deservedly so.

And then, in the 122nd minute -- the one-hundred and twenty-second minute -- in the extra-time after the over-time, somehow, some way, in story-book fashion that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, Abby Wambach buried a magnificent header to tie the game, on a brilliant feed by Megan Rapinoe.

How do you say karma in Portuguese?

"Wambach."

That's the answer I got from my buddy Bob and I'm going to stick with that.

Strangely, I thought the American women played better, more aggressively, with a chip on their shoulders once they were down from 11 players to 10.

It certainly made it a more sweet victory.

And now, you'll excuse me, while I rhapsodize for a moment about goaltender, Hope Solo. She is model good-looking, but she struts like the toughest guy (or girl) in school, the one who might flip the bird to the school principal, and then make going to detention cool. I love her bad-assery and her cockiness. I think it's infectious. I love it.

Last year, when True/Slant was still around, I wrote that I had my first soccer memory while watching the men's World Cup and I should have clarified that I had my first men's soccer memory. My real first soccer memory was watching the 1999 Women's World Cup. I was visiting my cousins in North Carolina and, god bless 'em, neither had a television, so I availed myself of a new bar/restaurant that had opened to watch the final against China, largely by myself and transfixed. I can picture the bar clear as day, even though I haven't set foot back into it in a dozen years.

The point is that men's sports or women's sports, olympics or high school football -- we watch sports for something to do, because it's fun, and it gives you something to talk about with people. But we really watch sports to create memories.This game, this match up, this unbelievable comeback against Brazil, with the German fans chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!," and a ticket to story-book land on the table, well, I'll never forget it. Another amazing moment for my already rich treasure trove of sports memories.

If you want a quick breakdown of the rules (which is to say, how and why the US women were playing down a woman), so that you can prepare yourself for the semi-finals, this is a handy guide.

The US Women play again on Wednesday, in a match against France at noon. Be there.

[Photos: Wambach & Solo -- Martin Rose, Getty Images; Buehler-Marta pic -- Scott Heavey, Getty Images; Solo save -- Jens Meyer, AP; whole team -- espn.com]

Sunday Recipe: Trofie with Perfect Pesto

2011-07-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

I distinctly remember the first time I had pesto -- sublime insouciance, a revelation on my tongue. Then the 1990's happened and everybody served pesto on everything. On bread, on fish, on pasta, on pizza, on your breakfast cereal. It was served year round with old, flavorless basil and too much garlic. It turned me off pesto for a good long time. In fact, I don't think I had eaten pesto in more than a decade.

This passed winter, while perusing my mother-in-law's bookshelves, I discovered Waverly Root's comprehensive guide to the regional foods of Italy, titled, simply enough, 'The Food of Italy.' (Published in 1972 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House. I think it is out of print now, but if you can lay your hands on it, give it a look.) At any rate, in Root's book, I discovered that pesto was invented in Liguria (as was ravioli, so I personally owe those crazy sea-faring Ligurians a big debt of gratitude.) Liguria is the province right around the knee-cap of the peninsula that extends out into the Mediterranean as you can see in this map, and the basil grows thick and lush on the hillsides there. From Root's book:

"... Liguria is famous for the herbs which grow on the slopes of its hills so thickly that in the day before natural scents had to compete with the fumes of automobile exhausts, fuel oil, and the exhalations of chemical factories, ships beating into port against an offshore wind counted as their first landfall the fragrance of sweet basil, blown far out to sea."

My basil doesn't grow quite so lush as that, but it's been booming the last couple of weeks.

So I had a choice -- either whip up a batch of Green Goddess Dressing (which I love, but which doesn't keep long) or whip up some pesto. I decided on the pesto and re-learned the lesson I always learn with Italian food: it's always all about the quality of the ingredients.

If you have old, out of season, flavorless basil, your pesto will be to proper pesto as Taco Bell is to Rick Bayless.

In other words, don't even bother making it if the basil was picked more than 24 hours prior to consumption. Pesto is strictly a summer and early fall food. Period. So either plant a pot of basil (it really is worth it), or buy it at the farmer's market and plan on cooking that day. Don't be afraid of it. The prep is remarkably easy.

