Latest / Pittsburgh Sports Memories / REWIND: Biggest Personalities in Pittsburgh Sports History
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody, welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
- 0:04SPEAKER_00: My name is Tim Hannon, and my co-host name is uh Steve Wirt.
- 0:11SPEAKER_03: You ask the tough questions, Tim.
- 0:12SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
- 0:14SPEAKER_00: I do.
- 0:15SPEAKER_00: Put you on the spot there.
- 0:17SPEAKER_02: So this is the name, what?
- 0:18SPEAKER_02: Huh?
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: This episode we're gonna talk about Pittsburgh Sports biggest personalities.
- 0:41SPEAKER_00: So these are guys that were sports figures in Pittsburgh who were kind of larger than life, um, people that were funny or maybe eccentric or controversial or sometimes just downright insane.
- 0:54SPEAKER_00: And and sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, you know, these are guys that seem to always capture the attention of the Pittsburgh fan base during their time here, and many are still remembered today just because of um you know just the moments that they had and the impact that they made.
- 1:10SPEAKER_00: So before we get into some of these guys, I want to talk about who we won't cover in this episode.
- 1:16SPEAKER_00: So who we're gonna leave off are Pittsburgh sports figures who had big personalities, but that those big personalities really aren't associated directly with their time in Pittsburgh.
- 1:27SPEAKER_00: So some examples like Mike Ditka, very big personality, very uh quotable, entertaining guy, uh went to Pitt, um, but but you know, all of his kind of you know big personality moments came in Chicago or somewhere else.
- 1:44SPEAKER_00: Um Pat McAfee, guys, guys like that, guys that maybe were from Pittsburgh, but you know, what weren't really associated with Pittsburgh sports.
- 1:51SPEAKER_00: Uh the other category we're not going to cover are Pittsburgh media figures, because we just did an episode uh a few episodes ago, so go back and listen to that if you haven't already.
- 2:01SPEAKER_00: That was a really good one, uh, where we just covered some of those big media personalities.
- 2:05SPEAKER_00: So no Myron Cope on this episode, no Mark Madden, no Steve Wirt.
- 2:10SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, all the big Pittsburgh media personalities that were that were you know larger than life.
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: Well, I would demand my own podcast, of course.
- 2:19SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: That'll be the next part.
- 2:22SPEAKER_03: All about me.
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: Your biography, what makes you tick.
- 2:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be a good one.
- 2:28SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe we'll throw that in a bonus episode somewhere.
- 2:31SPEAKER_00: Put it behind a paywall.
- 2:34SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there you go.
- 2:35SPEAKER_03: I have a whole free download.
- 2:37SPEAKER_03: It's like me and like my mother or something.
- 2:41SPEAKER_03: We'll listen to it.
- 2:44SPEAKER_00: All right, so let's get into some of those big personalities.
- 2:47SPEAKER_00: And the guy we're gonna start off with is somebody that's pretty well known in Pittsburgh and outside of Pittsburgh.
- 2:53SPEAKER_00: That's a guy named Terry Bradshaw.
- 2:55SPEAKER_00: And so for all of these folks, we're gonna talk about who they are or were, and then why they were a big personality.
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: So who is Terry Bradshaw?
- 3:04SPEAKER_00: He was a Steel Wars quarterback between 1970 and 1983.
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: He led the Steel Wars to four Super Bowl titles.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he became a broadcaster after he retired and is still doing that job today rather successfully.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: He's also multi-talented.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: He released several country music albums and has acted in multiple films and television shows.
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: And why is Terry a big personality?
- 3:29SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I you hate to answer that.
- 3:36SPEAKER_03: We needed a Smokey and the Bandit 2 reference there.
- 3:39SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: And he and he also um he was remember he was Matthew McConaughey's dad in that one movie.
- 3:45SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what that movie was called.
- 3:47SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, fail failure, failure to launch.
- 3:49SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
- 3:50SPEAKER_03: I think Sarah Jessica Parker was in that too.
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: She was.
- 3:56SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: So yeah, in terms of why Bradshaw is a big personality, I I think I hate to answer that question with I mean, just watch the guy for five minutes, but I think most of us have, you know, seen Terry before.
- 4:09SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Pittsburgh sports fan, you're kind of already you already know the answer to that question.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: Uh Bradshaw is a very brass kind of country boy, fun-loving, goofy, um, and a kind of a very opinionated all at the same time.
- 4:22SPEAKER_00: Uh Joe Green said that when he played, Terry used to say things like, you can lose with me, but you can't win without me.
- 4:29SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of his you know his attitude.
- 4:32SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, Bradshaw just is has always been entertaining on television, always been entertaining as a studio host.
- 4:41SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the things I always remember, um, he had a leading role in an NBC reality show called Better Late Than Never.
- 4:48SPEAKER_00: Steve, I don't know if you ever saw that show.
- 4:50SPEAKER_03: I I did.
- 4:51SPEAKER_03: I did.
- 4:51SPEAKER_03: I watched an episode or two.
- 4:53SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 4:56SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 4:57SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 4:58SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'll let you describe it.
- 4:59SPEAKER_03: It's it's an interesting concept, I guess.
- 5:01SPEAKER_03: A bunch of, yeah.
- 5:03SPEAKER_03: Kind of like what, over-the-hill celebrities do travel stuff.
- 5:10SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was.
- 5:12SPEAKER_00: So it was it was William Shatner, Henry Winkler, who was the Fonz, uh, George Foreman and Bradshaw, and they would just travel the world.
- 5:22SPEAKER_00: So the premise of this was kind of that Shatner was like the straight guy.
- 5:28SPEAKER_00: So like they would go to like, I don't know, the Louvre, right?
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: And Shatner would would explain how they were in the room that had all the art from the broke period, and he would be trying to educate them about it, and then like Bradshaw, Foreman, and Fonzie would all be like, Oh, the girl in that patent has her clothes off.
- 5:46SPEAKER_00: Like, and that was just kind of the you know, the the the contrived, you know, kind of um, you know, way that but I mean uh really that show was just all it was just Terry being Terry and it worked.
- 6:00SPEAKER_03: Terry hates in a show called the Bradshaw Bunch, and my wife's been watching that, and that that's like some reality show with him and his daughters on E.
- 6:09SPEAKER_03: So I'm not I mean and he he was he was married to Jojo Starbuck there way back when, so the the uh Olympic figure skater.
- 6:18SPEAKER_00: So yes, Terry's been married, I think, four times.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: Um Bradshaw also has a has had a love-hate kind of relationship with the city of Pittsburgh.
- 6:29SPEAKER_00: It it took him twenty years to come back after he retired, and that included Art Rooney's funeral in 1988 that he missed, which really rankled a lot of people.
- 6:39SPEAKER_00: Um Bradshaw, we talked about this in a previous episode, how Bradshaw often contradicts himself.
- 6:44SPEAKER_00: Uh he was diagnosed years ago with clinical depression and anxiety, and to his credit, he's been very public about that, um, which is you know, which is a courageous thing because it gets other people to then be open about it.
- 6:55SPEAKER_00: Um but he's all he's he just contradicts himself often.
- 6:58SPEAKER_00: And one good example of that is his relationship with Chuck Noel, which a lot has been made about over the years.
- 7:05SPEAKER_00: So in 2003, he was at a banquet where Noel was present, and he actually apologizes and blames all the issues on himself.
- 7:13SPEAKER_00: He says, quote, people say we had trouble, I created that, I wasn't as much mad at you, Chuck, as I was mad at me.
- 7:20SPEAKER_00: So in 2003, he's you know, when he's talking about the relationship with Noel, he's kind of pinning it all on himself, and Chuck was just trying to coach me and I was immature and blah, blah, blah.
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: And then in 2020, he gives an interview about it and he says, quote, Chuck did not know how to handle me the way he talked to me.
- 7:37SPEAKER_00: Just God, nobody talks to their starting quarterback like that.
- 7:40SPEAKER_00: And he just goes on and on about how Chuck Noel berated him, and all he ever wanted was a hug.
- 7:46SPEAKER_00: And so it's like it's like, which is it, Terry?
- 7:48SPEAKER_00: Like, was it your fault?
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: His fault was a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
- 7:52SPEAKER_00: I I mean Bradshaw just that's why again we we we did that episode where we played the clip where he was critical of Tomlin.
- 8:00SPEAKER_00: And I just I like Terry Bradshaw and he's real entertaining, but his opinions are so irrelevant to me because they're all over the map.
- 8:11SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he lacks consistency.
- 8:13SPEAKER_03: I would definitely you can tell that just from that.
- 8:16SPEAKER_03: I for I forgot about that quote actually.
- 8:18SPEAKER_03: And I I I don't know.
