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Top 10 Forgotten Pittsburgh Sports Stories​ · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everybody, welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: I am Tim Hannon.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Steve Wirt.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: And as always, we're going to delve into some Pittsburgh Sports history.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: And today we're going to cover and rank the top ten forgotten Pittsburgh sports stories.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: So Pittsburgh Sports History has a lot of uh famous, well known stories, You know, Immaculate Reception and things that happen like that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have all kinds of other stories that happen that that maybe aren't as famous but are certainly well known, like Doc Ellis picking a no-hitter when he was tripping on acid or the Stanley Cup on the b ending up on the bottom of Mario's pole.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: So all kinds of famous stories.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: But uh we wanted to take this episode and delve into some stories that maybe aren't as well remembered and and just things that happened that maybe people talked about at the time, but maybe they just don't remember as much years later.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're gonna rank them 10 to 1.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get into the top 10, we're gonna start with a few honorable mentions that didn't quite crack the top ten.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the first honorable mention of a forgotten sports story is that time that the penguins had a real penguin as their mascot.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: And and so what had happened in 1968, the penguins were still a new team, they were an expansion team, and you know, hockey wasn't well known here in Pittsburgh, and they were trying to gain some traction with the local fans.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so the original owner, a guy named Jack McGregor, uh, one of the things he did was um that he would bring a real penguin named Pete, Pete the Penguin, onto the ice between Pete and the Peter.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's a bit of an alliteration there.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: I see what they did there, Pete the Penguin.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they they actually had him on like a little leash, like a dog leash, and they'd walk him onto the ice.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it actually ends up being pretty popular.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like the fans all love it, and they can't wait to see Pete come out in between periods.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh unfortunately, after a while, Pete starts to look really sick, and they take him to the vet and they find out that he has pneumonia.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: And McGregor's like shocked.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, wait, how can a penguin get pneumonia?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Penguins live in the Arctic.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: They penguins can't get pneumonia.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it it turns out that Pete was actually a South African penguin, and they're not supposed to be on the ice, they're from South Africa.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: So they didn't realize that like there's different species of penguins.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think the Emperor penguin lives in Antarctica.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no penguins at the North Pole either.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're all at the South Pole.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fun fact.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of fun penguin facts for yeah, and there's penguins that live on like all the little islands around like you know the bottom of like South America, you know.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess that's he's probably well, South Africa too, you know, because that's kind of in the southern hemisphere.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously he was more of a warm weather penguin.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: He was definitely a warm weather penguin, and bringing him on the ice all the time and having him.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: If they would have had an emperor penguin, they'd probably have been okay.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: So oops.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um Pete battles valiantly for his life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually covered in the local papers every day, like his condition.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh ultimately the pneumonia ends up killing Pete.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's pretty sad.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the penguins, not only so not only do they bring a warm weather penguin onto the ice and essentially sort of are responsible for his death, but they also make the dubious decision to have his body stuffed and put on display in the lobby of the civic arena.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's not weird at all.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well it's like, oh hey, welcome here.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: Let me take your ticket.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: Come come look at the body of our dead mascot.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they should put him beside the dodo bird in the carnival museum in natural history.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's just it's just a weird decision.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the there's animal rights people that get very upset.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and then somebody steals them.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like somebody actually steals Pete out of the lobby and he's never seen again.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe they gave him a proper burial.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, or maybe like in someone's attic, you know, there's Pete the penguin view.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's Pete the Penguin.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't steal them.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not implying that you did, just because In 1968, I did not exist.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's sort of a story that people don't remember.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I thought that was an interesting one.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Not quite good enough to crack the top ten.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Another honorable mention is the time that the Steelers head coach went to the wrong game.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Steve had already covered this one in our episode about Art Rings.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's classic, yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it's a good story, it's worth repeating.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: So in 1938, the Steelers are scheduled to play the Eagles.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Their head coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer, Johnny Blood McNally, who by the way has the best nickname in this sports, Blood.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Blood McNally, he's nowhere to be found for this game.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're ready to take the field.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, Where's Coach?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he's nowhere to be found.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, McNally had mistakenly thought the Steelers had a bye week.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: He's in Los Angeles at the Rose Bowl watching a game there.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: And reporters actually come up to him and they're like, uh, why are you here?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Couldn't you be at the Steeler game?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, No, no, that's next week.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, No, they're playing right now in Philadelphia.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought it was in West Virginia.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: You're right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was they were playing Philadelphia.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was where he got confused because they were playing, for some reason, they like Rooney decided to play like and I think it was a regular season game, too.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like against like the Eagles and like Huntington.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think because they were trying to expand their fan base.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll actually talk about that a little bit later.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a good teaser because Rooney wanted to get fans outside of Pittsburgh to watch the Steelers, and we'll we'll talk about that in one of our ranked stories.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and the funny thing is, and Steve, you mentioned this too, that Rooney was gonna Rooney was gonna fire him, but he said the players loved him so much.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and so, quote, Rooney said, I told him, John, you have to make the game.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love You gotta show for work, and don't do that anymore.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: I just love the visual of like Rooney and Blood McNally sitting down for like an end-of-the-year performance review.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, let's talk about the things you did good.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think uh, you know, you really coached up the young players very well and and they're learning very well.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's talk about opportunities for improvements.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, I think it's really important that you show up for all the games.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now I know you showed up for you know 11 out of 12 of them, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, just missing one, it's it's not so good.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we only have 12 of them, yeah.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So missing one is kind of a high percentage.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, head coach just not showing up for a game.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and I know it was a different time and a different era, but it's still a story that's pretty, pretty interesting.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another honorable mention, and I think more people would probably remember this because it's pretty recent, but the time that pit football had six different head coaches in the same calendar year.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's hard to believe.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, college football, um any any sport, you're not gonna turn through coaches all that often, but some professional franchises, New York Yankees did that under Steinbrenner and the Cleveland Browns have done that.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's the infamous end of the one episode where Steinberg lists all the coach.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it says like Billy Martin like four different times.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like Bill Vert and Billy Martin.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: But but college, I mean college colleges, you don't typically see that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: So this all starts in December of 2010 when Pitt fires head coach Dave Wansted.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we talked about Dave in some of our previous episodes and his his era.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And this happens after the regular season, but before Pitt is scheduled to play in the prestigious BBVA Compass Bowl.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: So they need a coach for the BBVA Compass Powl.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: So Phil Bennett, who's Wansted's defensive coordinator, is promoted as the interim head coach for that bowl game.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: So that's two head coaches.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Pitt hires a guy named Michael Haywood to be the permanent head coach.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but just after two weeks after he's hired, Haywood is arrested on felony domestic violence charges.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's not really what you want for someone coaching college kids.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: So two weeks after he's hired, he is fired.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's now three head coaches, and we're not even a month past when they fired Wanstead.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so they didn't really do their homework on vetting Michael Haywood.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: The next coach they hired, they didn't do very good vetting either because they hire Todd Graham.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if they would have vetted him, they might have learned that he actually doesn't have a soul.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's hired to replace Bennett, or I'm sorry, to replace Haywood and brings the quote-unquote high octane offense to Pittsburgh.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't go well.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: He he goes six and six in 12 games.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, as we've talked about in previous episodes, he he bolts for Arizona State.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that was actually the second time in his career he had done that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: He had gone to Tulsa for one year.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And back to back to Rice or Well, because he didn't have a soul.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the one school actually wrote like a hate fight song about him.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was like they literally the one one of the I figure it's Tulsa or Rice has like a hate-fight song or something about him.