What you will need:
basil -- a large bundle
pine nuts -- about 3 ounces or so
freshly grated parmesan cheese -- about two palmfuls
1 clove of garlic -- coarsely diced
extra-virgin olive oil
Pasta -- for pesto, I love Ligurian Trofie (you'll probably have to hit a specialty market or Italian groceria to find it; I've never seen it in a big supermarket)

The Prep:
Nothing could be easier, so this should make my friend Hildy Johnson happy. Not so much choppy-choppy -- the cuisinart does all the work.

Wash the basil and pull off all the leaves -- even (especially) the little baby ones. Toss those in a cuisinart. Add the pine nuts and parm. (Note, if you can, get this at an Italian market. It's just better that way.) Drizzle in several glugs of good quality olive oil and pulse until it's almost smooth. Taste for salt. I don't usually need any, but you should check at this point.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add a big palmful of salt and the pasta. Make sure to stir right a way. Trofie sticks more than some pastas. When the trofie is rolling, put about a cup full of the pasta water in a bowl. When the trofie is al dente, strain it, immediately return it to the pot, with the pesto and a bit of the pasta water as needed. (You'll probably only need about 2 tablespoons, but it's good to have on hand if it needs to be thinned a bit.)

Serve with more grated parm and enjoy.

Jeff Karstens Leads the Way to 2nd Place for the Pittsburgh Pirates

2011-07-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

More random thoughts from Bucco Central:

Last night, Wandy Rodriquez brought his 3.25 era and 7-2 record into PNC Park and the Pirates laid 5 runs on him, none bigger than Brandon Wood’s 2-run dinger in the 2nd inning. Your battling Buccos added on more runs, but really, Wood's homer would have done it because Jeff Karstens was,once again, masterful.

As we round the bases into the All-Star break, consider these facts about these Pirates:

-- Wandy Rodriquez has been a huge pain in the private parts for the Pirates. From 2008 up until last night, his career record against the Bucs was 5-1. From the ‘08 season through the ‘10 season, his era against the Buccos was a microscopic 1.85, having given up only 7 earned runs in 5 games.

-- In recent memory, conferring an MVP award on any member of the Pittsburgh Pirates seemed a bit like putting Serge Lutens lipstick ($75 per tube) on a honey badger. But this year, there are several strong contenders, and I’d argue that you could give Jeff Karstens an MVP award right now with a strong case to lean on. He was wonderful again last night.

One of the things I love best about Karstens is that he makes teams beat him, which is to say, he doesn’t issue free passes. He’s got just 18 walks all season (and a handful of those are intentional, I think). His era is the 10th lowest in all of MLB. Of the nine pitchers in front of him with lower era’s, only Roy Halladay has issued fewer walks (17.) Kids at home, take this as a lesson: make hitters hit because there's a good chance they'll make an out.

-- I was at Sunday’s game, the opener of this series versus the Astros. Afterward, starter Paul Maholm said it was the kind of game they typically lost in the past. I had the exact same thought walking back to my car that day. After giving up three runs, only two of which were earned runs (really, all three came across the plate as a result of fielding blunders), the Pirates battled back. The Astros put up a flukey run in the 1st inning, but Michael McHenry singled home Lyle Overbay to answer in the 2nd. The Astros put up 2 runs in the 3rd (both on errors), but Chase d’Arnaud, Andrew McCutchen and Overbay answered in the bottom half of the inning. Like I said, the club had zero ability to counter-punch last year. You don’t win many games like that, as they proved.

-- The franchise won a total of 16 series in all of 2010. With the win over the Houston Astros last night, the Pirates have clinched that series (regardless of the outcome tonight), giving them 17 series victories in 2011.

-- Two of those series wins came against the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox, respectively. The Phillies rolled into town in first place in the NL East, sporting a 34-23 record. Then promptly lost two to the Pirates. The Red Sox came to town three weeks later, in first place in the AL East, with their garish 41-31 record. They promptly lost two to the Pirates.

I would point out that, according to the USA Today, the Phillies have the 2nd highest payroll in MLB at nearly $173 million and the Red Sox are right behind them with the 3rd largest payroll at nearly $163 million. The Pirates go to battle with the 3rd lowest payroll at about $45 mil.

-- Just a quick reminder, but the Pirates won a total of 17 games on the road last year. Seventeen, like the friggin’ magazine. By June 14th of 2011, the Pirates had 18 road wins. I don't know what it means, but I like it.

More later.