- 8:20SPEAKER_03: Like if he just like you wonder if he forgets what he said, or it's just he's so off the cuff he's not thinking about uh what he said like five minutes ago.
- 8:31SPEAKER_03: He's just you know living in the kind of the moment there.
- 8:34SPEAKER_03: So I I don't know.
- 8:36SPEAKER_03: Maybe his opinion changed.
- 8:37SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
- 8:38SPEAKER_00: No, I think I think you're spot on, Steve.
- 8:40SPEAKER_00: I think he's absolutely off the cuff living in the moment, not trying to craft like a message, like he's not a politician, he's not trying to craft a consistent message, he's just speaking what he feels at that moment.
- 8:52SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
- 8:52SPEAKER_00: Again, that's why that's one of the things that made him popular.
- 8:55SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons I mean, a lot of guys that retired in 1983 are not still world famous or or well known today, and Terry Bratzow is, because um, you know, his personality kind of enabled him to be in the limelight long after football.
- 9:12SPEAKER_03: I definitely don't I mean, even Roger Stahlbach or like Tony Dorset or like you know, I'm trying to think of other big players from that.
- 9:19SPEAKER_03: Even Joe Montana, like, you know, you don't see him on in TV or is in TV shows as much as you know, Chuck Knowle and all that.
- 9:27SPEAKER_03: So go figure.
- 9:30SPEAKER_03: For sure.
- 9:31SPEAKER_03: Or not Chuck Noel, I mean Terry Brown.
- 9:32SPEAKER_00: Next guy.
- 9:34SPEAKER_03: My bad.
- 9:35SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, yeah.
- 9:36SPEAKER_00: Chuck Knoll did not have Chuck Knowles on TV for years.
- 9:40SPEAKER_03: Never be on a reality show with his wife and kids.
- 9:44SPEAKER_03: Ever.
- 9:45SPEAKER_03: Not gonna happen.
- 9:46SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 9:47SPEAKER_00: That would have been a that would have been a great reality show.
- 9:51SPEAKER_00: It's like what did you do today, Chuck?
- 9:53SPEAKER_00: Well, I filed taxes.
- 9:56SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
- 9:57SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah.
- 10:02SPEAKER_00: Uh next guy on our list is Phil Kessel.
- 10:06SPEAKER_00: Who is Phil Kessel?
- 10:07SPEAKER_00: Well, he was a Penguins right winger from 2016 to 2019, a prolific goal scorer who at the time of this recording is closing in on 400 career goals in the NHL, and currently has an amazing streak going of 900 plus consecutive games played dating back to 2009.
- 10:23SPEAKER_00: That's third all time in NHL history, and that's an active streak.
- 10:27SPEAKER_00: So he has a chance to set that record at some point.
- 10:30SPEAKER_00: Kessel is also a can't cancer survivor, and of course, Phil Kessel is a yeah, he had testicular cancer.
- 10:39SPEAKER_03: I did not know that.
- 10:40SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 10:41SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was that was I believe that was before he was drafted in the NHL.
- 10:45SPEAKER_03: Well, good for him.
- 10:46SPEAKER_03: Uh that's amazing.
- 10:48SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's a cancer survivor.
- 10:49SPEAKER_00: Yep.
- 10:50SPEAKER_00: And and of course, Phil Kessel is a two-time cup champion.
- 10:55SPEAKER_00: All right, Darrow Bob.
- 10:58SPEAKER_00: Why is Phil Kessel a big personality?
- 11:01SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, Kessel just kind of like a big goofy character, Steve.
- 11:05SPEAKER_00: I always thought like he'd be he would have been like the Jonah Hill or like Chris Farley sidekick character in a movie.
- 11:12SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's kind of how I just always would have described uh Phil Kessel.
- 11:16SPEAKER_00: Uh he's not your typical athlete.
- 11:18SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean the memes of him eating hot dogs are out there for a reason.
- 11:22SPEAKER_00: Uh he's he's also kind of a one-trick pony, um, which is scoring goals, but he's really good at that one trick.
- 11:29SPEAKER_00: You know, he's not a great two-way player or anything like that.
- 11:32SPEAKER_00: Um and and he was a guy that never did well with being the center of attention.
- 11:37SPEAKER_00: That really came out when he was traded from Boston to Toronto.
- 11:40SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the Maple Leafs had paid him like this enormous salary and made him the face of the team.
- 11:45SPEAKER_00: But the team never really won anything because you know they're the Maple Leafs and they never win anything.
- 11:51SPEAKER_00: And and fairly or unfairly, Kessel kind of seemed to get blamed for that, and he really had trouble handling the Toronto media.
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: And and the Toronto media is is the equivalent of the New York media here in the States.
- 12:05SPEAKER_00: And and if you play in that city, you're just going to get this intense scrutiny that you're not going to get anywhere else.
- 12:12SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he often got testy with reporters there.
- 12:14SPEAKER_00: There's, I mean, you can go find clips on YouTube of him literally just calling reporters idiots.
- 12:19SPEAKER_00: Like somebody asks him a question, he's like, God, this guy's such an idiot.
- 12:22SPEAKER_00: Like to the other reporter standing nearby.
- 12:25SPEAKER_00: Um, and and you know, he he was just he was kind of flustered by the media.
- 12:30SPEAKER_00: He was also flustered by players.
- 12:32SPEAKER_00: There was a a 2012 players poll conducted by Sports Illustrated that named Kessel the easiest player in the league to intimidate.
- 12:40SPEAKER_00: So um he was a guy that that just he wasn't comfortable being the center of attention, and I think he really found his place here in Pittsburgh because he didn't have to be that guy.
- 12:50SPEAKER_00: Sidney Crosby was that guy, or or if Kenny Mulgan was that guy, and he could be a role player, and he helped the Penguins win two Stanley Cups as part of the now famous HBK line.
- 13:00SPEAKER_00: And he was he was beloved here, he really was, and and he was loved by his teammates as well.
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: Um there's a great compilation, and we'll post a link to it.
- 13:08SPEAKER_00: There's a great compilation of Kessel stories told on the Spit and Chicklets podcast.
- 13:13SPEAKER_00: If you never listen to that podcast, it's that's another good podcast hosted by Ryan Whitney and Paul Bessinette, two other former penguins who probably could have made this list themselves.
- 13:22SPEAKER_00: Uh and and and there's a compilation out there on YouTube of just all these stories.
- 13:26SPEAKER_00: There's there's one story about how Kessel um used to like tape up the curtains in his hotel room so that the sun wouldn't get in, so he'd have like complete darkness while he slept.
- 13:37SPEAKER_00: And one morning or one night the curtains fell down and the the light got in, and uh and he's telling his teammates, they're like in the intermission of the of the game that night, and he's telling his teammates just how awful he feels.
- 13:51SPEAKER_00: And one of his teammates is like, um, Phil, do you think it was because the sun came into your room, or do you think it was because of that big bowl of cheese you ate right before the game?
- 14:03SPEAKER_00: That's what that's literally of the story.
- 14:04SPEAKER_00: It's like he ate a big bowl of cheese right before the game, and he's blaming them on the sun.
- 14:09SPEAKER_03: Uh didn't he didn't he eat hot dogs out of the Stanley Cup?
- 14:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he did.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: That was classic.
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: When they won that first Stanley Cup, uh Benino, Haglin, and Kessel, that that line, they were actually set to appear on the Stephen Colbert show, and uh CBS sent this eight-person jet.
- 14:30SPEAKER_00: It was like this little plane, and they they go like they're like they're at the airport, they're on the runway, ready to get on this plane.
- 14:37SPEAKER_00: Kessel sees the plane, he's like, I'm not getting on that, it's it's way too small.
- 14:41SPEAKER_00: And then here's here's a quote by Benino telling that story.
- 14:44SPEAKER_00: He says, Me and Haggie are like, come on, man, we're never gonna get to go to Colbert without you.
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: And Kessel just went to sleep and that was it, and we never heard from him again.
- 14:54SPEAKER_00: So they didn't get to go on Stephen Colbert because Kessel wouldn't get on this dinky little plane.
- 14:59SPEAKER_00: Uh it probably wasn't dinky, it was probably a really nice, you know, uh cat that CBS owned, but for Kessel was too small.
- 15:06SPEAKER_03: I heard it was the I heard it wasn't the same plane that uh Ted Danson got, so he was really upset about.
- 15:11SPEAKER_03: I'm familiar with that Seinfeld reference.
- 15:14SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: Um here's a fun fact Kessel got a handful of write-in votes in the 2016 presidential election, and here in Pennsylvania at least, he finished in that election only behind only Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Mickey Mouse.
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's not bad for not even running.
- 15:39SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 15:40SPEAKER_03: Got some write-ins.
- 15:42SPEAKER_03: Nice.
