More proof the Steelers blew it with their mascot.

A man with a name seemingly invented for writing about football, Lang Whitaker, recently posted a list of the Five Best Cities For Watching Footaball. To post here in order to say that Pittsburgh was included on the list would be silly - of course Pittsburgh would be on that kind of list. It’s like finding a list of cities with the most stylish mall bangs and not seeing our City of Champions on it.

Having not watched much football that didn’t involve either a black and gold or blue and gold color scheme, let alone traveling to other cities for that specific purpose, I can’t say whether Atlanta deserves the number one spot on Mr. Whitaker’s list.

I can say, however, that Pittsburgh should at least replace Las Vegas on the list, since he admits that Vegas has only one football team. He further justifies his decision by noting that one can gamble on the results of the games there and, get this, because football is on lots of television sets.

I’d like to suggest that perhaps football is on a lot of television sets here, too.

Using Mr. Whitaker’s logic, Pittsburgh’s exclusion is even more detestable. Pittsburgh has a major college football program, and WVU is only an hour away - not to mention the proximity of dirty, filthy Cleveland and Cincinnati. In fact, you might say that Pittsburgh occupies a veritable pigskin nexus.

The most overriding, obvious, unavoidable reason for including Pittsburgh as the best city for watching football is the fact that your humble blogger cared not one whit about the sport until moving here five years ago. Even my rock-hard resistance to organized sports of any stripe was easily demolished by the irresistible force of Steelers Fever. Other expats might not agree, or might not have felt the early symptoms of it (the earliest of which being a small tug of joy when Troy flies, frog-like, at a loose ball).

The Steelers infuse everything in this city, and I think they even put something in the drinking water. Even if you don’t really care about sports, you can still probably notice when the Steelers lose - a malaise settles across the city, clingy and oppressive like Pittsburgh before a thunderstorm.

I would offer one last bit of evidence to Mr. Whitaker, in the hopes of getting our city its due: this kind of thing doesn’t happen just anywhere.

Steely McBeam, seen here as his alter-ego, Frighten McInfants, is criticized by one of our local development gurus:

Jay Aldridge still flinches when he comes across a newspaper reference to that “old steel town.”

Steely McBeam is the new Steelers mascot, a square-jawed representation of a 1950s-era mill worker, with hard hat, overalls and heavy eyebrows. To Mr. Aldridge, a man formerly responsible for marketing the Pittsburgh area to prospective businesses around the country and overseas, Steely McBeam reinforces an outdated image of our town, just as the Steelers do.

Once I quell the urge to rip Jay Aldridge’s nose from his face for maligning the Pittsburgh Steelers, I have to admit he has a point. Maybe a steelworker isn’t the best mascot for the town that all the steel mills left, especially if Joe Magarac isn’t available (he moved to Japan and changed his name to Hamato Magaracu). But what is the iconic image of the new Pittsburgh? I have been brainstorming.
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The Steelers’ new mascot has a new name, and it stinks worse than my afternoon commute on a bus with a busted air conditioner: Steely McBeam.

This, after “70,000+” entries and apparently a gas leak at Steelers Marketing Headquarters.

For the record, we have Diane Roles of Valencia, Pa to blame for the name and the Post-Gazette to thank for the quotes and the picture.

It’s that time of year, ladies. And no, I’m not talking about the dog days of summer, the upcoming back-to-school shopping sales, or the Steelers training camp. What I want to talk about here is an important issue facing all Pittsburgh ladies this time of year - Steelers impersonators.

To avoid being taken advantage of by such ne’er-do-wells, I suggest that all ladies familiarize themselves with the Steelers roster. Study these pictures like you studied your multiplication tables in the 3rd grade. Be sure to examine the entire team too, not just a few who you have heard of or think are cute (I, for example, tend to get stuck on pictures of newbie hunk, I mean, punter, Daniel Sepulveda and my old favorite Brett Keisel). Since Steelers impersonators are more likely to steal the identity of less-visible players, it’s important that you familiarize yourself with players on all levels of the depth chart not just the starters. Get to know who plays for your team and any distinctive features that may differentiate them from any ol’ cad at your local watering hole. Not only will this help you to shield off the advances of a fake Steeler, but should an actual Steeler hit on you, you’ll know who he is. Then, once you have confirmed his identity, you can take ridiculous pictures of him drinking his face off and distribute them to sports blogs.

The lovely and talented Dave Damashek, host of nightly radio show The Sports Contraption has recently started a grassroots movement. See, Dave thinks that Heinz Field needs a monument similar to the statues of Pittsburgh baseball icons.

This is a laudable goal, but not an easy one to accomplish.

For one, the Rooneys are known for their focus on the team rather than on the players. They don’t retire player numbers, for instance. Thus, it seems unlikely that they will agree to statues of any particular Steeler from ages past. With so many luminous players, it would be hard to pick just one or two anyway.

Dave’s solution is to honor the Steel Curtain instead. By invoking the style of Pittsburgh football rather than the players of Pittsburgh football, the statue will represent the Steelers of all eras.

Dave thinks the Rooneys would agree to this, should the Steelers Nation let their desire for such a monument be known. The first, tenuous step to making the statues a reality is an online petition.

Sign it, Pittsburgh, and let your voices (almost) be heard!

Tuesday marked the 1-year anniversary of Big Ben’s horrific motorcycle crash, where a Pittsburgh left nearly killed him. Naturally, the press asked him about it, and you can read his statements here.

I can sum it up for you, though:

“I did a stupid thing, I won’t do it again, and can we please stop talking about it now?”

This anniversary is sure to be commemorated in years to come, as it marks the beginning of the Steelers’ decline in the 2006 season. Lots of folks have credited Ben’s accident with his poor performance last year. If the accident didn’t actually do lasting harm, it likely shook him up enough to make him feel a little more vulnerable than he did before, and a little less likely to take risks.

My attention to Pittsburgh football exists purely as a side effect of living here. It’s a contact buzz, while most of the city mainlines the stuff.

I am, however, a fan of David Letterman. To synergize these two flavors, I now present you with a video of Dave shaving Ben last year:

Post-Gazette:

He may be the first Steelers coach to live in the city in more than 50 years, according to Dan Rooney. Walt Kiseling, who last coached the team in 1956, was probably the last one to live in the city, said Rooney, the club’s chairman and former president.

That is correct: the coach of the Steelers is a black man who lives in the city. That Perotesque giant sucking sound you hear is the residents of Shaler removing their support from the team forever.

Caveat: he did buy in Shadyside, which, while technically a city neighborhood, looks like a forward operating base for Fox Chapel, where Bill Cowher lived.

I was strolling in Lawrenceville this afternoon when I spotted this broken egg on the ground (right by Tom Fallon’s campaign headquarters, in fact). I couldn’t stop staring at the thing for some reason. It was hard-boiled and lying next to a garbage can. It seemed clear to me that someone had dropped it and was so disgusted with the loss of her lunch she refused to pick it up and move it to the trash.

I let the egg lie where it fell. It seemed only right to honor the death of the egg by allowing others to share in its end.
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