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: And Graham wasn't the the first head coach that left his school for a bigger.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: But after one season is kind of unprecedented.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: After one season, and he he didn't he asked the uh the one of the assistant coaches to text the players.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like text the players, dear players, we we could do a whole podcast on Todd Graham.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: We really could.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he and we and we did the most reviled episode and we definitely had him on there.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's coach number four is gone.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, once again, just like the previous year, Pitt is scheduled to play in again the BBVA Compass Bowl because if anybody owned the BBVA Compass Bowl, it was I think they beat Kentucky one of these years.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: They beat them in that was the year before this.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was 2010.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So SEC, SEC couldn't beat Pitt in their interim head coach.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm not sure that Kentucky was the cream of the crop in the SEC, but nevertheless.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, they're in the SEC.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Any team in the SEC is automatically better than every other team in college football, including some of the teams in the NFL.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that that that ESPN told me so.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So Well, in 2011, they're also scheduled to play in the BBVA Compass pool.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so again, they have to hire an interim head coach.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's Keith Patterson that's the first time.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they did lose the I think they played Southern Mist.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they lost the Southern Mist.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, goodness.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the SEC was back on top that year.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: They could figure out how to beat a team in their interim coach.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um I just congratulations to the I'm so impressed that you remember the history of the BBVA Compass pool.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe we should do a whole episode on the history of the BBBA Compass pool.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um finally in December of 2011, which is again one calendar year after Ronstedt was let go, Paul Christ is hired as the sixth head coach in a year.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And Chris does stay for a while and does some good things.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: But man, six head coaches in one year.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what, you know what the fallout from all this was?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Was was they lost the only time they've ever lost to an FBS Division 1AA school, they lost to Youngstown State that first game.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: With Paul Christ.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and that really wasn't Paul Christ's fault.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I will let Paul Paul Christ, I thought, was a pretty good coach.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was a mess.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they've recovered pretty well from that.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, the next week they beat Virginia Tech.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, but that whole that whole era was just a disaster.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Paul Christ brought some stability.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: He fit in well in Western Pennsylvania, whereas Todd Graham did not fit in at all.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's more of a snake oil salesman, and I think that plays better where he's he was like in Arizona State and like Texas.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that plays better there for some reason.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know if Todd Graham fits in anywhere that's like on the case.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: He lasted four or five years at Arizona State, but you know, like I said, he he he just comes off as a snake oil, like as just somebody that's sleazy.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um our last honorable mention is the that time that Heinsfield played happy music, as Willis McGaehee played dead on the turf.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So most people, I mean, everybody remembers the 2008 AFC Championship game, one of the great games in Steeler history against the Ravens, one of the most hard-fought games in Steeler history.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody remembers that Troy Polomalo has the famous pick six against Joe Flacco, and that sends the Steelers to the Super Bowl.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um what people don't remember is when Troy scores that touchdown, it put the Steelers up by two scores, and it essentially iced the game, but there were still four minutes left.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, like the Ravens aren't gonna just take a knee, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna keep trying to score and try to maybe do an onside kick or whatever.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So the Ravens get the ball back, and um Willis McGahey is the running back for the Ravens.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: He catches a pass in the flat.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: He's absolutely destroyed on it, just a super violent hit by Ryan Clark.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um he fumbles because his body just goes limp, the ball comes out, the steelers recover, and that's sort of the official end of the game.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but um but McGahey he's he doesn't move.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like he gets hit, he's laying there, he's he's not moving.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think they carted him off.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: They did, they brought stretchers out.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as they're bringing the stretchers out, so so remember just a few minutes earlier, the whole stadium is on fire.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was at that game.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned this before, I'm like hugging strangers, everybody's just going crazy.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And now this guy's laying there and it's very somber, everybody's quiet, everybody's concerned.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's like he plays for the Ravens, but the guy's obviously very hurt and very quiet.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden, over the Heinzfeld Loudspeakers, they start playing Down on the Corner, the Credence Clearwater Revival song Down on the Corner.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if you ever heard that song, it's very like snappy and happy.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Upbeat, yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was just very bizarre.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're bringing a stretcher out, they're like kicking his vitals.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know if he's paralyzed, you don't know if he's alive.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, you know, early in the evening, just about supper time.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Down on the corner.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it just it was really out of place, and I didn't understand why they would be playing happy music.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the policy used to be, and I I've learned a lot more pit games than Steeler games, is like when a player gets hurt, normally they just they don't put anything on the board, like they'll put like a little like spinning logo or whatever on the scoreboard and they won't play anything.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the band doesn't play or anything.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's pretty much what they do with the Steeler games when somebody's like seriously hurt, like they just and that's what they normally but I think I remember reading there was some confusion, like the guy didn't think he was hurt or wasn't sure what to do.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I just remember also is Jim Roam absolutely making fun of this?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like the same way you're like, oh Willis McGee, yay, like you know, spinal fracture, and he's like down on the cork.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like cue the CCR.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like who was sitting up there and thought, like, man, everybody seems so sad.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: What can we let's let's pick this up a little bit.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, it's a party, guys.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to the Super Bowl.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and and so it it like you said, Jim Roam, there was there was a few.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um I know I know somebody on the Ravens made us think about it, and rightfully so, but I think it it kind of got lost um to history because the big story was the Steelers were going to the Super Bowl, Tori made the intercept, and unfortunately, McGahee was okay.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that one just kind of got lost.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I I remember standing there and I just was like, what in the world are they doing?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Why are why are we listening to this song right now?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so now I think every time I hear that song, it always just makes me think of poor Willis McGahee.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: So those are some honorable mentions.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um now we're gonna get into our top 10 forgotten sports stories.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: And number 10, we're gonna go back to the Baltimore Ravens.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And number 10 is that time that Tyrrell Suggs put a bounty on the Steelers and the NFL did nothing.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you may recall the bounty gate scandal, where the NFL once basically made the New Orleans Saints forfeit an entire season via suspensions and taking away of draft picks and suspending their head coach John Payton for an entire year.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this was all because they had allegedly put a bounty on quarterback Brett Favre.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this was in the 2009 AFC or NFC championship game.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what that meant was they they like they had a pot of money, and whoever hurt Brett Favre would get the pot of money, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: That was the first time.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Buddy Ryan used to do that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it was in and do you remember the reaction to that Steve?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, oh, that's in the Yeah, there was a lot of like to use an internet expression, clutching of pearls, and like won't somebody think of the children kind of like you know, if you you watch The Simpsons, you know, like, oh my word, my stars in my years, well I've never, you know.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and not just from like, you know, the usual suspects in the media, like other like players in the league.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I never like really, really well, you've not played football since you're 11, and like I've seen youth coaches say that, yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: So so so so yes, so there's a m like there's a monstrous reaction to it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: And whether you agree or disagree, what what the the issue here was literally so that's in 2009, literally just one season earlier in 2008.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, this wasn't like 1974 that we're talking about.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: This is one season earlier.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: The Ravens are playing the Steelers, and during that game, Ray Lewis uh breaks the shoulder of Steelers' first round pick, Richard Menonhall, which ends his season.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: So he Mendenhall was a rookie that year.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: He only played in in three or four games because Ray Lewis put him out for the season.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: During a radio show the next week, the the interviewer asked Terrell Suggs if they put a bounty out on Menon Hall.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna read Suggs, this is his exact quote when it when asked that question.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Suggs, definitely, the bounty was out on him and the bounty was out on Heinz Ward.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: We just didn't get to Heinz Ward between the whistles.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um Suggs also called Ward a dirty player and a cheap shard artist and and threatened him for the next game.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said, quote, we have we have something in store for him.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, like the bounty was still out, apparently, on Ward.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um Brian Billock, now Brian Billock had been the coach of the Ravens for years.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um this was his first season.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: He had he had been let go after the 2007 season, and Harbaugh was the coach at this point, but Brian Billick again was like four games removed from being the Ravens coach.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And he even came out and confirmed it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, quote, every team does it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: This was on the Dan Patrick show.