Andrew McCutchen, Joel Hanrahan and the Great All-Star Snub of 2011

2011-07-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

Random thoughts from Bucco Central.

Pirates closer Joel Hanrahan is headed to the All-Star game, a well deserved honor. Center-fielder Andrew McCutchen should be going with him, but the All-Star game is an honor conferred largely based on reputation and McCutchen is still building his. [Although a quick stroll through the stats would reveal these facts: McCutchen is 3rd among all National League center-fielders in OPS (.892), 3rd in Slugging (498), 2nd in RBI (after today's win over the Astros he has 46), and 3rd in stolen bases (15.) It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure it out.] However, there's a bright side for Pittsburghers, which is, in the two games since his All-Star snub, he's gone 4-for-9 at the plate, with a two-bagger and three RBI's. Let's hope he stays motivated by The Great All-Star Snub of 2011. (tm)

Back to the Hammer. Earlier this year, I heard some radio jocks suggesting that the Pirates might package Hanrahan to get a big-bopper for right field or an upgrade at short-stop. Here's why that's phooey. Hanrahan shortens the game by a full-half inning. Teams pretty much know they'd better score within their first 24 outs, because the last three outs, in the 9th inning, are locked up.

Not that he's perfect. He gave up one run in DC the other night, but still got the save. I love the way he goes after hitters. It doesn't matter who it is; whether its the 7th, 8th and 9th guys in the Washington Nationals line-up, or the great David Ortiz, Hanrahan doesn't dance around the strike zone, nibbling here, nibbling there. He just goes up there with a rocket launcher attached to his right shoulder and dares batters to hit him. His success speaks for itself, to say nothing of the psychological lift I think that he gives the team.

Not to mention, the Buccos aren't exactly blowing teams out. The hitting just has not come around as much as we (and skipper Clint Hurdle) would like it to. As Bill Cowher used to say, it is what it is. And given that it is what it is -- 22nd in the league in runs scored and 5th in MLB in strike outs (with a whopping 644 to date) -- having a hold card like Hanrahan, a closer who can almost guarantee you three outs is a huge advantage. To think that you can trade the best closer we've seen in these parts since the great Kent Tekulve, well, that's just asinine. Unless you're getting something like Jose Bautista in return. (I had to. Sorry, Mr. Huntingdon.)

While we're here, I didn't believe in the Pirates when the season started. Why, really, would I? Why would anybody?

But Neal Huntingdon said he was building from the ground up, re-stocking the woeful farm system. I'd heard that old saw before so many times, I was sick of it. I didn't believe he would do it because, nobody had before. The Pirates were terrible when they had their best players on the field. If one of them got hurt, they were even worse. I don't know exactly what that is, but whatever is worse than terrible, that's what the farm system was. They weren't the 'not ready for prime time players,' they were the 'never ready for prime time players.'

This year, the injuries just keep mounting, and the young guys keep performing. The list goes on and on, but the two who stand out most are, of course, Alex Presley and Chase d'Arnaud. They've both performed so well that they may have earned permanent spots with the big club. When Jose Tabata comes back from his injury (get well soon, Jose), I think we may be seeing Presley in right field on a steady basis. (I would like that outfield a whole lot, if anybody wants my opinion.) When Pedro Alvarez comes back to play 3rd base on a day to day basis, d'Arnaud should remain at shortstop. When Ronny Cedeno's healthy, I think he may be spending a lot of time on the bench, watching d'Arnaud in the field.The kids have performed so much better than anybody could have expected and, frankly, the contributions of the Indianapolis kids deserve their own post. Maybe over the All-Star break.

In the meantime, there is reason to enjoy this moment -- Pirates fans, please do enjoy your existential moment, the feeling of being 44-41 on July 4th. Drink deep, let yourself become intoxicated with the winning. Life moves pretty fast and you never know what might happen. But, with guys like Chase and Presley coming along, there's reason to hope that the Pirates can continue these winning ways. Heck, maybe they can even get better. In the words of that legendary philosopher Kent Tekulve, the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

[Photos: McCutchen -- NESN; Presley -- bleacherreport.com; Tekulve -- ESPN.com]

Ray Shero Does Not Play Footsie: Pens Offer to Jagr Withdrawn

2011-07-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Today at noon, Penguins GM Ray Shero withdrew his offer to Czech sniper and former Penguins great, Jaromir Jagr.