- 15:44SPEAKER_03: I maybe memories of of Phil.
- 15:47SPEAKER_03: Of Phil.
- 15:49SPEAKER_03: Uh, just besides like he looks like somebody that really shouldn't be a professional athlete.
- 15:54SPEAKER_03: Like he look like if you ran into him on the street and he said, Yeah, I play NHL hockey, he'd be like, uh, sure you do, dude.
- 16:00SPEAKER_03: It's like, could you put down the hot dog?
- 16:02SPEAKER_03: And like, you know, because he like he doesn't he just doesn't look like a professional athlete in any way, shape, or form.
- 16:08SPEAKER_03: You know, he's like really I mean, he's a shape.
- 16:12SPEAKER_03: I guess round is a shape, but I it kind of looks like if you or me were playing hockey.
- 16:19SPEAKER_03: But like he's really good at it, and we're not, you know, obviously.
- 16:23SPEAKER_03: So good for him.
- 16:25SPEAKER_03: I mean, hey, it works for him.
- 16:26SPEAKER_03: Um I like the fact that he got some votes in the 2016 election.
- 16:31SPEAKER_03: That's incredible.
- 16:32SPEAKER_03: That is that is amazing.
- 16:36SPEAKER_03: He couldn't do any worse job than well, he couldn't do any worse job than uh any of those other people, so hey, what the heck?
- 16:43SPEAKER_03: Is he is he United States citizen?
- 16:45SPEAKER_03: Could he have been president?
- 16:47SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah, he's an American player.
- 16:49SPEAKER_00: No, he's from Canada.
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he could have been president.
- 16:51SPEAKER_00: Wisconsin?
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
- 16:54SPEAKER_03: I was about to say, if he's from Canada, then it would have been all for naught, but yeah.
- 16:58SPEAKER_03: There you go.
- 16:59SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 16:59SPEAKER_00: No, no.
- 17:00SPEAKER_00: He he he could have been elected.
- 17:01SPEAKER_00: He just needed, you know, a few million more votes.
- 17:04SPEAKER_00: Or votes.
- 17:05SPEAKER_00: Yeah, vote for Cats all a hot dog.
- 17:07SPEAKER_03: What is like taggling a hot dog in every pot or something, you know?
- 17:16SPEAKER_00: All right, the next guy on our list is Joey Porter, JPZ.
- 17:20SPEAKER_00: Who is Joey Porter?
- 17:22SPEAKER_00: He was a Steelers linebacker.
- 17:24SPEAKER_01: Jerry Porter.
- 17:26SPEAKER_01: Jerry, we get it right.
- 17:27SPEAKER_00: He was a Steelers linebacker from 1999 to 2006.
- 17:31SPEAKER_00: He's a member of the Steelers all-time team.
- 17:34SPEAKER_00: He's a Super Bowl 40 champion, and he also uh served as an assistant coach for the Steelers from 2015 to 2018.
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: And the reason Porter makes this list, um, just a very brass, very loud guy, huge trash talker.
- 17:49SPEAKER_00: Used to come out onto the field uh with his shirt, like remember Steve, like rolled up under his like chess guard.
- 17:56SPEAKER_03: He'd show up you're like intimidated by his abs.
- 17:59SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh no, I don't have.
- 18:01SPEAKER_03: Maybe like that, maybe that's like how they intimidate Phil Kessel is like people come out and show him his abs, and Phil's like, I'm sorry, I don't have abs.
- 18:10SPEAKER_00: That would have, yeah, I mean, if Joey Porter would have played hockey, he I'm everybody would have got to see his absorption.
- 18:16SPEAKER_00: Uh Porter, the thing that always amazes me about Porter, because because Porter sometimes his act could wear thin at times, you know, and you'd be like, dude, just be quiet.
- 18:26SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't need to stir up something here.
- 18:29SPEAKER_00: But but then it would work.
- 18:32SPEAKER_00: Like he would get under the skin of other people.
- 18:35SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we did that episode about the Stewart Bengals rivalry, and we kind of detailed all the ways he psyched out the Cincinnati Bengals franchise during his time, both as a player and a coach.
- 18:46SPEAKER_00: So go back and listen to that podcast.
- 18:47SPEAKER_00: We kind of go into more detail about that.
- 18:49SPEAKER_00: But I mean, he literally got the Cincinnati Bengals to throw away their season in a playoff game against us.
- 18:56SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't even playing, he was a coach.
- 18:58SPEAKER_00: And he got them to throw away their season because he just got under their skin.
- 19:05SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, he did the same thing in Super Bowl 40, and we talked about that in our Super Bowl 40 episode.
- 19:11SPEAKER_03: Well, he called he called the uh he called the Colts soft before that playoff game in 2005 on the Super Bowl run.
- 19:19SPEAKER_03: That's right.
- 19:20SPEAKER_00: I didn't even think about that.
- 19:21SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then two weeks later he he starts this feud with Jeremy Stevens, who is the Seahawks tight end prior to Super Bowl 40.
- 19:30SPEAKER_00: And and if you watch like the Super Bowl 40 video, Cowers Cowers like, you know, he's begging, he's like, please don't, please don't, you know, cause trouble.
- 19:39SPEAKER_00: Just uh just be quiet this week.
- 19:41SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, he starts this big feud with Jeremy Stevens.
- 19:43SPEAKER_00: And Jeremy Stevens ends up having an awful, that's an awful game.
- 19:47SPEAKER_00: He's dropped dropped passes and uh you know, he just he stunk.
- 19:52SPEAKER_00: Like he was totally rattled by Porter drawing with him before the game.
- 19:57SPEAKER_00: And that was just I don't know.
- 19:59SPEAKER_00: I've never seen another athlete.
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: I've seen a lot of guys trash talk and a lot of guys shoot off their mouth.
- 20:04SPEAKER_00: I don't know how Porter got it to work, but he would get it to work.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: Porter once got ejected in Cleveland before a game even started.
- 20:13SPEAKER_00: He was fighting with the Browns running back, and they both got ejected before the game started.
- 20:17SPEAKER_00: Uh he was involved in you know a decent amount of off-the-field controversy.
- 20:22SPEAKER_00: Uh he was shot in Denver.
- 20:24SPEAKER_00: He was arrested a couple of times.
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: Uh the thing with his dogs, if you remember that, I think they killed another dog, and I think they even killed a miniature horse.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: Um Joey's Joey Porter's dogs even were causing trouble.
- 20:36SPEAKER_00: And you know, he was another guy who was beloved here.
- 20:39SPEAKER_00: Um but but a guy that just you would have hated him if he played for anyone else but the Steelers.
- 20:47SPEAKER_00: But but here he was kind of he was like he was kind of our Ray Lewis, you know, minus like all the people that Ray Lewis killed.
- 20:56SPEAKER_03: Uh I I I'm not quite sure, like, yeah, the whole uh I remember the getting kicked out in Cleveland thing because that like gave James Harrison a chance to shine.
- 21:06SPEAKER_03: And they didn't really miss him that game, and it was Cleveland, so they stink.
- 21:09SPEAKER_03: And uh are you sure it was a so it wasn't a full-size horse, it was just a miniature horse they the that his dogs killed.
- 21:16SPEAKER_00: I I didn't do the autopsy, so I don't quote me on that.
- 21:19SPEAKER_03: But I mean if if they killed like a full-size horse, that's impressive.
- 21:24SPEAKER_03: I mean, I guess even a poor miniature, I mean any horse, it's not very nice, but what kind of dog?
- 21:29SPEAKER_03: Like who would keep a dog like that?
- 21:30SPEAKER_03: That's that's wild.
- 21:32SPEAKER_00: Well, that's Joey Porter.
- 21:35SPEAKER_00: Joey Porter would keep a dog like that, yes.
- 21:37SPEAKER_00: That's your answer.
- 21:38SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 21:39SPEAKER_00: And again, that's why he's on this list.
- 21:41SPEAKER_00: Not not that incident alone, but that was that's just Joey Porter.
- 21:46SPEAKER_00: So big personality there for sure.
- 21:49SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 21:51SPEAKER_00: Uh next on our list is Doc Ellis.
- 21:54SPEAKER_00: Uh who was Doc Ellis?
- 21:55SPEAKER_00: He was a pirates pitcher between nineteen sixty eight and seventy five, and actually, um Return briefly to the Pirates in 1979.
- 22:02SPEAKER_00: I never knew that, Steve, that he played on the 79 team.
- 22:05SPEAKER_00: I don't think he was there for the postseason.
- 22:08SPEAKER_00: I think he was on that team like early in the season, but I don't think he was on the playoff or world series roster.
- 22:13SPEAKER_00: But yes, he actually played for them in 79 also.