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Billick said, every team does it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, to go out and talk about it publicly is about as foolish as a thing as I've ever heard.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: So Bell Billick basically says, Yeah, that's that's for sure true, but really dumb of Suggs to come out and admit it publicly.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so so where the Saints, you had this accusation of bounty stuff.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: The Ravens were very open about they didn't.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the NFL it causes a little bit of a stir, and the NFL says, like, oh, we're looking into it.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: But then it just like kind of dies and nothing happens.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, too, you gotta remember Greg Williams lied about it, and I think Peyton lied about like they said they weren't doing it, and then the NFL was like somehow had proof that they were.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I I don't know if that played into it, like with the Saints investigation, but I do remember the Saints did it the week before to Alex Smith and no one cared.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were I don't know if that was a warner.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were like jumping on people's heads, like they were hitting people in the head and there was no flags, no nothing.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And hitting like quarterback in the head was definitely illegal by that point in the NFL.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody, like you said, it wasn't it wasn't Tom Brady, it wasn't Brett Favre, it wasn't one of the you know people that you know you can't do that to.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what it was.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Brett Favre.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and you you see, you know, where where was the clicking of pearls, where was all that stuff whenever Suggs came out and said they did it?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And literally one year later, like again, this was not like a bygone era where somebody you're in Jack Tatum or some one of those guys.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: This this had happened a year earlier, and no one cared because it wasn't Brett Favre.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I just think that's one of those stories that always gets forgotten.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: All the Bounty Gate stuff, everybody remembers Bounty Gate, and that was horrible, and that wouldn't we could never allow that to happen again.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: But literally a year earlier the NFL was like, well, who's Richard Menon Hall?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, who who cares about that guy?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, but it's but it's it's Brett Favre.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, especially who did it too, Ray Lewis has always been like one of the favored sons in the NFL.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that too.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: But but I mean, I I just Brett Favre, the the media worshipped Brett Favre.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Everything Brett Favre did, they changed the rules for Brett Favre.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because they also that was a game where he lost in overtime and he didn't get the ball.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so they changed the overtime rules.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean they just they loved Brett Favre.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they they did this Heinzward even like when Heinzward like blocked blocking too aggressively, I would call that.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, really?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just so I just think tackling too aggressively isn't a thing either.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's I just I just think that's a story that's worth remembering because it's it just shows the hypocrisy of not only the NFL but the the NFL media, where one team does it and it's it's horrible, the other team does it and it's like backpage news.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well it's it's yeah, and it's odd how like the NFL like well not odd, but I guess those are the people that make their money and they're the face of their league, so they're gonna cover for them more than like Richard Mendonhal was I guess they just figured was never gonna be more than a four or five-year player or so.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and they were right about that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um But you know, and and certainly we as Steel War fans are are tip are guilty of some hypocrisy too, and watch it get into one of those later.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so Forgotten Story number nine uh is is another one that we've covered before, but again, I I gotta mention it again.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: The time Tom Brady saved Sidney Crosby's career.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I know this will anger some of people for me saying this, but I but this is what happened.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is just what happened.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Crosby, we've covered this in our series from hell episode.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: He had a series of concussions that caused him to miss the second half of the 2011 season, almost all of the 2012 season.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the Penguins are are, you know, kind of pick carrying the slack, but but Sidney Crosby, their best player and and franchise leader, I mean he he hasn't played in almost two years and you're wondering is he ever gonna play again?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um he had had these concussions and uh you know that that can take a while to recover from, but he was like almost a year removed from having the concussion.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: He still was having these symptoms.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody could figure it out.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know how Sidney Crosby and Tom Brady know each other, but apparently they do.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And Tom Brady says, Hey, um there's a specialist that you should see.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: He's out in Utah.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And apparently Sidney Crosby takes his advice, he goes and sees a specialist, the specialist discovers that that it's not the concussion symptoms, it's it's a neck injury that Crosby has that's causing all these problems.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: And apparently, once they treat that, Crosby returns to the ice, and he's really been fine ever since in terms of those issues.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: So uh if Tom Brady doesn't help his friend Sidney Crosby and get him to the specialist, does Sidney Crosby come back?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's a that's a fair question to ask.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think they're all, like including the doctor member of the secret order of the stone cutters.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they got their flash a little ring, you know, sing their song.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the secret order of the T B 12.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like they call the T B-12 rings.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they go, I I mean, that's a nice thing, maybe, yeah, just kind of professional courtesy there.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: So good for TB12 and I know we're all supposed to hate Tom Brady, but he really helped Crosby in this case, and he really helped the Penguins, and maybe the Penguins don't win two more cups if Tom Brady doesn't step in.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: So again, one of those stories no one remembers or likes to remember, but that's what happened.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh number eight is that time that the pirates going back to the 19th century.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, baby.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we're gonna go, we're gonna go probably the furthest back we've ever gone on this show.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: This might be before electricity was common or indoor plumbing.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: So number eight, number eight is that time that the pirates changed their nickname just to spite Philadelphia.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Don't worry, it's only 20 years after the Civil War.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: So so you occasionally today, you occasionally see um sports franchises change their nickname.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's controversy and political correctness, like with the the Redskins uh or teams like that.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's marketing.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: You saw like the the New Orleans Hornets in the NBA change their name to the Pelicans.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes teams will do it just to to have some crazy.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely more pelicans and hornets in New Orleans.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it it it's Pelicans are less spreading.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the Tennessee Oilers change to the Tennessee Titans.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just sometimes I had no idea Tennessee was such an oil-producing state.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: But but again, so yeah, sometimes it's based on the geography, you know, like the like the the and sometimes they don't, like the Los Angeles Lakers.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's no lakes in Los Angeles, but they're in Minneapolis.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: So um anyway, point being that teams do change their names sometimes.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh, way back in 1890, the pro baseball team that was in Pittsburgh, the same team that's still here today, uh they weren't called the Pirates.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: They were called the Pittsburgh Alleghenies.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: The Alleghenies played in the National League at that time, again, where they still sort of play today.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if playing's really a that's a little too strong of a word for the Pirates team we have today.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, don't worry, there's still a chance that the Steelers might win more games than the Pirates.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Although they have 10 wins now, so it's getting a little problematic for the Steelers there, yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: There's still hope.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um so so the Pirates are, or sorry, the Alleghenies are in the National League.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: There are rival leagues at this time.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: One of the rival leagues was called the American Association, and Philadelphia had a team in the American Association called the Athletics.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: And the Athletics had a pretty good second baseman.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: His name was Lou Bierber.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um Bierbar had left the A's after the 1889 season to play in the newly formed Players League.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: So um back then the owners um really, I mean, they controlled everything, the players got nothing.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh some of the star players back then decided, hey, you know what, we're gonna form our own league and call it the Players League.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be really beneficial, we're gonna give the players most of the money.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, um the league doesn't succeed.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: It dies after one season.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so the players that defected um now, at least the athletics are under the assumption that, okay, our second baseman went to go play for that other league, the league folded, now he belongs to us again.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so he would be back in Philly for the 1891 season.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the Alleghenies see it differently, and they go um sign him to a big contract.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the athletics say, No, you can't do that, he's our player.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: The Allegheny says, No, he left your team, he's a free agent, and we can go sign him.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: And they actually have to bring in an arbitrator to roll on this, and the arbitrator rolls in favor of Pittsburgh, and and so the Philly um team and their fans are outraged and they start mockingly calling the team in Pittsburgh the Pirates because they pirated their best player.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the Alleghenies are kind of like, huh, pirates.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: I like that, Pittsburgh Pirates.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they actually changed, officially changed their name to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: So like instead of letting that get to them, they just go along with it and actually change their nickname, just despite the fans in Philadelphia for calling them that, and they're still known as the Pirates today.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Do we know if this A's team, is that the Philadelphia Athletics, the team?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a great question.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I had the same uh question.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: It is not the same.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that team played the case.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So no Connie Mac or anything like that.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: That team played in the American Association.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: The the Philadelphia Athletics with Connie Mac, that was an American League team.