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Top 10 Most Reviled Pittsburgh Sports Figures · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm Steve Wirt.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm Tim Hannon.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: On today's list, we're going to let the hate flow.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: This is the most reviled people in sports Pittsburgh sports history.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: There's a people that have uh played sports here or just major sports figures.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: We have owners, politicians.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a motley crew.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to have some fun today and uh hopefully um not get any lawsuits from the really rich people that we're insulting.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: And so and so, yeah, two things about how we're gonna do this.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: One is this is this is, like Steve said, people that are Pittsburgh sports figures, not the people that we've played against, but people that have played for or been associated with a Pittsburgh sports franchise.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh and then we're gonna do it, we're gonna do our top ten, but we're gonna start with sort of a uh best of the rest, just a bunch of honorable mentions that didn't quite make it into the top ten, and that's where we're gonna start.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, to start off, we're gonna start with a guy who was here to probably just had a cup of coffee in Pittsburgh, but uh good old Legarrett Blunt, and this uh leads none to another person that I love to rip on, Bill Belichick.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh Leguerrett Blunt got himself kicked off the Steelers so he could play for the Patriots.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And how he did that was was they were texting him.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was McDaniel or actually Belichick, one of them was texting him telling, if you were to get cut, we would have a roster spot for you.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm no like expert in NFL tampering rules, but I'm pretty sure that's tampering.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that to a current player.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: So what Legarrett Blunt did was he literally walked off the field before the game was o over and forced Mike Tomlin to cut him because of his bad behavior.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Which it's just the most ridiculous, and nothing was done about it.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Not anything.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: It's just like I just can't believe the Patriots got away with that.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess I shouldn't.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they do a million things that are ten times worse, but that's just it hurt the Steelers too, because they went into the playoffs that year.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh, Le'Veon Bell ended up getting hurt in the last game of the season, and Legar Bump was their capable backup, and they didn't have him.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: And they had I I forget who they signed for that Baltimore playoff game.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: It said to sign some guy off the street like the week before.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: So they went into the playoffs without a running back because Blunt had sort of played his way off the team.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Not a guy.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: And then he went and win won the Super Bowl with New England.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: So not not a guy that Steelers fans uh remember very fondly.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't here very long, but I mean and he's just a kind of a mediocre running back anyway.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: But it's just the whole fact that like the way he conducted himself, that was ridiculous.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: So next up is um a person, another person that uh played for the Steelers that had a cup of coffee here.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh Michael Vick.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, I for one, I think you know, I've made mistakes.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: We've all made mistakes.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's perfect.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, there are things in your past that you know are gonna get brought up and he did horrible things to dogs, and people love dogs, and he has this now held over his head for the rest of his life.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Like Mike Florio just this year wrote an article how he shouldn't be allowed to even be associated with the NFL because he hasn't paid.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: How much more does Mike Florio want from this man?
3:39
SPEAKER_00: He lost all his money and he did a year and a half in jail for torturing animals.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he didn't kill people, he killed animals.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: It's still bad, it's still wrong, it's not good.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: But I I think once you've done the necessary steps that the legal system has set out for you, what more can Michael Vick do besides go play football and be a better person?
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's done.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: So I just never understood all the I mean, I understand people are passionate and they protest this guy, but it's like at what point do you forgive?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Do you let this guy come back into society?
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this the whole point?
4:18
SPEAKER_00: He's learned his lesson.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Let the man live his life.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: He was very repentant.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he heard.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: He didn't get away with anything.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: People act like he got away with stuff.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he went he went to prison, he was sorry, he seemed like he did everything in the world.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: He lost all his money.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh Yeah, and and and it's funny because I always I never liked Michael Vick.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: He when he all the way back to him playing uh for Virginia Tech, um, I I never liked Michael Vick.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: And but when he came to the Steelers, I I said the same thing.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: I said, look, the guy the guy paid his dues, and you know, he's allowed to he's allowed to have a life again and have a career again.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: But like you said, it's it's you know, I love dogs.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: I have a dog, I I do.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: I love dogs.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: It's a sensitive topic for people because um I I think if he would have killed a person, Oh, people would be more forgiving people would have been more forgiving.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: That's what I mean.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: So so it's just it's just the way it was.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: And so yes, he was widely hated.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh when the Steelers signed him, people vowed to never go to the games again.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: I remember people even protesting outside of the uh Heinz field.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, so yeah, definitely a hated uh hated player.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh next up is um a guy who has had more than a cup of coffee here.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: He's been a longtime quarterback, and that's Ben Rothlesberger.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And uh people still another person that's made their mistakes.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And now maybe you could debate.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I've had this debate with people I've worked with, actually, somebody worked with, they think his marriage is a PR stunt just to cover up all the other charges that he had.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And I've I mean I don't know how you judge that from the outside.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, once again, this is a person that's made mistakes and maybe you gotta give them some forgiveness and leeway until you know everybody I'm like when they evaluate talent in the NFL, they always say if you make one mistake, that's one mistake.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: But if you keep making that same mistake over and over again, then that's a character problem.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't either Ben and the Steelers are covering up all these other, or it's he's learned the error of his ways and he doesn't do that anymore.