- 22:16SPEAKER_00: Ellis started the 1971 All-Star game for the National League, and he helped lead the Pirates to their 1971 World Series Championship.
- 22:24SPEAKER_00: And the reason that Ellis is a big personality, uh he was another very brash athlete, very cocky, a guy who would say or do anything.
- 22:34SPEAKER_00: And of course, Doc Ellis is best known for a game in San Diego on June 12, 1970, in which he threw a no-hitter.
- 22:43SPEAKER_00: And you know, lots of guys have thrown no-hitters.
- 22:46SPEAKER_00: The unique thing about that game was the fact that Ellis was tripping on LSD at the time.
- 22:52SPEAKER_00: Uh he had thought that it was his day off, and he learned just a few hours before game time that he was set to pitch.
- 23:00SPEAKER_00: Uh and so he had taken a bunch of acid and not not realized he was going to pitch, and somehow goes out and throws a no-hitter.
- 23:07SPEAKER_00: And and this game has kind of become folklore over the years.
- 23:11SPEAKER_00: They've literally made documentaries about it, and the anniversary is always noted by the baseball media every year.
- 23:17SPEAKER_00: And there's all kinds of stories that you really don't know whether they're true or not, because Ellis at one point said he doesn't really even remember that game.
- 23:26SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's stories that like when he would throw a pitch to the catcher, he would see like a rainbow comet tail behind it.
- 23:33SPEAKER_00: Uh, and there's another story that he saw Richard Nixon calling balls and strikes behind home plate instead of the umpire.
- 23:39SPEAKER_00: Um so who knows?
- 23:41SPEAKER_03: I mean, was the strike zone?
- 23:42SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 23:43SPEAKER_03: Well, if the strike zone's consistent, it's all good.
- 23:45SPEAKER_03: I mean, the Nixon can go back there and call balls and strikes all he wants.
- 23:50SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it is it is a pretty amazing feat.
- 23:53SPEAKER_03: I I mean I've I've never was HR McMaster in the dugout, or I don't know who else was on the Henry Kissinger was the first base umpire, yeah.
- 24:02SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 24:04SPEAKER_03: Chuck Colson was somewhere in the crowd, I don't know.
- 24:08SPEAKER_00: Um but but I mean I I've never I've never dropped acid before, but I imagine that you know pitching a a baseball game period would be difficult, much less you know, no-hitting another ball club.
- 24:20SPEAKER_00: So that that's kind of legendary.
- 24:23SPEAKER_00: Uh Ellis was, of course, a very heavy drug user.
- 24:26SPEAKER_00: Uh he claimed to have never pitched a game sober in his life.
- 24:30SPEAKER_00: Uh it just usually wasn't LSD, it was usually greenies or some other stimulus that he would take before a game.
- 24:36SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, LSD would was one that you know would have hurt his performance a little bit more on a normal basis.
- 24:43SPEAKER_00: Uh Ellis was also an outspoken advocate for civil rights.
- 24:47SPEAKER_00: Um he often believed that anything that went against him baseball-wise was racially motivated.
- 24:51SPEAKER_00: Uh, and probably in that era a lot of it was.
- 24:55SPEAKER_00: Uh, in fact, that all-star game that we mentioned that he started, he he uh he actually publicly dared um National League manager Sparky Anderson to start him because the American League had announced they were starting Vita Blue as their pitcher, and Ellis came out publicly and said that they would, quote, never start two brothers against each other in an all-star game.
- 25:16SPEAKER_00: And so the people think that that they started him for the National League just because they you know didn't want to be seen as racist.
- 25:25SPEAKER_00: So that was that was kind of interesting that he kind of goaded them into starting him in that all-star game.
- 25:31SPEAKER_00: Uh that game was interesting because um he surrenders, it was the game was in Tiger Stadium, and Reggie Jackson hit just a monstrous home run off of him.
- 25:41SPEAKER_00: I think it I think it went on the Tiger Stadium roof.
- 25:44SPEAKER_00: And you know, the fact that they played in different leagues, they didn't face each other again until five years later when Ellis was playing for the Yankees, and Ellis beat Jackson in the face and actually sent him to the hospital.
- 25:55SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people thought that was retribution for Jackson hitting that home run off of him.
- 26:01SPEAKER_00: Ellis once famously got maced by a security guard for the Cincinnati Reds because the guard wouldn't let him into Riverfront Stadium.
- 26:08SPEAKER_00: He didn't have an ID, but he was with like Willie Stargo and one of the other players, and the guard's like, oh yeah, you guys can come in.
- 26:14SPEAKER_00: I know you played for the Pirates, but he didn't, I guess he didn't believe that Ellis was played for the Pirates, and he got into a fight with them and he got maced.
- 26:21SPEAKER_00: Ellis drove a pimped out Cadillac.
- 26:24SPEAKER_00: He once almost got into a fist fight with manager Danny Murtaw.
- 26:27SPEAKER_00: So he was kind of a wild guy, uh, but he was actually pretty smart too.
- 26:32SPEAKER_00: He uh he used to keep a notebook with all this very detailed information about each hitter's strengths and weaknesses, and he often consulted uh players on other teams like Bob Gibson or Juan Marischal for advice on how to pitch to guys, and then he would write down in the notebook, you know, so-and-so shortstop for the Phillies, and then he would jot down all these notes about how to pitch to them.
- 26:56SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it's worth noting that you know, after his career, Ellis does sober up and goes on to become an addiction counselor and actually helps a lot of people.
- 27:06SPEAKER_00: Um you can actually find quotes of people saying that like I would not be alive if not for Doc Ellis.
- 27:11SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, it when he died and you know, even long after his death, that's the first the first thing he may be, oh Doc Ellis, he's the guy that threw the game on LSD or threw the no-hitter on LSD.
- 27:24SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's it's kind of sad that that's his legacy because he did a lot of really good things after his career to help people with addiction.
- 27:33SPEAKER_03: He he also do you ever hear that story where like he just like decided he didn't want to pitch one day, so he beamed like the first four batters for the Cincinnati rank.
- 27:46SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I I did know he became an addiction uh counselor, and that's an interesting I guess just an interesting turn there, I guess, later in his life.
- 27:55SPEAKER_03: But um shows you never know, people always surprise you, huh?
- 28:00SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 28:01SPEAKER_00: And people, I think, all always deserve second chances, you know, to to to to maybe turn things around.
- 28:10SPEAKER_00: Next guy on our list is Bubby Brister.
- 28:13SPEAKER_00: Bubby Brister was a Steelers quarterback between 1986 and 1992.
- 28:18SPEAKER_00: He led the most unlikely run in Steeler history, coming within seconds of the AFC Championship game in 1989.
- 28:25SPEAKER_00: And he also later won two Super Bowls as John Elwe's backup in Denver.
- 28:29SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't just a guy that held the clipboard all year.
- 28:32SPEAKER_00: Elway had gotten hurt a couple of times during those seasons, and Brister actually uh came in and steadied the ship and kept their their uh their team afloat.
- 28:42SPEAKER_00: So he actually did contribute to those wins or to those teams, I should say.
- 28:48SPEAKER_00: So why is Brister a big personality?
- 28:50SPEAKER_00: Um like Bradshaw, he's a Louisiana guy with a real thick Southern accent and a pension for wearing his emotions on his sleeve, whether it was during a game or whether he was talking to the media.
- 29:02SPEAKER_00: Um Steve told a story in the previous previous podcast of Tim Rowley, the the running back for the Steelers, didn't know the snap count.
- 29:10SPEAKER_00: And Brewster's trying to tell him, and finally, Brister just like in full audible voice for the TV cameras and for the opposing defense, just yells, it's on bleeping two.
- 29:21SPEAKER_00: So it's just Brister just often wears emotions on his sleeve.
- 29:27SPEAKER_00: Uh in 1988, the Steelers have a three-way battle for the starting QB job between Brister, Todd Blackledge, and Steve Bono.
- 29:34SPEAKER_00: And Brister declares that he's, quote, the man, and he was, he won that job.
- 29:39SPEAKER_00: Um, he once said that Tom Moore's offense was, quote, so complex and conservative that we might as well punt on first down.
- 29:46SPEAKER_00: Uh that quote didn't age well considering that Tom Moore went on to coordinate all those great Peyton Bang offenses later.
- 29:53SPEAKER_00: Uh Brewster also did not get along with his next offensive coordinator, Joe Walton.
- 29:59SPEAKER_00: Uh Walton claimed that Brewster couldn't remember the formations.
- 30:03SPEAKER_00: And after Brister lost his job in 1991, the Steelers were playing in Houston.
- 30:09SPEAKER_00: They were getting just blown out by the Oilers.
- 30:13SPEAKER_00: And Techno wanted Brister to come into the game late since they were getting blown out.