I am on record wanting Jagr to come back. I think he can still be a productive player and I stand by that. My mistake was thinking that he had matured some in last decade. I guess not.

Meet the new Jagr. Same as the old Jagr.

Wednesday was supposed to be decision day. Then Thursday was decision day. Then this morning was decision day, or at least decision morning, because I'm pretty sure that when Ray Shero wasn't busy working out a two-year deal with Tyler Kennedy (huge, by the way), he had his eye on the clock thinking, if I don't hear from that guy by noon, it's over. You gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere, don't you? He can't keep waiting on the capricious winger to make up his mind. He's working under a snug salary cap and the Penguins (assuming Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are healthy) are poised to make a run at the Cup as constituted without Jaromir.

I guess Jagr is still the guy we knew before, the player we had a love-hate relationship with -- supremely talented, capable of wondrous things on the ice, but just as capable of throwing fits of pique and drifting into deep existential chasms.

It's too bad for everybody. Jagr could have contributed here, if nothing else on the power play. From his perspective, I think this could have been a good fit for him. It's a team that doesn't need him to lead -- they're full up on leaders in the Consol Center home club dressing room. All he would have to have done in Pittsburgh is shown up and fired wristers on net on the power play, which seems like a pretty good gig go me.

But he couldn't meet a simple deadline. He couldn't make a simple phone call. I'm not sure if he intended to play headgames with the Pens or if he's just really unsure himself. Is he in one of those eastern European funks he's prone to? Is he still just really immature? Who the hell ever knows what goes on in the head of Jaromir Jagr? I think half the time, he doesn't even know himself.

But I can tell you this, there's no room on a roster put together by Ray Shero for a guy who doesn't want to be here, whose number one priority isn't bringing the Stanley Cup back to Mario's pool.

No hard feelings, but somebody else can baby-sit the guy.

UPDATE: 10 minutes after posting, this came across the wires: Philadelphia Flyers sign Jaromir Jagr. This is the contractual agreement of taking a dump in Mario's pool.

Ooooooooh, this is going to make Pens-Flyers games even more fun. Is it hockey season yet?

UPDATE TWO: Saddest Day Ever: Max Talbot Signs with Flyers

Goodbye Max. Sniff. Sniff.

We had a good run, didn't we Max? Two Stanley Cup Finals appearances. Your heroics in 2009 (some of which you can see above.) You were a mensh, a fun guy, a penalty killer extraordinaire. But now you wear the Flyers orange. I'm filing for divorce today. You should get the papers shortly.

Thanks for all the fun times. You will be missed.

Stuff That Should Stay Where It Is -- the Pro Sports Edition

2011-06-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, during their Stanley Cup run, the Boston Bruins media crew co-opted Wiz Khalifa's 'Black and Yellow.' Mmmmmmm, I'm gonna say that's just the kind of thing that's not done, or that you shouldn't do, or that you should be banished if you do it. I believe when it happened, I suggested that those guys be taken out and tazed, then shot in the face repeatedly. That's a bit harsh. This sort of filching is not quite a death penalty transgression, but it is the kind of thing that should make you a pariah.

It's like dating your friend's ex. Is it technically, letter of the law wrong? Probably not. But it's gross, it indicates a lack of feeling, a lack of ethics, perhaps even a lack of a soul.

It also bespeaks a revolting lack of originality.

But it got me to thinking, what traditions, songs and other sports ephemera are off limits, the province of one specific team or specific city?

1. The Detroit Red Wings pretty much own the entire Journey catalog. You know, if you want to play 'Faithfully' or 'Wheels in the Sky' or 'Any Way You Want It,' I suppose I won't take you to task too hard. But there is no budging on this: 'Don't Stop Believin'' is the Red Wings thing. It just is. (Yes, I'm looking at you Bruins staff. Again. Creativity. Look it up. Then get some.)

2. It's not all bad in Boston. 'Sweet Caroline' and 'Dirty Water' are the exclusive properties of the Boston Red Sox. Also, any and all Boston teams should feel free to use the Dropkick Murphy's, 'I'm Shipping Up to Boston,' at any time. For everybody else -- verboten.

3. The Rally Monkey? Always an Anaheim thing, even though they call themselves the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim these days. This is perhaps the most inspired, just plain goofy thing I can think of. The Angels are losing, and the stadium media crew just put this little guy on the jumbotron. A Rally Monkey is born. Genius.

