Latest / Pittsburgh Sports Memories / BONUS EPISODE: Pgh Sports Current Events - June 2026

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BONUS EPISODE: Pgh Sports Current Events - June 2026 · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Pittsburgh Sports Current Eventsburg of the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your co-host Steve Wirt, and I'm joined by I'm Tim Hannon.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, and uh there isn't a lot going on in the month of June in sports, but hey, uh we'll we'll bring you what we got here.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the uh actually going on on the field, um well, or the ice, um, the baby penguins have made the Eastern Conference Calder Cup finals, which is good.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The that goalie that they the penguins keep setting down has played well, so that's probably the best news about all that.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe the penguins will have a goalie.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um did they put Skinner out for DFA or anything like that?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he his contract's up, so he's a free agent.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: That there's no way they're re-signing him.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Morisov, like you said, uh nine nine point nine one nine save percentage, and then he's been lights out in the playoffs for them.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I I if he's not ready next season, he's pretty close.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: They they they that's that's he's the get he's the future for sure.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so speaking of the penguins, so they did make a one move um that was kind of of note.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: They signed Guinea Mulkin to one more deal, so it's one more year.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know, Madden.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I heard him talk about it, he wasn't crazy about it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just seems like they're kind of stuck in like a rut, you know, here with this.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: They it's probably time for at least Letang and Mulkin to move on, but I I mean it's not a lot of money, but it it's really hard because he was effective last year.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was really effective.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, he wasn't a bad player, he wasn't like a drag on the team.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think Letang is the one you really should cut bait with, but But yeah, but his contract wasn't up, so it's not it's not as easy.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where Malkin, like they could have just been like, okay, your contract's up, thanks for everything.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: But so it's like it's not a bad move, but like to to I think the point that Mark Mann and others are making is yeah, he's effective.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's he can st can still provide you with some.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: But you could you might have somebody better, or it might just Yeah, and it's like at what point you just have to move on, move on with your life, you know, and and that's the hard thing that the the other sports team, if it's what we're gonna talk about later, is dealing with as well, where it's like at what point do you just move forward, even if the person you put in there in place of Mulkin isn't really as good as Mulligan?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or you know, or you're just better off moving forward.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's a top that's not an easy answer.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I it's not like an automatic you made the right move or you made the wrong move.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's very nuanced, and we'll see how it plays out.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I was gonna do another we'll we'll save him signing till the till maybe later.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about Aaron Rodgers?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, why not?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Aaron Rodgers came along like everybody said he was going to.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like we knew he just likes the not side until late.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he's he and he said this is his last year he's gonna retire.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: They got one year to figure it out and see if Drew Aller or this other and if you know they're probably gonna either trade or cut Mason Rudolph, or I I don't know.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: They got they they gotta get rid of somebody.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's either gonna be Will Howard or Mason Rudolph.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can't see them cutting Drew Aller unless that's that's correct.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be unless he gets hurt or he's like, you know, goes out on the Fort Duquesne Bridge and starts throwing people off the bridge or something.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm I I just can't see him not staying on the team, so it's probably gonna be Mason Rudolph, I would think.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think I think the the setup is gonna be this you Aaron Rodgers is number one, Drew Oliver is number three, and then Rudolph is probably the presumed number two.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: But if Howard comes in and wows everybody, then that's when you that's when you save money too.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right, Howard.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So and and it gives you that chance of if you know Rogers is leaving after the season, it gives you two young guys instead of one young guy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: But but I think the other thing with Howard is you know he's he's also a sixth round draft pick.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's not like a super high draft pick.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think about like in the grand scheme of things, when you draft a quarterback in the sixth or seventh round, you're like, if he makes a team, it's a bonus.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't, he doesn't.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think like you have to keep that in perspective because technically Will Howard that that's really the position he should be in.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: If he if he wows everybody, then yeah, he takes Mason Riddle's job, but it but otherwise you have a veteran backup, so keep the veteran backup.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh all these signings are good, bad, indifferent, ugly.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think they're just kind of more of the same for both of these teams.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: The the Rogers thing in a vacuum makes sense to me because they they're not gonna start Will Howard.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: He has never thrown an NFL pass.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna start Drew Aller because he's a rookie that they're working hugely on his mechanics.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are you gonna do this season?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you need a quarterback for this season, so it makes sense in a vacuum.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that frustrates me, as we've talked about many times before, is that it's 2026 and we're still in this boat.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: You could have started that ticking clock of drafting somebody developing them years ago.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: You could you really should have started it when Ben was still on the team, and then you wouldn't be in this position.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Then you could have like the Jordan Love or whoever or Patrick Mahomes, or again, we talked about other teams did that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then even if they missed that boat, you could have done it after Ben retired, and they still haven't done it.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now it looks like again, they have two young guys, maybe it's finally happening now, but now we have to wait a whole other season to find out, and it's just like, man, time just keeps ticking and ticking and ticking.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: I will say this, Steve.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the year 1995, the year they went to the Super Bowl?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that they kept four quarterbacks on the roster that year?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but they were all really good, and Cordell was a weird quarterback to keep, like, because he played wide receiver, so I don't see Will Harrow Howard lining up as wide receiver.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that that that's that's a difference.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: But check out the similarities, okay?