- 30:17SPEAKER_00: And Brister refused, saying that, quote, I don't mop up for any I don't mop up for anybody.
- 30:23SPEAKER_00: And Techno I say Techno had to put in Rick Strom, who was the third string quarterback instead.
- 30:30SPEAKER_00: So Brister just, you know, Brister kind of um, you know, just just always always kind of did whatever, you know, what was best for Bubby or whatever he kind of wanted to do for better or worse.
- 30:44SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes really ticked people off, but that was Bubby.
- 30:49SPEAKER_00: He was also a bit of a of a womanizer.
- 30:52SPEAKER_00: Uh he was very uh into the ladies and wasn't shy about that.
- 30:56SPEAKER_00: In 1990, a local station here in Pittsburgh created a talk show called Bubby and the Blonde, which was supposed to be him co-hosting a talk show with some hot woman.
- 31:07SPEAKER_00: Uh and that never came to be because the the hot woman that they wanted to do the show was this lady from ESPN who was actually like a professional and not just a bimbo.
- 31:16SPEAKER_00: And um, she was really upset that they asked her to do this and you know, rightly um refused to do it and said I'm not going to be objectified on some show with Bubby Burster trying to talk about sports.
- 31:28SPEAKER_00: So that never came to pass.
- 31:31SPEAKER_03: One of those Sally Wigan wasn't available.
- 31:35SPEAKER_00: No, apparently not.
- 31:37SPEAKER_03: Could you imagine trying to do that show today?
- 31:40SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh you can do that show in like 1990, never mind.
- 31:44SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
- 31:45SPEAKER_03: Like things were a lot different back then, I guess, for better or worse.
- 31:50SPEAKER_03: Yes.
- 31:51SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's probably was smart on like whoever, I don't know who that was.
- 31:54SPEAKER_03: I never heard that one before, but that was a smart move on her part because it just would have like in the she wouldn't have got like she just would have always been known as oh, you're the other, you know.
- 32:04SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're the you're the your Bobby's bimbo, basically.
- 32:07SPEAKER_00: I mean that was that was a idea.
- 32:10SPEAKER_03: That would have been that yeah, that's in yeah, nah, not good.
- 32:14SPEAKER_00: Not good.
- 32:16SPEAKER_00: But but the bobster was, yeah, the bumpster was not not the best quarterback, for sure.
- 32:22SPEAKER_00: But just he was definitely entertaining.
- 32:24SPEAKER_00: It was just you never knew what was gonna come out of his mouth.
- 32:27SPEAKER_03: Well, I remember the one year like they asked like the Steelers, they did like, oh, what do you want for Christmas?
- 32:32SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Yeah, the Swedish bikini team.
- 32:34SPEAKER_03: And it was like, okay, all right, Bobby.
- 32:37SPEAKER_03: Yep.
- 32:38SPEAKER_00: That's Bubby.
- 32:39SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a Bubby quint all the way.
- 32:42SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't know if he got the Swedish bikini team for Christmas or not.
- 32:45SPEAKER_03: But I mean maybe he was really good that year.
- 32:48SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
- 32:54SPEAKER_00: The uh the next guy on our list is Darius Casparetis.
- 32:59SPEAKER_00: Casparetis was a penguins defenseman from 1996 to 2002.
- 33:03SPEAKER_00: He was a hard-hitting, stay-at-home kind of agitator who, kind of like Joey Porter, could get under the skin of any opponent.
- 33:12SPEAKER_00: Uh, he also scored the most unlikely goal in NHL history, beating Dominic Koshak in overtime of Game 7 of the 2001 Eastern Conference semifinals.
- 33:22SPEAKER_00: And why Casparitus was a big personality, he was very, always very bold, he was always very unafraid on the ice.
- 33:29SPEAKER_00: Uh, during his rookie season with the Islanders, one hockey journalist wrote that Casparitus, quote, shows an unusual lack of respect and deference for established NHL stars.
- 33:40SPEAKER_00: And that was absolutely true of his whole career.
- 33:44SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in fact, that year, he was he was a big part of the Islanders monumental upset of the penguins in the playoffs, and he really terrorized Mary Lemie, and certainly did not show him any kind of respect or deference uh in that series.
- 33:58SPEAKER_00: And so the Penguins kind of did the only thing they could, which was acquire Casparatus three years later.
- 34:03SPEAKER_00: And it was funny because he went from being hated in this town to just being absolutely beloved.
- 34:08SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, Casparatus, when he came here, he had this very long hair.
- 34:13SPEAKER_00: And he and he cut his hair after he was in Pittsburgh for a while because he said he was tired of being recognized everywhere he went.
- 34:22SPEAKER_00: Uh so he was trying to blend in more.
- 34:24SPEAKER_00: I guess in Long Island he could sort of go out and not everybody knew who he was, but in Pittsburgh, everybody's like, oh my gosh, it's Darius Casparatus, and he was not used to that.
- 34:32SPEAKER_00: So he tried to like change his look so that people wouldn't recognize him.
- 34:37SPEAKER_00: Casparatus once once uh clocked Eric Lindross and knocked him out of the lineup for weeks.
- 34:42SPEAKER_00: I think that probably endeared him here more than anybody, uh, or more than any other thing he did because just because people hated the flyers so much, especially back then.
- 34:52SPEAKER_00: Uh Caspar definitely kind of played loose with the roles and the clean play.
- 34:57SPEAKER_00: Uh he's another guy that, you know, very hated by every other fan base.
- 35:02SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a story of Gino Otik.
- 35:05SPEAKER_00: If you remember Gino Otik, he was another kind of like just you know goon.
- 35:10SPEAKER_00: Uh he once he once sucker punched Casparitis pretty bad.
- 35:15SPEAKER_00: In fact, it got Otik suspended for eight games.
- 35:18SPEAKER_00: And Casparitas was really upset, not just because he got sucker punched, but because he had recently taken Otik and Pavel Burry ice fishing.
- 35:26SPEAKER_00: And he he actually calls up Pavel Burry and he's like, hey, I I thought we were friends.
- 35:31SPEAKER_00: I like I took him ice fishing, and he sucker punches me in the back of the head, and Pavel Bury's like, Yeah, he doesn't care that you took him ice fishing.
- 35:38SPEAKER_00: He's he's you know, he's a goon like you.
- 35:40SPEAKER_00: He's gonna sucker punch people.
- 35:42SPEAKER_00: I just I've always thought that was an interesting story because you know it's like he he just Casper I did that kind of stuff all the time, but he got his feelings like so hurt when somebody else did it to him.
- 35:54SPEAKER_00: Uh there's another story of him getting a ticket.
- 35:57SPEAKER_00: Um a bunch of the penguins were in Calgary for a game, and they're walking around the streets of Calgary, and um they're going through an intersection, and the the the the walk sign or the stop sign is up, and Casparitis just goes through the intersection anyway, and a policeman comes up and he's gonna give him a ticket for jaywalking.
- 36:19SPEAKER_00: And I guess at first the players kind of all react badly to that, and now the police officer's threatening to arrest them.
- 36:25SPEAKER_00: And Casparitas actually inflames the situation by telling the cop that Brad Warenka, who is one of his penguins teammates, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico.
- 36:37SPEAKER_00: And that he snuck into Canada.
- 36:40SPEAKER_00: So now Casparitas, like the cops are already threatening to arrest them because they're getting testy with him over this jaywalking ticket.
- 36:46SPEAKER_00: And Caspar's like, oh, did you know this guy's a here illegally from Mexico?
- 36:50SPEAKER_00: And Brad Warrenka was not from Mexico.
- 36:53SPEAKER_00: So um, but but but by the end of this, um, the whole thing, like the cops actually laughing, and and Casparitas is getting him tickets to that night's game.
- 37:03SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of Darius Casparitas.
- 37:05SPEAKER_00: Like he could he could stir up trouble, but you know, deep down he was just a a a fun-loving guy.
- 37:13SPEAKER_00: We did that episode about the 2001 Penguins uh and how he scored that goal against Hawshick, and we play we played the clip of where he was interviewed uh you know literally like two minutes after he scored the biggest goal of his life, and he's talking about like how he owns Dominic Haushick now.
- 37:30SPEAKER_00: I mean he's being totally facetious, of course, but that was just Casparatus, just just always entertaining.
- 37:37SPEAKER_00: Um when he left here, he said he he would have really liked to have a street named after him in Pittsburgh.
- 37:43SPEAKER_00: So I I'd I'd love to petition for that to happen someday.
- 37:46SPEAKER_00: I think he deserves it.
- 37:48SPEAKER_03: What street?
- 37:49SPEAKER_03: Yeah, where where would the street be?
- 37:51SPEAKER_03: Like you put it, I don't know, put it around the arena somewhere.