4. If you catch a home run ball and you're not a Cubs fan at Wrigley Field? Hold on to it. You look like an all-world jackass throwing it back. Unlike this guy, who is clearly not a jackass. I don't know why it's kinda cool when Cubs fans do it, but it is. It's just pathetic everywhere else.

5. Let's do away with the annoying singing of God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch of all Sunday MLB games, and give that song back to the Philadelphia Flyers.

6. No player ever, from now until the end of the world (or a Newt Gingrich presidency, whichever comes first), is ever, ever permitted to use Metallica's 'Enter Sandman.' And if you do, Mariano Rivera is well within his rights to zip a cut-fastball right into your eye-socket.

7. As we're in Yankee Stadium, the chanting out the names of each of the starting position players until they tip the cap, stays right where it is. Even in that circumstance, it is annoying, but it's original at least. If you want your own thing? Get one. It can be annoying, too.

8. Note to NFL players -- if you're not a Packer and the game's not at Lambeau, don't leap into the stands. You just look stupid.

9. Wiz Khalifa's 'Black & Yellow' is a Pittsburgh song. It is, specifically, a Steelers song, but it's cool with me if the Penguins and Pirates and the Pittsburgh Passion use it. Point is, it's written by a Pittsburgher about Pittsburgh. It stays.

10. So does towel waving. Yeah, it's such a simple idea -- a towel in your team's colors. But Pittsburgh's guy thought of it first. If you don't like it, yinz can take it up with the ghost of the dear departed Myron.

[Photos: Joe Louis Arena from stadiumjourney.com; Flyers/Stanley Cup from fuckyeahbroadstreetbullies.tumblr.com; Lambeau Leap from mentalfloss.com; Wiz Khalifa from okmagazine.com]

Sunday Recipe: Biscuits and Mushroom Gravy

2011-06-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

I'm often tempted to get biscuits and gravy. I love biscuits, I love gravy, I love sausage; and yet, it always makes me queasy, I always pay for it in the end. I don't know if it's a grease factor or what, but it's always a mistake when I get it, so for the last decade or so, I've just avoided it altogether. And that makes me sad. Terribly, Terriblly sad.

Last week, I was kicking around in Oregon. At the Wandering Goat coffeehouse in Eugene, they have biscuits and mushroom gravy. A'ha! I thought. It hits all the notes that you want from biscuits and gravy -- the bite of the pepper, the creaminess of the gravy and, of course, the sublime fluffy, chewy goodness of the biscuits.

Thus inspired, yesterday, I marched my butt down to the Strip District and purchased a bounty of mushrooms (pictured above) from the mushroom guy at the farmer's market at the Firehouse. I got a mix of oyster mushrooms, shitakes, some king trumpets (I think) and a fourth variety I cannot even find on any mushroom charts. [It was weird and really woodsy, almost funky, even -- just a really strong mushroom flavor, compared with, say, the clean smell of the oyster mushrooms.] If you have a mushroom guy or gal, or if you have access to a good farmer's market, you may want to go that route. But most big supermarkets have shitakes, if not oyster mushrooms and you could easily make this with a mix of creminis and shitakes, or whatever you have at hand. Heck, I like plain old button mushrooms, and while I haven't tried to make it that way, I'm sure that would be plenty tasty. This gravy is so tasty, I think you could put it on an old pizza box and it would be good. I think I'm going to serve it with a roasted chicken one night in the fall. Onward.

You will need (for the gravy):
mushrooms (again, whatever varieties are available and you like) -- I had about 2 c. when they were chopped up. (I really finely diced them. I didn't want any big chunks, just little bits of earthy goodness)
5 tbsp of butter
1/2 sweet onion
4 tbsp flour
2 c. stock (I used chicken stock, but if you want to make it properly vegetarian, you can use veg. stock)
thyme bundle
a couple of grates of fresh nutmeg
1 shot of sherry
1 shot of cream or half & half
salt and black pepper (lots)

You will need (for the biscuits):
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsps baking powder
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) cold butter (cut into small pieces, no bigger than a pea; I just cut mine into tiny cubes)
a little less than 3/4 of milk, cream or half n half, whichever you have. Buttermilk would be good too, but I never have that handy.