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: So I mean it these two guys are kind of in the same boat there.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like people just don't want to forgive and forget, and I guess it's easier just to be angry at the hater, yeah.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ben Ben's tough.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: And and Ben would have never come close to our top ten list because a lot of people love Ben also, and he wants to be a good thing.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think outside of Bradshaw he's the greatest quarterback to ever play for the Steelers.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: So so but you're right, there was a lot of people that hate him.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: There's people that wanted him traded.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, every time the Steelers start to struggle or have a off-season, you know, a subpar season, it's Ben's fault and get rid of Ben, and he's a cancer in the locker room, and so on and so forth.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: So um he fumbled on purpose, like people saying silliness like that.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so yeah, there's there's definitely a lot of hate directed at Ben, and I agree with you, Steve.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: Most of it is unwarranted.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: So next up, uh sticking with our Steelers, uh James Harrison.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, this guy is, in my opinion, and I think we've had more than one example, this guy's legitimately a jerk.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: The world, uh there's enough room in the world for people that we might not necessarily aren't warm and fuzzy.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: And for what he does, that's part of his attitude.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, he worked really hard to develop himself into.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: He was probably a borderline NFL talent who worked himself into a Pro Bowl, if not borderline Hall of Fame player.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, I mean, you've heard, I've heard tons of anecdotal stories like of him just really being bad behavior, and then doing the whole I mean, I guess he was trying to stretch out his career.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: He jumped around the the Patriots and the Bengals and you know, just doing stuff like that, and you know, then talking bad about the Steelers and the he I think he said some negative stuff about Ben and just it's typical James Harrison.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean it he is who he is.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: I I think I think you know I think in ten years James Harrison doesn't even sniff a list like this.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: Because I think what people will remember is that he made, you know, arguably the greatest play in NFL history when he returned the interception in the Super Bowl.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Um but what people remember kind of now is that like you said, he left he went first of all, he went to New England.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: We have this very unnatural hatred and obsession with the New England Patriots here in Pittsburgh.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: And God forbid he went and signed with the Patriots after the Steelers cut him.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Um and so people never really forgave him for that.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: And and like you said, he he's done some things over the years that, like you say, he's not the he's not a worm and fuzzy guy.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: He's not Brett Keisel or some of those like lovable guys who are.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: You know what, that's who he is, that's how he motivates himself, and I can't be angry with that.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I don't hold that against him because if that's how you motivate, look at how far it's taken him.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like honestly, this guy was cut two or three times.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of other guys that have been in his situation, haven't had the successful career that Haiti's had.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: So I think the theme of the list so far is we're we're we're sort of giving you guys that we think are consensus reviled sports figures, but we don't personally necessarily agree with some of these.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: I think I think a lot of them, as we go further, are a mixed, mixed bag.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And some are no there's no mix.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: They're just once we get into the top 10, I don't think there's a mixed bag at that point.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Another guy that there really isn't a mixed bag on is uh Anthony Smith, the former safety for the Steelers.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: He decided to channel his inner Joe Namath against the playoff game against the Patriots and say, I guarantee you win.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: And then he got burned like a bunch of times.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Another great moment in Anthony Smith history was he had an interception against I think it was Carolina or somebody, some garbage team.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And like he's like dancing down the sidelines with the meaning of this interception, which led to Dick LeBeau like pulling him, like as he came off.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, I just remember Dick LeBeau like yelling at him about it.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: It's like because it was just so stupid.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: Anthony Smith was not a guy that lasted very long.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, people always remember that he you know he tried to challenge the Patriots, and they just, you know, the Patriots are like, Who are you?
10:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, the pa Tom Brady's like, Who are you?
10:44
SPEAKER_00: You're not you know Yeah, you're not exactly Troy Paul Ball back there.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good old Anthony.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And that was that was a Syracuse product.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: It was uh So next up on our list is a uh mediocre quarterback for Pitt, Bill Stahl.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Bill Stahl is probably reviled because he played in a bowl game where they only scored a field goal.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: The old Sun Bowl, which I'm surprised they even had Pitt back after that game.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: They actually no, they didn't score.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: I thought they lost 3-0.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, that's right.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: No, they didn't score at all.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: It was they they didn't score any points.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even score a field goal.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: I I I liked Bill Stahl.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: He he was a guy I I I I kind of like guys um that that play above what their talent level is.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: And I felt like that's what Bill Stahl was.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: He he had two pretty good successful seasons as a starter.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: Um almost took them to the sugar bowl uh his second his senior season.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: Um but but you know he had a tendency to make mistakes at bad times and certainly draw drew the wrath of of Pitt fans.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Well he had Dion Lewis to hand the ball off to in a big offensive line, and they had a decent defense.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And uh I remember one story, um I guess the Pitt fans were harassing him like him so bad.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: It was this was a game at Heinz Field that his father just got so tired of hearing it, he literally left the game.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of a harsh moment for uh Bill Stahl's family, and not not a one that they probably prefer to be reminded of, but uh he's a he's uh Mount Washington kid, uh Saint LaSalle grad.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: I and you know he was I always thought of him as he was a good also ran.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Like he's if he's not the guy driving the offense, if you have a Deion Lewis to drive your offense, he can fill in the gaps and make enough plays to get you to win.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: He's the game manager quarterback.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't bad, he wasn't bad, but he wasn't great.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: So good old Bill.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Now we get the rip on the media.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Yay, Ron Cook, my favorite article person.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Does he even write letters in the newspaper?