- 37:54SPEAKER_03: Like maybe it could be a parking lot, Casparitus parking lot or something.
- 37:59SPEAKER_03: There you go.
- 37:59SPEAKER_03: I parked in the Casparitus a lot and somebody slashed my tires.
- 38:03SPEAKER_03: No.
- 38:07SPEAKER_00: But yeah, Casper was fun, Steve.
- 38:09SPEAKER_00: I mean, what do you remember about Darius Casparitus?
- 38:12SPEAKER_03: Uh him knocking out uh what's his name?
- 38:15SPEAKER_03: Uh the guy, the guy from the flowers, yeah, Lindros.
- 38:18SPEAKER_03: And and like like I I do remember him like in that '93 series, like just, oh my god, he tortured the penguins.
- 38:26SPEAKER_03: But it was kind of like, well, if you can't beat him, join him.
- 38:29SPEAKER_03: So he just he's like you said, he's just one of those hockey kind of he wasn't like a goon per se, but he was just kind of more of an agitator.
- 38:40SPEAKER_03: He wasn't like Donald Brashir or you know, somebody who was just straight fight all the time, but like a Matthew Barnaby or somebody like they were just like an agitator, more like that.
- 38:51SPEAKER_03: Like Maxine Talbot or you know, some something like that.
- 38:55SPEAKER_00: Like one of those kind of guys.
- 38:58SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a that's a good distinction.
- 38:59SPEAKER_00: You're right.
- 39:00SPEAKER_00: He wasn't like Taidomi or one of the like one of those guys that just went out there to drop the gloves and or and or protect the star player by force.
- 39:10SPEAKER_00: He was more just of a, like you said, get under people's skin, um, get under the skin of the fans, uh, and he was very good at that.
- 39:19unknown: Yeah.
- 39:20SPEAKER_03: It's uh it there is like an art to that.
- 39:23SPEAKER_03: There really is.
- 39:24SPEAKER_03: Uh but give him credit, he was good at it.
- 39:28SPEAKER_00: He sure was.
- 39:31SPEAKER_00: So the next guy on our list is somebody that you probably won't have heard of.
- 39:36SPEAKER_00: It's Rube Waddell.
- 39:38SPEAKER_00: Rube Waddell was a turn of the century pitcher for the Pirates way, way back when.
- 39:43SPEAKER_00: He led the National League in ERA in the year 1900.
- 39:46SPEAKER_00: And he was a pretty good pitcher.
- 39:47SPEAKER_00: He's in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
- 39:49SPEAKER_00: So why was Rube Baudell a big personality?
- 39:53SPEAKER_00: Uh so I think this kind of sums it up.
- 39:56SPEAKER_00: The newspaper headline when Waddell later signed with the Philadelphia Athletics was quote, Rue Baudell, human freak, signs with athletics.
- 40:05SPEAKER_00: And that was literally the newspaper headline in Philadelphia.
- 40:08SPEAKER_00: So why was he a human freak?
- 40:10SPEAKER_00: Well, there are lots of reasons.
- 40:11SPEAKER_00: Um Waddell would often leave in the middle of games to go fishing.
- 40:16SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he would often just go A-WOL.
- 40:18SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't show up for games or he'd disappear from Team Hotel.
- 40:21SPEAKER_00: Uh once when he was in the minors, he showed up really late for a game and then sat in the stands and watched it for a while, and then when his team was losing, he walked onto the field and declared that he was, quote, there to save the game.
- 40:34SPEAKER_00: Uh if a fire truck this one's really weird.
- 40:36SPEAKER_00: If a fire truck passed the field, while Dell would run off and he said he was apparently obsessed with firemen.
- 40:45SPEAKER_00: He he got he when he was three years old, his parents found him.
- 40:49SPEAKER_00: He got lost for like three days, and his parents found him at a fire station because he just wandered down there and he had to even work as a volunteer firefighter.
- 40:56SPEAKER_00: He also held a bunch of other jobs, which was not uncommon in those days.
- 40:59SPEAKER_00: I mean, you didn't baseball players didn't get paid what they got paid today.
- 41:03SPEAKER_00: So, um, especially in the offseason, you had to have another job.
- 41:06SPEAKER_00: But the kind of the sheer number in the kind of the weird jobs he held.
- 41:10SPEAKER_00: Uh he was a bartender, he was a semi-pro football player, he was an alligator wrestler.
- 41:16SPEAKER_00: If you didn't know that was a profession, apparently it was.
- 41:19SPEAKER_00: Uh how much does that pay an hour?
- 41:22SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 41:23SPEAKER_00: Probably depends on you know how long you survive.
- 41:26SPEAKER_00: Uh and and then he was a parade baton thraller.
- 41:29SPEAKER_00: And some of the stuff he did during the offseason, like other ball players, but other stuff he he literally did it not only during the season, but before after games.
- 41:38SPEAKER_00: And and there's a lot of baseball historians that speculate.
- 41:42SPEAKER_03: We gotta wrap this up.
- 41:43SPEAKER_03: My shift is a baton twirl that starts in 20 minutes.
- 41:47SPEAKER_03: Wrap this game up here.
- 41:49SPEAKER_00: Well, and and I, you know, to the previous point, he didn't always wait for the game to wrap up.
- 41:53SPEAKER_00: He would just leave.
- 41:55SPEAKER_02: Uh he'd be like, sorry.
- 41:57SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 41:58SPEAKER_02: Gotta go.
- 42:02SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lot of baseball historians that speculate that he suffered from ADHD or some other cognitive disorder, um, you know, which was something that wouldn't have obviously been diagnosed back then.
- 42:14SPEAKER_00: And and his antics really became well known with fans.
- 42:18SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of people knew who he was and knew of these stories.
- 42:22SPEAKER_00: And after a while, there's kind of a lot of stories about him that go around that you know maybe aren't true.
- 42:29SPEAKER_00: So like there's a story that he supposedly made a factory explode by hitting a foul ball into it.
- 42:34SPEAKER_00: That's probably untrue.
- 42:37SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a story that he um that he got bit by a lion because he punched said lion in the face.
- 42:44SPEAKER_00: Oh who punches a lion in the face?
- 42:47SPEAKER_00: Jeez.
- 42:48SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 42:48SPEAKER_00: So again, you know, this was this was before the days um when you can kind of independently verify you know stories like this.
- 42:57SPEAKER_00: Not not like today where you have a very trustworthy media.
- 43:00SPEAKER_03: Thank God PETA wasn't around and seen him uh do that, punching lions in the face.
- 43:07SPEAKER_00: Uh Boydell was also a massive, massive alcoholic.
- 43:12SPEAKER_00: Uh had several divorces that were all the the reasons were always um his drunkenness, and apparently was kind of a violent drunk.
- 43:21SPEAKER_00: He would go on benders, he would disappear on days on end.
- 43:24SPEAKER_00: He actually had two stints with the pirates.
- 43:26SPEAKER_00: He he signed with them first in 1897, and his first day with the pirates, he sits he sits next to the pirates' manager at breakfast.
- 43:34SPEAKER_00: The pirates' manager in 1897 was a guy named Patsy Donovan.
- 43:38SPEAKER_00: And after breakfast, Donovan, because he had sat next to him and just heard him talk the whole time, decides, yeah, you're crazy, you're not going to play for me.
- 43:46SPEAKER_00: And he releases him right after breakfast is over.
- 43:51SPEAKER_00: So uh that was his first in with the Pirates.
- 43:54SPEAKER_00: He signs with them again in 1900, and that's when he has some success.
- 43:58SPEAKER_00: At this point, Fred Clark was Pirates manager.
- 44:00SPEAKER_00: Clark was a strict disciplinarian, so it didn't take long for he and Rube to clash.
- 44:07SPEAKER_00: And so even though Waddell had you know some pretty good stats and a solid season, Clark suspends him at one point, and by 19-1, the Pirates are done with his antics.
- 44:17SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's a shame 'cause he was actually a pretty good pitcher.
- 44:20SPEAKER_00: He actually pitches baseball one of baseball's first ever immaculate innings.
- 44:24SPEAKER_00: That's where you get three strikeouts on nine pitches.
- 44:29SPEAKER_00: And he does end up having much more success later in his career playing for the Ace.
- 44:34SPEAKER_00: Um, where Connie Mack was the manager.
- 44:37SPEAKER_00: I think Matt Mack kind of managed to do what Mike Tomlin was able to do with Antonio Brown for so many years, which was to kind of keep the psychopathic behavior under control for as long as possible until you know it just wasn't possible any longer.
- 44:52SPEAKER_00: Well, Dell ends up dying at the young age of 37.
- 44:55SPEAKER_00: All the years of alcoholism and killing his liver.
- 44:58SPEAKER_00: Uh, catch up to him pretty quickly.