The Prep:
First, make yourself a good cup of coffee. Then get to work. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees for the biscuits, then start the gravy.

Finely dice the onion and the mushrooms. In deep sautee pain, melt 4 tbsp of butter and add the diced onion and pinch of salt. Sweat the onion until it's soft. Add the diced mushrooms to the sautee pan with a pinch of salt and fresh ground black pepper. As you're doing that, heat the stock in a small soup pot. [You're going to be adding this and you don't want to add it cold.] Once the mushrooms have released their moisture and then reabsorbed it, add the last tbsp. of butter and melt that, then add the flour to make a roux. You want to cook the flour taste out of it, but I really let my flour brown. Then add the hot stock, a shot of sherry and toss in the thyme bundle. Grate some nutmeg. If you don't have whole nutmeg, give it a little sprinkle from the can, but nutmeg loses so much flavor after it's ground. It's worth it to buy the whole nuts (beans?) and grind the nutmeg fresh as you need it. Bring it all to a boil (it should do this quickly if your stock is good and hot) and reduce to a low simmer and get to work on the biscuits.

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients for the biscuits (flour, baking soda and salt). Add the cubed butter and the milk and mix that together with a fork. Gently kneed that together a couple of times on a clean, floured surface, then roll out about 3/4 in thick. I used a pilsner glass to cut them into rounds and reroll scraps if necessary.

Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and lightly brush the tops with the reserved tbsp of cream. Bake for 16 minutes or until cooked through and golden. You might want to set your timer for about 14 minutes and check them -- every oven is different.

At this point, test your gravy. Does it need more salt? More pepper? If your gravy is too thick, thin it by adding a bit more warmed stock.

When the biscuits are done, let them cool for a minute. Turn the heat off the gravy, add a wee shot of cream or half & half and stir that in. After that, all you have to do pour some gravy over your biscuits and eat. Come and get it, y'all.

Enjoy!

The Return of the Jagr-Bomb?

2011-06-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

Don't look now, but the Jaromir Jagr hockey sweepstakes are on.

Hey wait. What year is this? Did I wake up in 1990 again?

Damn. I hate when that happens.

Nope, it is 2011. I checked.

And it looks like, after three years playing for the Avangard Omsk of the Kontinental Hockey League, Jagr wants to come back to the NHL. Currently, the Pittsburgh Penguins are in pursuit, as are the Detroit Red Wings and the Philadelphia Flyers (although, with all the craziness in Philadelphia, I'm not sure they can get it together to properly woo the scoring Czech.)

The Penguins pursuit of Jagr is intriguing to say the least, opening up a whole can of worms with so many questions:

Do the Pittsburgh fans want him back? Or would they hold a grudge over the way he sulked in his last season here?

Does Jagr have enough in the tank to be worthwhile?

How would he impact team chemistry?

Will he grow back his mega-mullet if we ask nicely? [Really, this 'do has to go into the Hall of Fame of Mullets-- this thing is to mullets what Louis Armstrong is to jazz.]

Yeah, he's ten years older than he was when the Pens shipped him off to DC in a preemptive salary dump [the Capitals promptly signed him to a new contract, a (then) ridiculous seven year $77 million dollar deal that the Pens could never have afforded.] It was just a bottom line thing, and I expect, had they been able to keep the greatest player in franchise history not named Mario Lemieux, they would have. The guy had 52 goals in his last year in Pittsburgh -- he was a production machine and the only the player not named Mario Lemieux to score 1,000 points in a Pens sweater.

He's an older guy now, no longer the cornerstone of a franchise or a 50 goal scorer, but I think he can still supply about 25 goals per season. Consider, the only Penguin to score more than 25 goals last season was Sid, and he was out for the last three months. Even with all the injuries, the Penguins were right on the heels of the Flyers in the regular season standings and Jagr dropping 25 goals and about 50 or 60 points would go a long way towards surpassing them.

As to the fans, if Jagr can be as effective as I think he can be, all will be forgiven, and quickly. In fact, the first time he nets a goal from an impossible angle, the first time he bulls through a defender at the blue line, the lovefest will be on in full force. In fact, the revisionist history figures to be spectacular, with every fan from Freeport to Monessen claiming that they always loved Jaromir Jagr, even through that last season when he moped and whined like a cranky little kid who had too much funnel cake at the school picnic at Kennywood. (In truth, he was annoying back then, perhaps a touch immature, but nobody ever doubted his talent or his value to the team on the ice.)