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: The the starter, the incumbent starter, was a guy that everybody expected to to be gone after the season.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Neil O'Donnell, Aaron Rodgers.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: The bet the second string guy, the backup, was the veteran.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: You would count on him to come in and win a few games if the starter got hurt.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Tom Zach, very comparable to Rudolph.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they had Jim Miller, I think.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jim Miller.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what Jim Miller was in 1995?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: The sixth-round pick the year before.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: He actually ended up having a decent little NFL career, yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's Will Howard.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then Cordell was a day two draft pick rookie, just like Drew Aller.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Drew Aller's playing wide receiver this year, too.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: So so, like you said, it's a little different because the Steelers were able to, it wasn't just a wasted roster spot.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: They were able to utilize Cordell in other positions.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the interesting thing was when Neil left the next season, now you had a veteran and two young guys to battle it out for who's going to be the future of the team.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you kept all four guys, you would have the same thing next year.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe somebody will get hurt.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get lucky.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I never want to see anybody get hurt.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: But oddly enough, that would be like a best case scenario.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I really hate to say that, but it really would be.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So moving to baseball, um, the pirates, they are currently, I don't know, the hovering around 500.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And but they're last in the NL Central because the NL Central apparently decided to be really good this year.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which sucks for the Pirates.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Skeens, um, I actually saw him, I I saw him pitch in Toronto, and that was a rough outing for him.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and then he had a rough outing last against the Cubs.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the defense let him down.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um the Pirates got some problems here.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the team is hitting better than last year, but unfortunately the defense stinks, like and it's losing them games.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Jared Jones is coming back, which means Modelinsky moves to the pen, which probably really isn't that big of a problem.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just I just don't know that the Pirates are gonna have enough to make it to the postseason this year.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be close.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of like feel like the Pirates are almost where the penguins were last year.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're gonna just they're just gonna float around flirt with are they gonna make it, are they not gonna make it, you know.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I was gonna say the exact same thing.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like this is a very much a replica of the penguin season.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and like you said, it we won't know until late in this.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: They'll they'll they'll kind of hang in there, hang in there, hang in there, and then we'll know by you know August or September if if they have a legit shot.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: The goal of the pi of every pirate season is to get us to Steelers preseason.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in a lot of years they've failed us, they've been done by June.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So hey, maybe they'll come.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only goal I hope for out of the pirates is get us to the when football becomes relevant again and then you can fade away like you always do.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I the only I will say the only thing about the the Pirates that might be a little different than the pens.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Man, if they can get to the playoffs and you have Skeens and then you have like Ashbrath pitching as well as he's been pitching, and you have Keller, and you if Jared Jones comes back strong, i if you can get into the postseason with pitching, um then you actually have a chance to make some noise.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they don't they don't have a closer, well, they have Soto, and the other guy is not doing that well.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: The bullpen's garbage.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So but with Jones coming back, that puts you know, maybe that helps out the bullpen, you know, because maybe, or maybe moving Modelinsky was a terrible idea, and they should have moved Chandler because he's playing much worse.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he can't find a strike with both hands and a flashlight.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So but anyway, well, that's it for they're not much going on.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, we'll see see again when the Steelers preseason starts and you know the pirates are irrelevant.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So no, who knows?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they'll be relevant, Tim.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and speaking of not a lot going on, Steve, I mean that that's been the honestly the most annoying part of this time of the year, especially around the Steelers, because it you've you've just had story after story after story.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like Aaron Rodgers, like you said, everybody knew he was coming back, but Aaron Rodgers doesn't tell anybody anything.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's he goes, he like the season ends, he goes into like his darkness retreat in you know Brazil or whatever.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't stop, but that doesn't stop everybody from being like this news and this news and I gotta have this source that says this, and it's so annoying.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then people just uh react to that and propagate it all over social media.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: It it it's you know, I I hate to say back in our day, but back in our day, if you if you if you read the newspaper in May, there wasn't there were no steeler stories.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, you know, like you wouldn't even breathe NFL, but now we're all so addicted to the NFL that we have to have news.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, well, oh, there's a report that Rogers came into town and oh, we saw him having ice cream, and it's like all this I think that really was a report.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't it?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and then and then uh uh the the big thing a week or so ago was Ben Rothesberger on his podcast was talking about Drew Aller, and that that became a big soundbite of you know, Rothesburger, you know, bashes Drew Aller, and and I I listened to Ben's podcast and he was not bashing him at all.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just like it's stuff like that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're like we're so starved for any kind of football news when there is no football news.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we just basically make stuff up.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it I don't know.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I can't wait till we get into actual football season.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: We have real stuff to talk about instead of fake stuff to talk about.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on that note, uh tune in for our next getting off my sub box court events when we talk about whatever meaningless information.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just make up stories for our next one.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we still got like a little while to go until you know meaningful stuff happens.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll see you then.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: We we love you listening.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh check us out, rate us well on your rating service.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh good word of mouth always works great too.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time, and God bless.