- 45:01SPEAKER_00: Alligator wrestling and chasing fire trucks, probably.
- 45:05SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 45:06SPEAKER_00: Punting lions in the face.
- 45:08SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 45:09SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 45:10SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 45:11SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, kind of a forgotten character there in Pittsburgh Sports, but definitely a definitely a big personality.
- 45:19SPEAKER_03: Connie Mack got him to behave like in his little suit and tie.
- 45:22SPEAKER_03: You know, Connie Mack managed in like a coat and tie.
- 45:25SPEAKER_03: Talk about an odd couple.
- 45:28SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think yeah, again, it was just it was a guy that he saw talent and he was like, if you can just not self-destruct, you know, we can harness his talent.
- 45:37SPEAKER_00: And Connie Mack even um hired people to like follow him around and stuff.
- 45:42SPEAKER_00: Uh and and even that didn't quite work because Widell would like, you know, he would like fool the fool whoever his handler was into, like, oh, I'm just gonna go to the restroom or whatever, and then he'd sneak out and get a drink.
- 45:55SPEAKER_00: So um but Mac tried and he and he did get several really good seasons out of him.
- 46:00SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that was a good team, that that A's of that era.
- 46:03SPEAKER_00: So the next guy on our list is Greg Lloyd.
- 46:08SPEAKER_00: Lloyd was a Steelers linebacker from 1987 to 1997.
- 46:12SPEAKER_00: He's a five-time Pro Bowler, and he was a two-time Steelers MVP.
- 46:17SPEAKER_00: Uh, was just recently inducted into the Steelers um Hall of Honor.
- 46:21SPEAKER_00: Why was Lloyd a big personality?
- 46:23SPEAKER_00: Uh he was a ferocious, ferocious pass rusher, and he was kind of a guy that just kind of, I don't know, for for lack of a better description, just gave zero bleeps about what anybody thought or anybody's opinion.
- 46:37SPEAKER_00: Uh he was a mean and scary human being, both on the field and off the field.
- 46:42SPEAKER_00: He was a black belt in Taekwondo and very intimidating.
- 46:45SPEAKER_00: Uh when I was in high school, I worked at a fast food place and Lloyd used to come in there, and we sometimes we had you know um pro athletes or other kind of known Pittsburgh figures come in, and people would always say, Oh, you're whoever, whoever, and and they'd be very congenial and nice.
- 47:03SPEAKER_00: And it was made very clear to us that when Greg Lloyd comes in, you don't you don't, you know, um just slobber over him be like, oh, you're Greg Lloyd.
- 47:12SPEAKER_00: You just get him his food and and treat him like any other customer and get him out of there.
- 47:17SPEAKER_00: Uh, because he was he was not somebody that put up with that.
- 47:24SPEAKER_03: Wow.
- 47:26SPEAKER_03: I could imagine, yeah.
- 47:28SPEAKER_03: Here's your food.
- 47:29SPEAKER_03: Goodbye, sir.
- 47:30SPEAKER_03: Enjoy your chicken.
- 47:33SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very soup naughty.
- 47:35SPEAKER_00: Like step over here.
- 47:38SPEAKER_03: Was this Boston Market?
- 47:40SPEAKER_03: It was Boston market, wasn't it?
- 47:41SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's where I worked.
- 47:43SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 47:44SPEAKER_03: Yep.
- 47:44SPEAKER_03: Here's your half chicken, sir.
- 47:46SPEAKER_03: Enjoy it with your mashed potatoes.
- 47:48SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 47:51SPEAKER_00: Um he wasn't mean.
- 47:53SPEAKER_00: He was never net, like he never was really mean to anybody.
- 47:56SPEAKER_00: He was just he just gave off this vibe where like you didn't you didn't want to mess around with him.
- 48:03SPEAKER_00: And that's the way he was on the field, too.
- 48:04SPEAKER_00: He was he was always embroiled in some kind of controversy.
- 48:08SPEAKER_00: Uh his first ever NFL game, he's ejected from because uh he has a late hit on Gary Kubiak, who uh later goes on to coach the Broncos to a Super Bowl years later, and he gets ejected, and in front of the NBC cameras, he gives like the FU sign on his way off the field.
- 48:26SPEAKER_00: Uh and that was his first ever game.
- 48:29SPEAKER_00: Uh Joe Namath was a commentator back then for um, I believe, NBC, and he once criticized Lloyd uh during a game he was announcing, and they asked Lloyd about it, and here was his response: quote, who is Joe Namath?
- 48:44SPEAKER_00: This is a guy who, if he played in the league today, I'd probably just go hit him late and see what he did just for the hell of it.
- 48:50SPEAKER_00: Joe Namath can go to hell.
- 48:52SPEAKER_00: And that was that was sacrilege at the time.
- 48:57SPEAKER_00: And that was sacrilege at the time because you have to remember that you know, Joe Namath, his reputation is a little different today, I would say.
- 49:05SPEAKER_00: But back then, the the media and and kind of the the adult football fans of that of that era were all the the baby boomers who Joe Namath was their hero because he was like the 60s counterculture guy that you know bucked the trend and and won the Super Bowl for the AFL.
- 49:23SPEAKER_00: And he he was he was very much a um you know he was almost like a pope for a lot of people in that generation.
- 49:31SPEAKER_00: And to say Joe Namoth can go to hell, that really, really upset a lot of people.
- 49:37SPEAKER_00: Uh speaking of the Jets, he also once concussed Jets wide receiver Al Toon and then did like the WWE style like three count as Al Toon was like laying there motionless on the field.
- 49:49SPEAKER_00: That also upset a few people.
- 49:51SPEAKER_00: Uh when the Steelers won the 1995 AFC Championship game, uh they were interviewing Greg Lloyd and he drops an F-bomb live on NBC.
- 50:00SPEAKER_00: I I Steve, was that Jim Gray interviewing him?
- 50:03SPEAKER_00: I I just remember the reaction.
- 50:05SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Jim Gray was like, oh my goodness.
- 50:08SPEAKER_03: Like he like clutched his pearls really like it.
- 50:11SPEAKER_03: Didn't didn't uh was Greg Lloyd the one that said he was gonna knock Dan Marino in the next week?
- 50:16SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I forgot I left that off.
- 50:19SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
- 50:20SPEAKER_03: He said I'm gonna knock and everybody was kind of like the same way people reacted to Joe Namath.
- 50:25SPEAKER_03: Like, like, oh my gosh, not Dan Marino.
- 50:28SPEAKER_03: It's like, yeah.
- 50:29SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 50:31SPEAKER_00: Um Lloyd was once charged with allegedly sticking a gun in the mouth of his 12-year-old son.
- 50:37SPEAKER_00: That was not good.
- 50:39SPEAKER_00: Um I I think in in terms of like his playing career, I think the thing with his son, I think, was after he retired.
- 50:46SPEAKER_00: In terms of his playing career, for me, the most bizarre incident was the 1997 incident with Keenan McCardo.
- 50:54SPEAKER_00: So McCardo was a wide receiver.
- 50:56SPEAKER_00: He played for the Jaguars at the time, but he previously played for the Browns.
- 50:59SPEAKER_00: So he had been in the Steelers division for years.
- 51:02SPEAKER_00: And in the in the Jacksonville Pittsburgh game that year, the one that was at Pittsburgh, Lloyd just crushes McCardo late on the very first play of the game.
- 51:12SPEAKER_00: It's a real cheap shot, and he's screaming at McArdle to quote, own up to what you did.
- 51:18SPEAKER_00: And what Lloyd was talking about was that apparently someone had been making phone calls to his house all week, threatening his family, and like leaving these messages on his answering machine.
- 51:28SPEAKER_00: And Lloyd was convinced that that was McArdle because supposedly the caller identified himself as Keenan McArdle.
- 51:36SPEAKER_00: And like I remember this.
- 51:41SPEAKER_03: It's ridiculous, yeah.
- 51:42SPEAKER_00: It really is.
- 51:43SPEAKER_00: I mean, McArdle was really upset about that.
- 51:46SPEAKER_03: And I and I and I mean it's Keenan McCardle, yeah.
- 51:49SPEAKER_03: It's Keenan McArdle number 87 for Jacksonville.
- 51:52SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 51:52SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 51:54SPEAKER_00: Your family's dead, your wife's dead, your kids are dead.
- 51:56SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is number 87.
- 51:58SPEAKER_00: 8087.
- 51:59SPEAKER_00: Just remember that on Sunday.
- 52:01SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah.
- 52:02SPEAKER_00: It makes no sense.
- 52:04SPEAKER_00: And and McArdle was really upset about it.
- 52:05SPEAKER_00: And I don't I don't blame McCardo.
- 52:07SPEAKER_00: I think he was he was just like, are you kidding me?