Jagr is now 39 years old and who knows if he could be a first line guy all the time. Probably not. And I don't see him breaking any scoring records, but wouldn't it be nice to deploy him on Sid's line from time to time? Disco Dan Bylsma loves to shift his lines in the middle of games and he often sends Crosby out there with Evgeni Malkin at the start of a period or in the waning moments. He could, from time to time, send Jagr out there with Crosby, too. Heck, with Crosby and Malkin together.

We've all been clamoring for a proper scoring winger since Sir Sidney arrived. Every year, somebody tries to step into that role -- Mark Recchi, Gary Roberts, Ryan Malone, Marian Hossa, Billy Guerin, Chris Kunitz. Hossa's long gone and way too expensive for the Penguins anyway. As much as I love Guerin, he's also long gone. I'm a Kunitz fan, but there's no question that Jagr is a better pure scorer.

Those are all compelling reasons to try to work a deal, but the single most compelling reason that I'm hoping Mario and Ray Shero work some magic and get Jagr back in a Penguins sweater is that it would get their anemic power play healthy in a hurry. They were embarrassing through the season -- even with Sid and Geno were healthy. Without those two in the playoffs, I don't even like to think about it: seven games, 35 power play opportunities, one goal. Ya think they could have used Jagr against the Tampa Bay Lightning?

Jagr may be old, and this may be his last hurrah, but he's a sniper and he still has one of the filthiest wristers on the planet.

In short, please come back, Jaromir, and bring those nasty shots with you. The mullet is negotiable.

[Pics from: New York Times, penguinslegends.blogspot.com]

Adventures in Coffee, Pacific Northwest-style

2011-06-22T18:20:00.001-07:00

Just back from a short visit in Oregon. I miss the coast and I miss the beer. I do not miss the seasonal allergies.

Above all, I miss the coffee.

Read the post from Open Salon, Adventures in Coffee.

Gone Fishing, Summer Edition

2011-06-16T18:33:00.000-07:00

Gone fishing. Or swimming. Or something. Back in a few.

Night Train, Cool Papa and Sweetness: My Favorite Sports Nicknames

2011-06-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

This week, I was teasing my favorite center in the sport of women's full-contact football and have conferred upon Sarah Young of the Pittsburgh Passion the nickname "Egregious.” She will henceforth be known as Egregious Young. But it made me think of my favorite sports nicknames of all time. I only included guys (and yes, it's all men) who were big time athletes, not random guys who were mediocre players, but had cool nicknames, like Manny Legace ("Legs" or, even better, "The Ferret'"). These are the guys who simply are their nicknames, the ones that everybody knows, the kind that need no explanation.

THE NICKNAMES THAT BECAME NAMES:

These guys had nicknames that were so perfect that the nickname actually replaced their given names altogether.

Who even knows Cool Papa Bell's given name? Anybody? Anybody? Cool Papa is so descriptive and it says to me, 'I'm so fast that I make it look effortless to turn a double into a triple, I cruise the basepaths with such confidence and ease that I'm a cool papa.' (Oh, and it's James Thomas, by the way.)

Toe Blake. Raise your hand if you knew Toe Blake's first name was Hector. Hector Blake? Really? I honestly had to look that up, and, according to my reading, he earned the nickname Toe, because his little sister called him 'Hec-Toe' when she was really young. Bonus points because he played on the Montreal Canadiens line that was dubbed 'the Punch Line', so you get two fantastic nicknames in one man.

Magic Johnson. I'll bet that lots of people don't even remember his given name is Earvin. He's just Magic. And not even Magic Johnson, but simply, Magic. You know you're in rarified air when you are a one-name celebrity like Tarzan, Cher and Pele.

Crazy Legs Hirsch, but his mama called him Elroy. He got his nickname courtesy of Francis Powers, a Chicago Daily News sportswriter who wrote, "His crazy legs were gyrating in six different directions, all at the same time; he looked like a demented duck." If that were the only thing that Powers had ever written, that would be a whole career right there.

