dwight white, r.i.p.

Sad but true: Dwight White is dead. Condolences are obviously in order, and the details of the complications from his surgery will certainly shake out in the days ahead, but man, oh, man. Dwight White. Mean Joe and LC got a lotta love, but Dwight White was the man. Fats Holmes also died in January, which means half of the famed Steel Curtain is now gone. Hard to believe, considering neither Holmes nor White lived to reach the age of 60. RIP.

you're a good man, charlie batch

Reading the sports pages these days can be a lot like reading the police blotter. The sense of entitlement and disregard for common decency from some athletes is disturbing, given their status as de facto role models for kids. Obviously, of course, not all of them are bad guys, no matter how many bad-guy stories we have to read. And some, like Steelers backup quarterback Charlie Batch, a local kid from Homestead, are good guys, as this story in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette clearly demonstrates. Good for him.

"i'll have the super bowl special, with extra spit, please..."

This afternoon, the Associated Press moved a story that an editor at work happened to forward to me. The editor's subject line read, "Be careful if you order anything from microsoft." Seems some folks in Seattle aren't quite over Super Bowl XL, that splendid football game played on Feb. 5, 2006, when the Steelers beat the Seahawks, 21-10, to win their fifth world championship. [Not to gloat or anything.]

Anyway, here's the story in its entirety:

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. (AP) -- A fast-food cook and Seattle Seahawks fan has been accused of spitting on a hamburger ordered by a man wearing Pittsburgh Steelers attire. Kitsap County sheriff's deputies say the 37-year-old customer was with his daughters at the Port Orchard-area eatery last Saturday. He reportedly traded remarks with an employee about Super Bowl XL in which the Seahawks lost to the Steelers. When the customer opened his food container, he says there was spittle on the burger. He demanded a refund and called the fast-foot outlet's district manager. The manager told deputies a 24-year-old man might be responsible. The next day, deputies went to his house and smelled marijuana. The man was released after being booked for investigation of fourth-degree assault and possession of marijuana.

Goodness, talk about a bad day -- and not necessarily because the AP let that story hit the wire with such an awkward, tense-shifting sentence as, "When the customer opened his food container, he says there was spittle on the burger." Nah. I'm talking about Fast Food Dude. I mean, one afternoon you're merrily flipping burgers, just minding your own business, when next thing you know you're in the hole with Bubba, your resume now topped with a double dollop of assault and dope charges. All because your favorite football team couldn't tackle Willie Parker, and you couldn't handle being reminded of that fact by some hungry schlub who happens to dress like me. Stinks, man. Of course, had I been the Steelers fan who discovered my Special Sauce had been substituted with Sore Loser Seattle Spittle, I might have been satisfied by simply taking my food back to the counter with the admonition that the line cook could "kiss my rings" and enjoy his day. But that's me. After all, because this particular Steelers fan preferred to press charges, I got to kill some time on a Friday evening by typing this crap, while you just lost a few precious minutes of your life by actually reading this far. Oh, well. Pass the ketchup -- preferably Heinz, of course -- and Go Steelers.

the mike tomlin iron city parodies

You know those Coors Light commercials that pretend to be press conferences with NFL coaches and regular beer guys asking questions? A few jokers in Pittsburgh have done send-ups of them for Iron City Beer using Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, and the utter yinzerness of them is hilarious. The three clips can be viewed here, here, and here.

some myron cope links

Alan Robinson, the Associated Press' longtime Pittsburgh correspondent, has a detailed obituary that can be viewed here.

Gene Collier's lively obit in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which pegs Cope as "[o]ne of the last of the great sports characters, a genuine oasis in a sea of ever homogenizing media-ocrity," is here. Collier's lead is perfect: "Myron Cope, the much-decorated master of the written word, the ever-celebrated sand-blaster of the spoken word, and a pre-eminent Pittsburgh symbol of not only our selves but of our hopes and our innate joyfulness, died today."

And for the uninformed, this web site offers numerous hilarious links to snippets of Cope's one-of-a-kind work as a broadcaster.

myron cope, r.i.p.

Myron Cope was Pittsburgh, simple as that. He was a little man with a big, screechy voice, and while he's viewed as something of a clown because of many of his antics in his later years, he was in fact anything but. A graduate of Allderdice High School and Pitt, he worked for a while at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where on his first day an editor shortened his last name from "Kopelman" to "Cope" because, he was told, the paper already had too many Jewish reporters. He eventually set out on his own as a freelancer, working for such luminous publications as Sports Illustrated and the Saturday Evening Post, for whom he penned colorful, well-written profiles. He later returned to Pittsburgh and began a broadcasting career, and before long he was doing color commentary for Steelers games, a job he held for 35 seasons until his retirement in 2005, a time in which his fame exceeded that of many of the players', even as the team won four Super Bowls in six seasons in the 1970s. In '75, at the urging of a team sales executive, he developed an idea he called the Terrible Towel, still to this day an internationally known symbol of the Steelers, a talisman of yellow cloth that can be seen waving wherever there's a Steelers fan. Cope hosted a sports-talk radio show in the days before everyone else did, and the program's popularity was as much a credit to his hard work and feisty opinions as it was to his schtick. His 2002 memoir, Double Yoi!, is filled with wonderful anecdotes about what was really a very full life, told with modesty, humor and (best of all) regular-guy charm. He eventually received offers to broadcast for teams in bigger cities, but he just couldn't leave Pittsburgh, just couldn't watch a team other than the Steelers. His son, Danny, was born autistic, and Cope saw that all proceeds -- every penny -- from Terrible Towel sales went to the Allegheny Valley School, a group home for mentally retarded children in the Pittsburgh area. A devoted journalist and a bigger-than-life character from the chain-smoking and hard-drinking old school, Myron Cope died this morning at age 79. Pittsburgh and its extended Steeler Nation mourns. R.I.P.

spygate and ... the steelers?

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, ever eager to do the people's business in the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, now claims Bill Belicheat and the New England Patriots filmed the Steelers during the teams' two meetings in 2004, at least according to this Fanhouse blog on AOL.

Thanks to Diaz, a loyal Eagles fan (of all things) but a concerned Pennsylvania citizen, for the heads-up.

UPDATE FOR THOSE WHO DON'T GET IT: I'm being sarcastic. I really don't think Congress ought to be this involved in regulating professional football. Heck, even Dan Rooney agrees.

ruanaidh

Art Rooney Jr. has written a book. Yes, that's a bit like saying Frank Sinatra Jr., and not his old man, has purchased a football team. Or something. Whatever. But according to Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, there really is something to this. The book is called Ruanaidh, which is Gaelic for Rooney. Junior has been exiled from the Steelers for more than 20 years, but he's now telling his side of the story -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Cook credits Junior for his storytelling and his eye for detail, and given Junior's stature with the Steelers during their salad days in the 1970s, it sounds like there's plenty of good stuff. And to be honest, a part of me just likes that Junior collaborated with Roy McHugh on the project, about which McHugh told Junior:

Roy tells me I'm the same stream-of-consciousness writer that James Joyce is except for two things. He says Joyce was a brilliant writer, and I'm not. And he says Joyce eventually gets to the point, and I don't.

Self-deprecating and honest. Sounds kinda cool.

say it ain't so, big ben

Alas, but it is. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger really did channel Barry Manilow by doing this stupid commerical for "American Idol," which aired toward the end of yesterday's Super Bowl. Why, Ben? Why?