- 52:10SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't call your house.
- 52:11SPEAKER_00: That's that why would I do that?
- 52:13SPEAKER_00: So um, that was that was a bizarre, that was a really bizarre incident.
- 52:17SPEAKER_00: But that was Greg Lloyd.
- 52:18SPEAKER_00: He was often involved in stuff like that.
- 52:20SPEAKER_00: Uh, because he was Greg Lloyd.
- 52:22SPEAKER_00: He was a very effective player, a really good player.
- 52:25SPEAKER_00: Um, just a little out of control at times, uh, and a very big personality.
- 52:32SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I forgot about I I I I kind of forgot about Greg Lloyd because they really didn't they really didn't win much with it.
- 52:39SPEAKER_03: I mean, I guess they went to that one Super Bowl.
- 52:43SPEAKER_03: I mean, they won a lot of regular season games, but they never won a championship, and they only went to one Super Bowl with him.
- 52:48SPEAKER_03: So after 97, he really kind of disappeared.
- 52:52SPEAKER_03: Like he really, yeah.
- 52:53SPEAKER_00: He got hurt the very first game of the 96 season, he tore his ACL, and then he was just never he that was basically the wasn't the official end of his career, but he was never, he never was Greg Lloyd after that, unfortunately.
- 53:08SPEAKER_00: Alright, we're gonna do one last guy, and it's Andy Vance.
- 53:12SPEAKER_00: Andy Vance was a pirate center fielder from 1987 to 93, a three-time All-Star, uh really good hitter, but probably was best known for um his fielding.
- 53:23SPEAKER_00: He was a five-time gold glove winner for the Pirates and was always known for these highlight rail catches that he would make in center field.
- 53:30SPEAKER_00: And he's a big personality because he was just really a fun guy.
- 53:35SPEAKER_00: Uh in 1992, Sports Illustrated called him, quote, the most entertaining player in baseball.
- 53:41SPEAKER_00: And he just had like all these great one-liners.
- 53:44SPEAKER_00: Um once he was asked if there was any anyone in the world who he would want to trade places with for a day, and he said, quote, my wife, so I could see how wonderful it is to live with me.
- 53:55SPEAKER_00: Um he was asked about a bad day at the plate, and he said, I quote, I couldn't have driven Miss Daisy home today, which was you know a timely joke at the time.
- 54:05SPEAKER_00: Uh on the on the difference between playing at home on the road, Van Syke said, quote, on the road, when you go downstairs for coffee in your underwear, they throw you out of the kitchen.
- 54:15SPEAKER_00: So that was just Danny Van Syck.
- 54:17SPEAKER_00: Like you you would always, anytime you would interview any Vance, you would always get a great nugget to put in the newspaper or to play on the the sports center or whatever.
- 54:26SPEAKER_00: He just was an entertaining guy.
- 54:29SPEAKER_00: Um he also used to always play pranks on his teammates.
- 54:32SPEAKER_00: He would do the pie in the face thing while they were being interviewed or or you know, set some kind of booby trap for them or something like that.
- 54:39SPEAKER_00: He was always just creating antics like that.
- 54:42SPEAKER_00: Um he was never a guy that got flummoxed too easy easily.
- 54:46SPEAKER_00: He said actually that um early in his career he had, or earlier in his life he had a really bad temper, and then he found Jesus and he just kind of uh became a lot more patient and a lot more content and relaxed in life.
- 55:00SPEAKER_00: Uh when he was playing in the minors in North Carolina, he had a black roommate who was dating a white woman, and that didn't sit too well with some of the locals down there.
- 55:10SPEAKER_00: And so one night a guy came to the apartment and pointed a loaded gun right at Van Slyke's chest and demanded to for him to go get the roommate and who knows what he was going to do then.
- 55:22SPEAKER_00: And Van Slyke somehow calmly persuaded the guy to put the gun down and and leave.
- 55:27SPEAKER_00: So Andy Van Slyke was not a guy that got rattled very easily.
- 55:32SPEAKER_00: Um he was also very opinionated.
- 55:35SPEAKER_00: If you go back and read his quoted opinions on some kind of like hot button social issues, it's definitely stuff that would get him canceled today.
- 55:44SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you know, back then, I don't know, you could kind of give your opinion a little more freely without people just going crazy if their opinion didn't match yours.
- 55:55SPEAKER_00: Uh one time that he actually did get in hot water was during the um 1991 Gulf War.
- 56:02SPEAKER_00: Uh Major League Baseball um decided to go patriotic, and they they dec they declared that all the players would wear um U.S.
- 56:11SPEAKER_00: and Canadian flags on their batting helmet as a patriotic gesture.
- 56:14SPEAKER_00: And Van Slype, Van Slick actually scrapes the maple leaf off his helmet, the Canada decal, and he says, quote, I guess people in Quebec won't be upset because the last time we were there they booed the Canadian National Anthem.
- 56:28SPEAKER_00: Um and the the um commissioner of baseball was Faye Vincent at the time.
- 56:33SPEAKER_00: He he like ordered that Van Slick have the decal put back onto his helmet.
- 56:38SPEAKER_00: So that that that caused a bit of a stir.
- 56:41SPEAKER_00: Um but you know it's Canada, so nobody really cared that much.
- 56:46SPEAKER_00: Uh I will say one guy that was not a fan of any Vance antics was uh a teammate of his, a guy named Barry Bonds.
- 56:54SPEAKER_00: Bonds was very, very resentful of Vance Lake.
- 56:57SPEAKER_00: Uh, he called him the Great White Hope.
- 56:59SPEAKER_00: Uh he said, quote, Mr.
- 57:01SPEAKER_00: Pittsburgh, anybody touches Van Slake on this club and he gets released.
- 57:05SPEAKER_00: Um that that was a source of a lot of tension when those two played next to each other in the outfield.
- 57:11SPEAKER_00: But, you know, Andy Vance, definitely a fun guy, definitely a memorable guy.
- 57:16SPEAKER_00: Steve, one of my favorite uh athletes growing up, uh, always had very fond memories of Andy Vance.
- 57:24SPEAKER_03: I remember one time in the dugout he put like a duck, like one of them little rubber ducks on a bat and was like holding it around.
- 57:30SPEAKER_03: Just like silly stuff like that.
- 57:32SPEAKER_03: He did like a lot of like just like silly stuff.
- 57:35SPEAKER_03: But I don't know.
- 57:38SPEAKER_03: I I don't remember him like I don't remember him saying like a lot of like controversial stuff.
- 57:43SPEAKER_03: I didn't know about the I like I like he escaped he scraped the the Canadian flag off.
- 57:48SPEAKER_03: That's pretty funny.
- 57:49SPEAKER_03: So they made him put him back, made him put him back on.
- 57:52SPEAKER_03: But but yeah, I wonder, yeah.
- 57:55SPEAKER_03: I wonder I wonder how like some of these guys would have I guess today people just don't say as much.
- 58:01SPEAKER_03: That's why nobody you just try not to or fly under the radar or like like you know, wait till you retire and then say a bunch of silly stuff.
- 58:10SPEAKER_03: That way, you know, they can't people can't really cancel you as easily.
- 58:14SPEAKER_03: So right.
- 58:17unknown: Right.
- 58:17SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really no benefit in giving your opinion.
- 58:21SPEAKER_00: Uh although, you know, to be honest, even if you're not a celebrity, I don't know if there's a lot of benefit to giving your public opinion on you know very controversial uh issues if you're gonna whether you're posting it on Twitter or whatever.
- 58:33SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're just you're just gonna have a bunch of people fighting with you or a bunch of people you know agreeing with you, and it is it really worth it?
- 58:41SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
- 58:42SPEAKER_00: But to each his own, I guess.
- 58:46SPEAKER_03: Well, we're really into the controversy here on this podcast.
- 58:50SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 58:52SPEAKER_03: How many episodes and then uh probably not so much.
- 58:55SPEAKER_03: It's yeah.
- 58:56SPEAKER_00: No, and that's why we will not touch politics with a 10-foot pole on this on this podcast.
- 59:02SPEAKER_00: So so that's our that's our list of um big personalities.
- 59:06SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of folks we left off.
- 59:07SPEAKER_00: I I think we could probably easily do a part two of this someday.
- 59:11SPEAKER_00: Um, because I there's a handful of guys that that we probably could have easily covered as well.
- 59:17SPEAKER_00: If you feel like we left anybody off, uh please let us know.
- 59:20SPEAKER_00: Really, really appreciate everybody listening and taking the time to subscribe and download.
- 59:25SPEAKER_00: Um, you can catch us on social media, uh, you can catch us on our website, all those links are in the show description.
- 59:32SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we will catch you all next time.
- 59:36SPEAKER_03: Bye-bye.