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: The American League did not exist yet.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So this team folded, and a few years later, when the American League started, there was a new Philadelphia Athletics, and that team eventually became a Kansas City Athletics.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Makes it nice and confusing.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Today are the Oakland Athletics.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, not the same team.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh forgotten story number seven is that time that the Penguins put their regular season games on pay-per-view.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we talked, we we did an episode, our goal that saved the Penguins episode, we talked a lot about just the horrible mismanagement during the time that Howard Baldwin owned the Penguins in the 1990s, and how he was always strapped for cash because he had made these terrible deals.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: So he was always looking for ways to make some of his money back.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: And in 1993, the Penguins are sort of at the height of their popularity.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: They've just won two Stanley Cups.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: And Baldwin decides to put a handful of regular season games on pay-per-view.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if you had cable or whatever, normally you could watch a penguin game.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: And here he takes a handful of the games.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: He says you can only watch these games specifically if you pay for them.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he he called it Penn's Vision.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you didn't just get the games, I think you got some other stuff in the package of Penn's Vision.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but the big thing was you got like these six or seven regular season games.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: So back in those days, and this is where I'm gonna feel really old, um, you didn't have digital cable or or internet or anything where you could like click a button and put in your credit card number and get the get the game.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: The way it worked was on your cable, you had like, I don't know, 30 cannons, 40 channels.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: I remember this.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then like channel 98, like way away from all the other channels, was like this scrambled signal.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: And those were the pay-per-view channels, like 98, 99.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And if you put those channels on, you could hear the audio, but it would be a real scrambled picture.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you had to buy a box or rent a box, and then you'd hook up the box to the TV and that would unscramble the signal.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: That was how you did pay-per-view.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: And pay-per-view was actually pretty popular, like uh for boxing matches.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Mike Tyson was big at the time, so like a Mike Tyson fight, a lot of people did pay-per-view.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, WWF WrestleMania, a lot of people did pay-per-view.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually remember that box that had to be I no, I don't see that was more early 80s, but I remember like we had a box and it had a key in it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to get like certain upper level channels, like the Disney Channel, because like to watch it, I would have to turn a key.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then my parents would just leave the key in it, and you would turn the key, and that would unlock the Disney Channel and HBO and showtime.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was I don't yeah, it was kind of weird.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you like paid for the key basically every month?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess that was so the cable company didn't have to take, but eventually they just got rid of that.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the wired remotes, like you had a remote, it wasn't like you know, I know RF, it was like literally a wire connected to you.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I feel I know this is not a good one.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just remember it got all connected in in our house, and we just like gave up and set it on the TV, and you'd have to get up old school and like punch in the number.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this is 1993, but man, just having this conversation makes it feel like it's ancient history.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: So so anyway, that's what you had to do.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And again, people did that for Mike Tyson fights, people did not do that for Penguin Regulation.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Especially regular season, yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it wasn't even playoff games.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was a huge failure.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was the last time that Baldwin attempted to put regular season games on pay-per-view.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I don't remember how much it costs, but you'd be better off buying a ticket and going to those games if they were home games than you.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was back in the KBL days, I guess, too.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or was it before No, the games were on KBL, but you know, they Which I don't know.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: What did KBL?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember what KBL stands for.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: I have no idea, but that was that was a station that broadcasts the games, and they they still had most of the games, but yeah, just sort of a you know, uh a lot of things Baldwin did to try to make money, that was one of the dumber ones.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um number six is that time Duquesne basketball took a huge stand against racism.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I think this is a cool story that a lot of people don't know about.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: On December 23rd, 1946, Duquesne's basketball team was scheduled to play the University of Tennessee here in Pittsburgh.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're actually playing the game in McKey Sport at the, I think it was the Votec High School out there at the time, because, and this is just a sign of the times, Duquesne had donated all their bleachers in their gym for a scrap drive during World War II.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: So Duquesne didn't have any place to sit in their gym, sort of playing their home games out in McKee Sport.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and this game, it's it's again December 23rd, it's right before Christmas Eve.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, people probably have off work the next day, and it's a huge sell-out, 2,600 fans.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And to give you an idea of, you know, for 1946 basketball, that's a lot of people.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: And 2,600 fans is actually more than the average attendance of a present-day Duquesne basketball game.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Jeez.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a lot of people for Duquesne basketball in 1946 or today.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but when the Tennessee team arrives at the gym, they're surprised as Duquesne's warming up, they're surprised to see that Duquesne has a black player named Chuck Cooper, who's also arguably their best player, warming up with them.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: I heard you were pretty cool shoes.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was Chuck Taylor.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure Chuck Cooper had cool shoes too.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh now, Tennessee did know that they had a that Duquesne had a black player, so they weren't surprised like that they had a black player, but they didn't think he would play.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: So the Tennessee coach was named John Maurer.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: He had written a letter to Duquesne a couple of weeks before informing them that having a black player was unacceptable to them.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't, they couldn't have a black player to play against the University of Tennessee.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Maurer had done this before with other schools that they had played on the road who had black players, and those schools had all capitulated and said, okay, when you guys come to play, we'll bench the black players.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so when Tennessee comes to Duquesne, Maurer just assumes, even though he hadn't heard back from his letter, he just assumes that Duquesne was going to do the same thing.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, surprise, Duquesne doesn't do that.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so now there's a conundrum because Tennessee has traveled all the way to Pittsburgh under what they say are false pretenses, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: And and Coach Maurer uh says, look, these are Southern boys are not going to play if a black player plays.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so now a decision has to be made about whether or not to just say, okay, fine, we'll we'll uh we'll bench Cooper or to stand firm, which also means that they're they're gonna have to refund the admission of 2,600 people.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and Cooper himself even offers to just sit and he says, I don't want to cause a stir.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, guys, just play without me.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: But the players actually take a vote and unanimously refuse to play if their teammate can't play.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the university stands behind them too.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um Judge Samuel Weiss is basically like the Duquesne AD at the time.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: He walks out to center court and announces to the crowd what had happened.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, quote, I insist that no player be barred from this game by reason of race, color, or creed.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: He says the principle of the matter is more it means more to us than a basketball game.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: So Tennessee is forced to leave the arena and go all the way back home with a forfeit loss.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: And um I think the other cool thing, so not only does Duquesne stand up and say, no, we're not gonna do this, but uh the other thing that happens is you know, 2,600 people showed up in probably cold weather wanting to see a basketball game.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so you kind of wonder how they're gonna react to it.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um but when Weiss makes that announcement, the crowd actually gives him a standing ovation.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: And here's what I think this is from the Pittsburgh courier.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I got it from one of the old newspapers.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but this is what they wrote.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: They said when the Tennessee players start walk started walking off the court, uh, the Pittsburgh crowd, quote, hooted and booed and shamed them as no athletic team has ever been in the history of sports in Pennsylvania.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and they actually had to have a police presence outside the arena because they were worried that they were gonna the Tennessee The courier, too?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's the African-American people from the hill.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly right.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they had to have a police presence because they were worried that the Tennessee boss was gonna get attacked or something by the fans that were so angry.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: That that didn't happen.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's a cool story, and it's it's you know, it at the time too, 1946, you know, that was a little before a lot of the civil rights movement.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: Jackie Robinson next year, yeah.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: So even before Jackie Robinson.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's just one of those good stories that I think should be more remembered, and it's one of those stories that definitely makes me proud to be a Duquesne alum.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: So good forgotten story there.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, forgotten story number five is that time that Mel Blunt sued Chuck Knoll in the middle of the 1970s Super Bowl runs.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: So uh when you talk about the 1970s Stewart, obviously, you know, lots of stories there.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: Great, great team, memorable decade, lots of memorable seasons.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: They won the Super Bowl in 74, 75, 78, 79.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, 72 was the Immaculate Reception, 76 was that year that they had that great defense, but they lost the championship game.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and the one season that's kind of smack in the middle of all that that really gets talked about is 1977.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: What happened during the 1977 season?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's one that actually had a lot of drama take place even before the season started.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Jack Lambert held out that year and allegedly asked to be traded.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: He was upset about his contract.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Ernie Holmes, the defensive lineman, was acquitted on charges of cocaine possession.