Rube Foster. The father of Negro League baseball was always just known as Rube, but his given name was Andrew. Nobody's sure where he got the nickname (although some think it came after he played in a game against a pitcher named Rube Waddell.) I just like the sound of 'rube,' and that it's an old-timey word for an unsophisticated country bumpkin; I like the idea of of some country boy re-appropriating that derisive term as a badge of honor: 'Yeah, I'm a rube. You wanna make something of it?' It's very 'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town' to me and I just like that.

'Shoeless' Joe Jackson. Nobody ever says, "you remember that ballplayer, Joe Jackson? He was with the Chicago Blacksox in 1919?" No. It's always, 'Shoeless Joe Jackson,' or sometimes just 'Shoeless Joe.' He's been the inspiration for two really good sports movies ('Eight Men Out' and 'Field of Dreams' - yeah, I know 'Eight Men Out' is a book, too), his glove was, "the place where triples went to die," and he even nicknamed his bat (he had several nicknames, but Black Betsy was the bat I have heard the most about.) The guy is a treasure trove of anecdotes and nostalgia.

Night Train Lane (Dick Lane). Another one that you just need to say -- 'Night Train.' That's all. You don't even need the last name -- just 'Night Train' could strike abject fear into the hearts of quarterbacks and wide outs, alike. He was one of the most colorful guys in an era when NFL players were organically colorful. No twitter feeds, no PR agencies, no ESPN. Just pure, balls to the walls personality. If you ever get the chance, do read 'Paper Lion' by George Plimpton (on my greatest Sports Books compedium -- Part I and Part II). He has some wonderful Night Train anecdotes. Also, Night Train conferred the nickname, 'Dicky Bird,' on Dick LeBeau.

Per my friend Ernie, Tiger (Eldrick) Woods. Betcha forgot his name was Eldrick. I know I did.

THE DESCRIBERS:

Sweetness (Walter Payton). Everything about Payton's game was Sweet and I don't care who holds the rushing records, Sweetness is the greatest running back I've ever seen. There was something about the guy that was special, beyond his ability to run, to extend runs, to run through and over and around tacklers. Sweetness.

Is there a nickname more descriptive than Mr. October (Reggie Jackson)? Seriously. It's like a koan -- you may not be afraid of me in June, but if you run into me in October? Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Joe 'Mean Joe' Greene. Sure, he's a beloved athlete in Pittsburgh now that time has given us distance from his absolute ferocity on the field and no doubt his image as one of the baddest men in the NFL was forever altered with his transcendent Coke commercial. But make no mistake, when Chuck Noll drafted Mean Joe Greene to be the foundation of the Steel Curtain defense, he knew what he was doing. Joe was, indeed, mean.

Ed 'Too Tall' Jones. What I love about this nickname is that it's not like 'Too Tall' replaced Ed. It's totally incorporated and it's always, always Ed-Too-Tall-Jones, like it's all one word. I love that. We all say it every time. When was the last time you referred to 'Ed Too Tall Jones' as simply, 'Ed Jones?' Yeah, that'd be never. Thought so.

Sugar Ray. I'm going Sugar Ray Robinson here, but you can fit Sugar Ray Leonard in here, too. Like Sweetness, this nickname says it all about Robinson's abilities in the ring. His science was so sweet, it was like sugar.

Teddy Ballgame (Ted Williams.) One man as the whole game. Some called him the Splendid Splinter, but that always seemed too tortured and forced to me. But Teddy Ballgame? That's a nickname that just sings.

The Brown Bomber (Joe Louis). I have this really deep, abiding fondness for Joe Louis. Maybe it's what he meant to the black community at the time of his rise. Maybe it's the way that he was able to see past the hype and propaganda and develop a deep and abiding friendship with Max Schmeling. Maybe it was that he always called Jim Braddock 'Champ', even after he beat him to win the heavyweight crown. And I love 'the Brown Bomber' because it reflects the color of his skin, something that you can never, ever forget when thinking about Joe Louis living in an era of shameful racism and Jim Crow laws.

THE ONE THAT JUST CRACKS ME UP:

Chairman Yao. (Yao Ming). C'mon. Admit it. It made you laugh, too.

What are your favorite sports nicknames? Why?

[Photos: Cool Papa Bell -- rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com; Crazy Legs Hirsh -- usatoday.com; Joe Jackson -- nndb.com; Walter Payton -- windycitygridiron.com; Joe Greene -- sportsillustrated.cnn.com; Joe Louis -- weeklyhubris.com]