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: And no, that was not the same year he shot at the police helicopter.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: That happened a few years earlier.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Jeez.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um But the real crazy drama is when the Hall of Fame cornerback sued the Hall of Fame coach.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: So this all had started the previous season when the Steelers played the Raiders.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: And this was a regular season game.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was in September of 76.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And George Atkinson of the Raiders, one of their defensive backs, who was, you know, the Raiders had some really um mean, nasty, physical, violent players.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: And George Atkinson hits Lin Swan in the back of the head with his forearm, uh, just clubs him in the head with a forearm.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: And Noel's really upset about it.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: And after the game, he says, quote, people that's sick shouldn't be allowed to play this game.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: He says maybe it's a reflection on their coaching, kind of taking a shot at John Madden, the Raiders coach.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then he says, there's a certain criminal element in every aspect of society, and apparently we have it in the NFL too.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was that that that's the part that always got him in trouble was the criminal element.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was the key phrase that everybody seizes on.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: So after Noel makes the comments, Pete Roselle, the commissioner, he actually finds Atkinson.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Atkinson's really upset, and he thinks that he doesn't get fined if Noel doesn't come out and say he's part of the criminal element.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so a few months later, uh Atkinson, and and the Raiders were a very litigious organization, right?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like Al Davis sued everybody.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: So Atkinson files a$3 million slander and lival lawsuit against Noel and the Steelers for calling him the criminal element.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So now in the summer of 1977, as the next season in training camp's about to begin, there's a jury trial to decide this$3 million uh slander lawsuit.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: And Atkinson's lawyer, as his first witness, calls Chuck Noel to the stand and actually grills Noel for nine hours on the witness stand.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things Atkinson's lawyer does is he shows Noel and the jury a tape of Mel Blunt taking a supposed cheap shot on someone.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the whole strategy is, oh, you say that that my client's a criminal element, but look at your players doing the exact same kind of stuff.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: And Noel be Noel, I don't think anybody coaches Noel on the stand or anything because he he just basically begrudgingly admits that what Blunt did was wrong too.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, that he talked to Mel Blunt after the game about it.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the lawyer like kind of lawyers him into saying that Blunt's part of the criminal element, also.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Noel doesn't really say that.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: He kind of says, like, well, those are your words, not mine, kind of thing.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: But he he gets him to say it, or sort of say it under oath.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when Blunt hears about this, he takes it very personally.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: He's very upset and offended.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then Mel Blunt sues Chuck Knowle for$5 million in compensatory damages, plus$1 million in punitive damages for being included in the quote criminal element.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: And Blunt said, quote, there's no chance at all that I'll ever play for the Steelers under Chuck Knowle again.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: So Blunt's really upset.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: He vows never to play for the Steelers again, and he's suing Chuck Knoll.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is in 1977.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: This is right in the middle of the Steelers dynasty.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Ultimately, the jury um in the Atkinson trial does roll in favor of the Steelers.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And somewhere along the way, um Blunt and Noel um make up.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um Blunt drops the suit and they come to some kind of understanding.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm not sure exactly what happens, but they they they settle things.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: And the team goes on to win two more Super Bowls, with Mel Blunt, you know, being the star cornerback.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so all's well then ends well, but it's a pretty it it's it's surprising that that kind of gets lost to history because it happened right in the middle of all that.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: And Dan Rooney called it, quote, the most depressing experience of my life.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um And they didn't win a Super Bowl that year, did they?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: No, they lost it to Denver in the playoffs.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: Denver actually went on to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl that year.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it wasn't a real good season for them, but who could blame them after a season started out like that?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was just a whole mess.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm just surprised it doesn't get remembered more.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if that happened today, Steve, I mean Yeah, it would be well.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: It would, yeah.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think too, like a lot was going on.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like Al Davis was wanted to move.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, he always wanted to move the Raiders from Oakland to LA and back again, and the league kind of stopped him.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he would start like these kind of stuff.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was that kind of theory that like he had kind of paid George Atkinson's lawyers fees to do this so that to just to annoy like the Steelers were considered like the darlings of the NFL back then, and so they were gonna whereas the Raiders weren't.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this was just kind of like a nuisance like thing for you know Pete Rosell and Rooney and and the Rooneys and the Steelers in general.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's always been that kind of theory behind all that legal maneuvering, and um, maybe was effective a little bit there for Al Davis.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and you're right, if that if it was just to start uh just to be a nuisance, it worked, even though they lost the lawsuit.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: It definitely submarine this the season for the Steelers a little bit, and they just weren't able to do what they had done in the previous seasons.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: And Oakland plays in the AFC championship game that year against Denver and loses on a on a uh controversial call, but the um you know they didn't have to go through Pittsburgh, and so maybe that worked.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Was that the fumble that Madden always complained about?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, yeah.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Denver actually fumbled the ball at the goal line, but the referees missed it.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was a whole controversy.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Madden complained about that more than well, that was probably like his second thing behind the Immaculate Reception that he complained about.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's sad that the Raiders always seem to get hosed all the time, according to the Raiders.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh forgotten story number four is that time that Heinz Ward nearly keyed the play uh the Steelers to a playoff victory.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um in 2007, it was Mike Tomlin's first year as coach, and it's a pretty successful year.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: They win the division.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh unfortunately they they just they had a whole rash of injuries at the end of the season.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: They kind of limp into the playoffs.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: And their first playoff game is at Hinesfield against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: The Jaguars had badly beaten them just a few weeks earlier, and because of the injuries and because of the trajectories of the two teams, um you know Jacksonville's expected to just also crush the Steelers in the playoff game.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's how the most of the game goes.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the Jaguars um just are all over the Steelers, they're up by eighteen points in the fourth quarter.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: So the game's pretty much over, the season's pretty much over.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but amazingly the Steelers start to stage a comeback.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: They score two touchdowns uh to get within four.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then David Gerard, the Jaguars quarterback who never threw interceptions, throws a pass that's intercepted by Ike Taylor, who never makes interceptions.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: And Taylor returns it deep in the Jacksonville territory, and all of a sudden, down by four, the Steelers have a chance to miraculously take the lead.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: But this time, the Jaguars defense holds, and the Steelers are faced with fourth and goal from the two-yard line.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: And they have to go for it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, they're down by four.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: There's only a few minutes left in the game, so they have to score a touchdown.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of touchdown or bust at this point.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so they call, the play they call is a fade pass, and then throws it in the corner of the end zone for Heinz Ward.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's over Ward's head, it's incomplete.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so the Steelers turn it over on downs, and it looks like Jacksonville has basically weathered this comeback and they're going to hold on to win the playoff game.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: But hold everything because there's a flag.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the the call is pass interference on Brian Williams, the Jaguars cornerback.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as the flag is thrown, not the NBC Yanker, huh?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, not that Brian Williams.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: We could make a few jokes there about him making up the call, but as soon as the flag is thrown, Williams, Williams just goes absolutely ballistic.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's jumping up and down, he's screaming.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: And for good reason.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: So what it actually happened, and you can see it on the replay, uh so so Ward and Williams are locked up on the line of scrimmage, and Ward basically put Williams in like a headlock, and then he pulls him into the end zone by his face mask.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: And when Ben releases the ball, Ward pulls his hand away from Williams' face mask to make it look like Williams was holding him, like he was stuck, like he couldn't get his hand out.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like he locked onto his face mask just so he could make it look like he was trying to pull away from him.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: He knew it was going to be a fade pass.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the refs totally fall for it, they misread the play, they give the Steelers a first and goal, which the Steelers convert into the go-ahead touchdown.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I think I think the reason no one remembers this is even even the Jacksonville fans, is because the Jaguars eventually come back and kick a game winning field goal.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: So they end up winning the game anyway.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I I think it's a story that you know this this 2007 was the same season as Spygate for the Patriots.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: And every so many Steelers fans were up in arms about, oh, I can't believe they cheat.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're cheaters, they cheat.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think, you know, fair, that's a fair point about New England, but uh Steelers weren't exactly innocent.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: And Heinz Ward was one of those guys that we all loved in Pittsburgh, but man, we would have hated him if he played anywhere else.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and he that was a totally he cheated.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's no other way to put it than he cheated.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: He had the guy's face mask and he got away with it, and he almost cheated the Steelers to a playoff victory.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you you know the uh NFL after this game apologized about the officiating this game.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: Did they?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they apologized to the Steelers about it.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: Did they?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because on the field goal um that Jacksonville kicked, Aaron Smith was held like blatantly, and the refs didn't throw a flag.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that was the Jacksonville makeup call.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I I you know the brakes nor I mean I always think your the brakes normally even out if you just keep plugging away.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they do.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I just I think in that case, maybe, you know, it you know, okay, yeah, Ward pulled a fast one to take the lead, but Jacksonville ended up, you know, winning anyway and kind of got wood, you know, away with one of their own.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: So fair, fair.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: I I just I just think it's it's a contrast to you know, we said the thing earlier about um nobody, you know, nobody cared enough about Richard Menonhall to to penalize the Ravens for putting a bounty out on them.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: But also, you know, we didn't we don't you know we're guilty of the same thing where if it's Heinz Word, it's okay, but if it's Bill Belichick, it's not okay.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that's all.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's that's one of those stories that I think a lot of people don't remember.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I think had the Stewart's won that game, I I think it would have been a much bigger controversy.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well that that was like tough guy Tomlin, too.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was back in the tough guy.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think he was a young coach and he had a veteran team and he was kind of like trying to get their attention.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: So he learned some lessons that year.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: That would be that would be an interesting season to do an episode on because it's again, I think that whole season there's not a whole lot of memorable games from that season.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: They it was a good season, but I think the the the tough guy thing, they were worn out by the playoffs every year.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he says that, yeah.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: But see, yeah, yeah.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that yeah, it's kind of getting off the tandem.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, different, different story, you're right.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: But that that would be a good one to delve into.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, yeah, Heinzworth's a cheater.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I like Heinzward, don't get me wrong.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: He was great.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: We don't win Super Bowls without Heinz Ward, but he was a cheater.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Keith Rivers would probably agree with you.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: At least the cheap shot artist.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was voted like the the dirtiest player in the NFL.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: And again, for good reason.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: I just trying to be objective as a Steel R fan.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Again, love the guy.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't have traded him for anything, but he cheated.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh forgotten story number three is that time that Art Rooney stepped in to convince the NHL to award an expansion franchise to Pittsburgh.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um in 1967, the NHL has six teams.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: They decide they're going to expand to 12 teams.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you really want to point to like the most significant sort of moment in NHL history, it's it had to be this expansion because the NHL was such a small league.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, six teams.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's that's not a major league.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they wanted to be a major North American sports league.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so expanding to 12 teams got them there.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, they expanded from there, and and now they're up to 30 or whatever.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so um a lot of teams, a lot of cities put in bids, right?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: They want to be part of this NHL expansion.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: Pittsburgh's one of the cities that puts in bid, puts in a bid.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um the the six, uh, the original six existing teams, they're the ones that are gonna vote on who to award the expansion teams to.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the Norris brothers uh owned two of the teams, the the Blackhawks and the Red Wings.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: And they're gonna vote for Buffalo um over Pittsburgh.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: They think Buffalo has a has a better chance of having a successful hockey franchise or successful hockey market.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Art Rooney apparently knew the Norris Brothers.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't, I I think it was from horse racing.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: They were all three of them were into horse racing, so he knows these guys.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Jack McGregor, we mentioned him earlier, the the guy that eventually became the owner of the Penguins, he he reaches out to Art Rooney and says, Hey, I I heard you're friends with them.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: Can you can you call them?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because apparently they're gonna vote against Pittsburgh.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: So Art Rooney gets on the phone with them and he tells the Norris Brothers that it would be personally embarrassing to him if Buffalo was selected over Pittsburgh.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like he said that would personally hurt me.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the the Norris Brothers apparently like they're so convinced by that that they vote they vote for Pittsburgh, and that's how the Penguins are created, is because Art Rooney got on the phone with the Norris Brothers and and said I'd be personally, you know, personally embarrassed.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: And because they people respected Art Rooney that much, they switched their vote and gave this franchise to Pittsburgh.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: But at least the Norse brothers got a division named after them for a couple years out of the whole thing.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: They did.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was named after their father, but you know, family.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, and but like you said, Buffalo did get a franchise.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's been pretty successful.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: So so it all kind of worked out for everybody, but that's odd that like the Norrises would think that much of Art Rooney.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and it's it's kind of like the Tom Brady Sidney Crosby thing where it's one of those cross sports stories, right?
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, where football, a football figure and a hockey figure, you don't wouldn't even think they would even run in the same circles, but the Norris brothers and and Art Rooney did, and obviously um it was pretty convincing.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: So and you're right, Buffalo gets a team eventually.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was only like three years later.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it called the Sabres, which who still play there today.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they they did get a team, so don't feel too bad for Buffalo.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: And Pittsburgh, who knows?
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: If Buffalo would have got the team in '67, who knows if Pittsburgh would have submitted a bit three years later, or if they just would have been like, okay, this isn't gonna work.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: We still had the minor league, the Hornets.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the Hornets were kind of a very, very successful minor league team, so right.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: But but yeah, you just don't know what happens.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a Penguins franchise today if they don't?
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um if Art Rooney doesn't step in in the middle of that.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a good story that again, I didn't know about that until very recently.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we're gonna stick with Art Rooney for the number two forgotten story uh in Pittsburgh sports history, and it's the time that Art Rooney sold the Steelers.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody always thinks of Art Rooney as the guy that owned the Steelers for years and years.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: The Rooney family has always owned the Steelers, it's always been in that family.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for a while it actually wasn't.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: So on December 9th, 1940, uh the Steelers finish the season 2-7 and 2.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's another year of bad football, it's another year of financial setbacks.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, the Steelers are only seven years old at this time.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And Rooney just says, you know what, this isn't working.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: And he sells the Steelers to a guy named Alexis Thompson for$160,000, which is the equivalent of about$3 million today, uh, which is pretty good money.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: Not obviously an NFL franchise would sell for a lot more than that today.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: $3 million would be like what you'd pay the kicker.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but um at the time that's pretty good money.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and so Alexis Thompson is a guy that's really young.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: He's 26 years old.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but his father had just died and left him with like millions of dollars.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: So the way, again, I don't know much about Alexis Thompson, but the way he's portrayed in the media back then is kind of like a young playboy just inherited money.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: He made his money the old-fashioned way.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: He inherited it.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: So this is kind of at least they're portraying this as kind of like a vanity project for him.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, ooh, I want to own a football team and I have all this money to spend.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: So he pays top dollar for the Steelers.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: And just like new owners do today, Thompson kind of says all the right things.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we're gonna make the team a winner.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he goes out and he pays um a lot of money for a new head coach.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he also renames the team to the Pittsburgh Ironman.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like they actually rename the team Pittsburgh Ironman.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh now, Alexis Thompson, he lives in New York City.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he doesn't live in Pittsburgh, and he doesn't want to manage the team remotely.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: So he says he does agree that he's gonna keep the team in Pittsburgh for the 1941 season, but ultimately he makes a known he wants to move them out of Pittsburgh because he doesn't want to be in New York managing a team in Pittsburgh.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he can't move them to New York, they already have a team, the Giants.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: So he decides that Boston is the next best market.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like he can easily commute to Boston and it's a good market, and they don't have a team.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, so Rooney has now sold the Steelers, so he buys stock in the Philadelphia Eagles with his friend Bert Bell, and he becomes part owner of that franchise.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: So Bell and Rooney now own the Philadelphia Eagles.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um Rooney Rooney um decides that he's still gonna live in Pittsburgh, and he also has this plan.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: So Rooney and Bell, like Thompson's gonna move the Steelers to Boston or wherever, right?
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's gonna move them out of Pittsburgh, and once that happens, Rooney and Bell have a plan to have the Eagles split their home games between Pittsburgh and Philly.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we talked, you talked earlier, Steve, about them playing games in West Virginia.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: So they want to play games in Pittsburgh and Philly.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, they're gonna rename the team from Philadelphia Eagles to Pennsylvania Keystones.
• 55:47
  unknown: Nice.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: So like they're gonna take the whole state.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: Take the whole state, right?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now we have all this territory and we can take the whole state and we'll and we'll make more money, we'll get more fans that way.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the rest of the owners, so so Thompson wants to move the team, and Rooney and Bell want to take the whole state, yeah.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the owners bucket this for two reasons.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one, the the whole plan to move a team to Boston, two teams, two other teams that already tried and failed in Boston.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: One was the Boston Bulldogs, who was a team in the 20s that folded, and then the Boston Redskins who who moved to Washington, D.C.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: because they were not successful in Boston.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: So the owners are like, football will never work in Boston.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, who would ever put a team in Boston?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: That would be a failure.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can't imagine that.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: They'll never win anything.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, they'll never win anything.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's reason number one.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then reason number two is the owner of the Redskins, George Preston Marshall, uh, who was a guy that was pretty fiery and outspoken, he catches wind of Rooney's plan for the Eagles to make them the whole state of Pennsylvania, and he flips out because his team's in Washington.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: He's pulling fans from you know central Pennsylvania.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, central Pennsylvania is kind of a weird area like that.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of like I have a lot of family from there, and like like football-wise, or well back when I was growing up, there was no Baltimore Colts.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there they were more either Redskins fans, Steelers fans, and there were some Eagles fans, but it was more Redskins Steelers.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Steelers are so big anymore.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's they almost take over that any, you know.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, right.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and but that wasn't that case in 1940 for sure.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: And if you had a team called the Pennsylvania Keystones, you would hopefully pull them in.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: And if you lived in Lancaster or Harrisburg or York or whatever, then hey, that's my team too.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you could do like the Huntington, West Virginia thing, play like games in Harrisburg, yeah, or Erie, you know, Scranton.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was a good plan.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, honestly, especially back then, there was no TV.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's you would kind of barnstorm the state.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: Come up with a good thing.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, you made all your money from attendance.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was a pr it was actually a pretty good plan.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: But again, if you're the owner of the Redskins, you're like, no way.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, those fans might be tri I mean, uh Harrisburg, the DC probably isn't that far of a trip for you know, even back then, and maybe the train, you know, the train probably went there.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there were some fans that were commuting down to DC for the football games.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he's just like, no, but you're not taking the whole state of Pennsylvania.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the owners just say they nix the whole thing.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're not moving the st the Ironman to Boston, the Steelers to Boston, and you're not gonna make the Eagles the whole state of Pennsylvania.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: So now Alexis Thompson's stuck owning a team in Pittsburgh and running it from New York City.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then Rooney's plan and Bell's plan of you know covering the whole state, that's not gonna work.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh not only to the owner were the owners against it, but obviously if the the Thompson's team is playing in pit staying in Pittsburgh, then that wouldn't have worked anyway.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: So like now Thompson and Rooney are both like, oh, this maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: So Rooney, Rooney actually is like, hey, you know, he goes to he goes to Thompson, he's like, you know, you know what city is kind of close to New York City?
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: Philadelphia.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: That that's an easy one to like you could you could run a team in Philadelphia from New York City.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: And Art Rooney basically offers to trade cities with Thompson.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a little hard to follow, so I will do my best here.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: So here's what happens.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what happens.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thompson takes all of the Steelers, aka the Ironman, players and coaches to Philadelphia.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: Art Rooney and Burt Bell take all of the Eagles players and coaches to Pittsburgh.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um they they Thompson also ditches the Ironman name and decides to call his team in Philadelphia the Eagles, since that's what the football team there was already called, and they keep the same uniforms, the same colors, and all that.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm trying to try to put this in perspective.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: It would be like today, so so today Art Rennie III owns the Steelers, Jeffrey Lurie owns the Eagles.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: It would be like if those two guys swapped teams, so the team in Pittsburgh would still be called the Steelers, and they would still have black and gold uniforms, but the head coach of the Steelers would be Doug Peterson and the quarterback of the Steelers would be Carson Wentz.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: And meanwhile, the team in Philadelphia would still be called the Eagles and they would still wear green and white, but Mike Tomlin would be their coach and their roster would be all players that played for the Steelers the previous season.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense, yeah.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Colonel Mustard in the uh library with a candlestick.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sure.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is a terrible idea at this point.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's so goofy.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go look at Is that what actually happened?
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: What did no Yeah, that's what actually happened.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you go look at the So that's what actually happened?
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I thought I thought Rooney just bought the shares back off of this is what actually if you go look at what's so Thompson actually so the team Wow.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you So technically I've been an Eagles fan all these years.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, yes.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I'm not sure how to like you know make my peace with that.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's the Eagles like outside of the Patriots are just one of those teams I'm not a fan of.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: And click on any of those players and see where they played the previous year, it was Philadelphia.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like There's no player on the 1941 Steelers that played for Pittsburgh the previous season because that was the Eagles roster.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: That moved to Pittsburgh and became the Steelers.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this was before the Steels.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and and actually the the um the incorporated owner of the Steelers for about three or four years was like Philadelphia Football Club or something, like owned the Steelers.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then in the Well, him and Burt Bell always did have a close relationship.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: They did.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then Burt Bell eventually becomes a few years later, he becomes a commissioner of the NFL when he has to sell off his ownership shares.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: And he does that to the um, what's the family, the McGuintes, the Art Rooney like in-law family.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_02: So he basically sells the shares back to the Rooney family.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how the Rooneys then become like the the sole owners again for the rest of time.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, for the Steelers.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Bell actually co-owned the Steelers for a few years, but then he sells the shares, and again, no one really remembers that.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's a footnote.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's you made a Simpsons reference earlier, Steve.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's like that episode where they moved the town.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they just yeah, they litter everything because, like, yeah, they were taking trash home or his sanitation person.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they just moved the town.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, oh, here's the plan to save the town.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, we're just moving everything five miles down the road.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, the team that plays in Pittsburgh right now was technically the Philadelphia Eagles, and the team that plays in Philadelphia right now, you know.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I'd feel about like Carson Wentz, because like, you know, I still feel like he's kind of overrated.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I much like Ben, I think Carson Wentz is the discount version of Ben Rothelsburger.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: So So what the Eagles get the real Ben Rothelsburger and we get like the fake Ben Rothelsburger?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of what the heck kind of deal is that yeah, it would be it would be.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: So do we still keep all the Super Bowls and stuff and the Eagles still have their one measly little Super Bowl?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, that was the other one.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: And their Chuck Bagneric championship from like 1960.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it was kind of like do you remember when the Browns moved to Baltimore?
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the the Browns just took like a technically a five-year hiatus and the Ravens were created.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what happened here.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: The Steelers, like the Steelers are from 1933 to present, and the Eagles, whatever year they were founded at the present.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's no there's no like switching of histories.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: They kept the history, they kept the colors, they kept the uniforms.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: They just turned the colour.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: But the coaches and the players, like the front office, everything, all the assets went to the other city.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's impressive.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't isn't that a weird story?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I never like that's I never even heard of that before.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is this is maybe that should have been number one.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but that was like one of those stories that again just no one remembers that that actually happened.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: And again, the NFL was not what the NFL is today.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't think anybody was like, Well, what do we do with the histories?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it was like, whatever.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we'll we'll be lucky to have a season next year with the war starting.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: Who cares?
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, that's what happened.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I yeah, did that Thompson?
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how long he much longer he owned the he owned the Eagles.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think when they won the 19, I want to say 47 NFL championship.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think he was their owner.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think he actually won up.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: So he was still part of the whole Steagles debacle, too.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, well, not debacle, they weren't that bad.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, he was part of that.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: Them and the Bidwells were more of the debacle.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I want to say he owned the team into the 50s, and then I think he died very young.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_02: I he got sick and he died pretty young.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but yeah, he actually owned the Eagles.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: They won a championship under him.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um maybe they should just do that.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they just trade play just randomly, like have like a random draw, and like we're just we're just trading everybody, you know?
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'll give you the Arizona Cardinals for the Miami Dolphins.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like who like who gets stuck with like who's like a really bad traditional team?
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like Cincinnati.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh no, we got the Bengals.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe we shouldn't do that.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take the Steelers.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if they did it in baseball, we could get rid of the, we could ditch the pirates for a couple years.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but nobody would take them.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so that now brings us to the number one forgotten Pittsburgh sports story.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it's that time that Pittsburgh won a pro basketball championship.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so um in 1967, again, we're gonna mention that year a couple times in this episode, the American Basketball Association, the ABA, was formed with 11 teams.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it was billed as like this flashy alternative to like the old boring stoic NBA.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: And they, instead of playing with a boring orange ball, they played with a red, white, and blue ball.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they had they added these crazy innovations like a three-point line and a slam dunk contest.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know in the NBA, were you allowed to dunk back then?
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the NCAA, you weren't allowed to dunk.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't know the answer to that, but it definitely that was not the style of play.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: The style of play was not flashy.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was It was very like Red Arbuck style.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the awesome was the prizes for the slam dunk contest was like did you do you remember like I remember one of my real my aunt had this TV that sat on a floor and was like literally as big as this desk.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was like I think Julius Herr like won like in the 70s and that's what he got for winning the slam dunk contest.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Which I'm sure just was awesome for him moving that thing around.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that was, you know, that was a time the the ABA was not the only like rival sports like the AFL was was rivaling the NFL at the time.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were the team that finally made a go in Boston of the uh football in Boston was the Patriots.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_02: The Patriots, yeah.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and so that was kind of and that was kind of the culture in the 60s, right?
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: You had a big culture clash between like the you know the old fashioned whatever button-down versus the new is like the the baby boomers versus their their parents' generation.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing I've learned about baby boomers, it's like if you want to understand a baby boomer's motivation, will it piss off my parents?
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: If the answer is yes, it is going to happen.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, well, the ABA, I think the ABA pissed off my parents.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, this is gonna piss off let's do it.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, woo-hoo! Mom and dad are mad.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's it could be like the most teenage response to everything.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any teenagers or had any, you know that's like it's like that's like you know, in the decision tree process, it's like, is this going to make my parents angry?
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: If the answer, yep, okay, I'm in.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's and that's probably why the an ABA actually has some some pretty good success, and that's probably why, Steve, because the ABA is for sure a league that would that would make your parents, you know, go.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_02: What's the slam dunking?
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what's what's the that means?
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can't put the flag on a ball.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's against the flag code, man.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_02: Back in my day, they just shot the ball and they shook hands with the ball.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Coozie didn't have a red, white, and blue ball.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so and so the ABA actually has some popularity.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, just like the AFL, the ABA ultimately merges with the NBA in the mid-1970s.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and there's there's still teams today in the NBA who are old ABA teams.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so that's sort of the history of the ABA.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when the league first starts, Pittsburgh actually has one of the inaugural teams called the Pittsburgh Pipers.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_02: They play their home games at the Civic Arena, and they have the really good fortune of having one of the best basketball players in the world, uh, Hall of Famer Connie Hawkins.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Hawkins had been blackballed by the NBA because he was named in a point-shaving uh investigation when he was playing college ball at Iowa.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he was named in this investigation.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: He was never uh formally charged, he was never convicted.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I think Iowa took away his scholarship, and the NBA didn't want anything to do with him.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know if there's a racial component to that.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know the whole story there, but it sounds really unfair because he was never charged with anything.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_02: So whether he was involved or not, he he was just assumed to be guilty.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then Boston College really was point-shaving, but that wasn't.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was later.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was um Henry Hill.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, I was gonna say fun fact, you know, who was involved in that?
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was good old, good old Henry Hill.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: Henry Hill from Good Fellows.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so anyway, so Hawkins is has been blackballed by the NBA, but they hit that's fortunate for this new upstart league and fortunate for Pittsburgh, because they're like, sure, we'll we'll sign him.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's a great basketball player.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the Pipers put together a really good regular season.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_02: They go into the playoffs, they beat the Indiana Pacers in the first round.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: The Pacers are, of course, one of those ABA teams that still exist today.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then they beat the Minnesota Muskies, and they reached the ABA finals against a team called the New Orleans Buccaneers, who I think maybe have the goofiest like team logo of all time.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: That definitely has to go up on the website.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I gotta put that.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's like to describe it, it's like this little miniature pirate.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of looks like Sinbad, yeah.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not Sinbad the comedian, like Sinbad the swashbuckling guy.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right, because he's got like the mustache.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Tales of Arabian Knights there, yeah.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's got a mustache, he's got he doesn't have a shirt on, he's shirtless, he has like a belt buckle, and he's like carrying a sword and dribbling a basketball at the same time.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So Goofy Logo, obviously a pretty good team because they're in the finals against the Pipers.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as this is happening, the Pipers are picking up all kinds of bandwagon fans and packing the Civic Arena because just like any other city, we you know, we love a winner in Pittsburgh, and so all of a sudden um they're starting to get a lot of steam and press.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Pipers, it's a good the series goes to seven games, um, but the Pipers win, and they bring a pro basketball championship to Pittsburgh.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I think, you know, we we talked, we said in a previous episode that Pittsburgh has um 16 pro sports championships, so six for the Steelers, five for the Penguins, five for the Pirates.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, we don't we don't ever mention this one, but this was a pro basketball league that that um the that Pittsburgh won a championship.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think probably no Pittsburgh Triangles, don't forget them too.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_02: I do not put the tennis team in here.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: That would have been a good one.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: That would have been a good honorable mention.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I think the reason probably no one remembers the the championship in 1967-68 is because the team moved to Minnesota right after that season.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like that the hey, we won a championship.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's pack up and move move the franchise to Minnesota.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the ABA was still gaining traction at this point.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it ends up being a mistake.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: The the team actually moves back to Pittsburgh a few years later because they weren't successful in Minnesota.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_02: But by that point, Hawkins was in the NBA, and um, you know, that that support that they the the fans, that bandwagon support they kind of had, like they'd moved the team away, so when they came back, nobody really cared at that point.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if basketball, I think, was ever going to take hold in Pittsburgh, this probably would have been the era to do it because the Penguins hadn't become the Penguins yet.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe even the 80s, like before Mario, like if you could have got a basketball franchise in.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: But now, yeah, I mean, I don't see like how you would be able to support a basket because it would compete directly with the penguins.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't know that Pittsburgh's a big enough city for that.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I agreed.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are bigger cities that don't have any pro sports teams, you know.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I I it's it's yeah, definitely um one of those odd little things.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think this is when our one podcast, the great Pittsburgh Sports Championship bracket thing.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think it did have the Pipers on there.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I was uh I mean they said they just folded, they don't even exist anymore.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_02: They they moved to Minnesota, they moved back to Pittsburgh.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think they changed their name to the Condors.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they they they really like there really hasn't been a successful Pittsburgh basketball franchise.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and you wonder, like you said, Steve, it's a really good point that that was a maybe that was that was the point.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_02: So imagine after they win the championship.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: If they stay here and don't they don't even have to win another championship, if they just make like the playoffs and have some success.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe they build a fan base.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: If they just would have kind of stuck it through and said, okay, we're we're losing money, but but we got all these fans at the end of the season, maybe we could parlay that into uh more fans next season, but they kind of gave up.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_02: I they they'd probably, I mean, I don't know the whole backstory, but I'm guessing they'd probably made the decision.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Halfway through, yeah.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So so but who knows?
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if they would have stuck it out, you said the Penguins weren't the Penguins, the Steelers also weren't the Steelers at that point.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_02: This was 1968.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was really the Pirates were really the mall the most popular game in town.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: So who who knows what would have happened?
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows if if they would have lasted long enough to become like the Indiana Pacers or the um New Jersey Nets or those other teams that merged into the NBA that still exist today.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but it alas, it wasn't meant to be so.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um but that's that's our final Forgotten Pittsburgh sports story, the Pittsburgh Pipers bringing a pro basketball championship to the city of Pittsburgh.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um Steve, any final thoughts on our Forgotten Stories before we wrap up?
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Forgotten stories.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: These were all pretty forgotten.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I some I didn't know, but uh no, that's a that's definitely a great list.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um and the Steelers had cheerleaders for five minutes.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh but they got rid of them because they, you know, I guess were more moralistic than other Rooneys didn't like cheerleaders for some reason.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I almost put that in the honorable mentions that the the Steelers the year that the one year or whatever that they had cheerleaders.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think that I think their cheerleaders still get together.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's some kind of like they still get together every year for a reunion or something.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's so long ago, is there I mean, not to be rude, but I mean there can't be too many left there.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh well, maybe they maybe they used to get together.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'm thinking of an article I read 20 years ago, but but I think they were called the Steelerettes, actually.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, there I'm sure there's other things that I could have put on this list.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I I love personally, I I I love delving into like the the stories that we don't always think about, we don't always remember.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's probably more of these.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: We could probably do a part two at some point.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um but there's a lot of good stories in Pittsburgh's sports history.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Did Connie Hawkins ever do anything else in the NBA?
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he had a pretty good NBA career.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's in the basketball hall of fame.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So he must have been pretty successful.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think he had a pretty successful NBA career.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was it started really.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who did he play for in the NBA?
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_02: I want to say Philadelphia, but I I don't quote me on that.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, he he he um he was a really good basketball player.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, his career started so late because again, he was sort of blackballed for for a long time.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but you know, he definitely had success with the Pipers.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just a shame that they didn't last more than one season.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh please check us out on Twitter and Facebook at Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Please check out our website.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's Pittsburgh Sports Memories.weebly.com.
• 1:15:48
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• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much, and uh thank you for enjoying the podcast.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.