12:55
SPEAKER_02: So let's let's in case folks might not know who Ron Cook is, he for many years he was a columnist for the Post Gazette.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: And then uh he also did Sports Talk Radio uh on 937 the Fan.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if he still does or not, to be honest, but he did for many years.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: So that's who Ron Cook is.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: And and so I think when you're a opinionated longtime columnist, because in Pittsburgh, probably in many other towns too, sometimes those guys that get those jobs, they're there for decades.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, so you hear from the same guy for years and years.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: It's such a such a Pittsburgh's such a great sports town, too.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: You can make a nice little living doing it.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: Right.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: Right.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: And so when you write for that long and when you're as opinionated as Ron Cook is, you tend to have a lot of people in a love-hate relationship with you.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, the the the two major things that I always kind of hold against him were one time, this is a long time ago, back when Big East still played football, he basically like said the Big East conference wasn't any good because not because of the strength of the football or the talent on the field, it was because they played their games on Thursdays.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: And who knew playing your day on a certain, you know, when you play your games on a certain day of the week, that affects the quality of the football.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Monday night football must have really stunk all these years.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, and it's also he's just like so typical of lazy media that don't go to the games, watch the game on TV.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I can watch the game on TV and tell you what I saw too.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Your point is to be there and tell me what I didn't see.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: So a few years ago, everybody was kneeling during the national anthem and it spread to college, and one of the Pitt players did it.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: And Ron Cook could have swore that the Pitt football team never came out during the national anthem.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, if Ron Cook would have attended a Pitt football game in the last 10 to 15 years, he would have known that they always came out for the national anthem.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: So that's just to me, it's just that's being a lazy reporter.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's just you should be better than that.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: That's that's probably more egregious.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, I use the word egregious on than the whole big east football.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because he ran it and raved it about the Big Ten and how they never play on Thursdays and never change their uniforms.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess who has color rush uniforms and plays on Thursdays?
15:15
SPEAKER_00: That would be God's gift to college football, Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: The marketing people won.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ron Ron Cook had a Ron Cook's a little up and down for me.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: He had a lot of really bad takes and uh often criticized the fans.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: And I think you pointed out, Steve, in a previous podcast.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: He was one of the guys that did not vote for Larry Fitzgerald for the Heisman.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh but but he every once in a while he he would have some good columns too.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: I I remember one in particular, I actually s actually sent him a an email that he replied to because he he was writing these articles about Aaron Smith was going through this stuff, Aaron Smith, the defensive lineman for the Steelers with his son, and he wrote these really nice articles about his family and his faith.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: And I just I just thought it was it was like well done and it was a nice human story.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: And uh and I I was like, you know, I I often criticize this guy and everybody gets angry with him.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: It's like maybe you know, if he writes something good, I should I I should tell him and I did.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: And he replied back.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Well it's always good to add some balance.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: We're letting, you know, since we're using the Star Wars, I guess, you know, we're we're getting to the good side here.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Not not totally rip on Ron Cook.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: But um sticking with our media people, um Tim Benz, who I like.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: I like Tim Benz, even though, you know, I don't always agree with him, but I always thought he made a fair point.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And um I was I was sad to see him go on his morning show.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And I know there was some politics and stuff going on.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I just I think he just should have stuck with it, quite honestly.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I I I still understand why he quit his morning show over that.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: But he went to Boston, but then he came back.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Back.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And he's a good sports guy.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: He really is.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: I like I like Tim Benz, too.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: And and when he first came to Pittsburgh, way back in the early 2000s, the first thing I remember him was he was one of the people that made a big deal about Mario Lemieux playing in the 2002 Olympics because Mario Lemieux wanted to win a gold medal for Canada and how Mario Lemie was betraying the Penguins by doing that.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, this guy's awful.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, I just thought he was the worst, and I've grown to really like him over the years too.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: But if you read his articles in the trib, he's currently a columnist for the trib.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: I do, yeah.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: You will see a lot of he even has a column every week called You Mad Bro.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good one.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: Where people just he actually publishes angry.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: He always likes to antagonize the Pit fans, too.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: But you like Trevor Burrus, but I don't hold it against it.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: It's it's all in good fun.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I never felt like it was part, I always feel like it's in good fun.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And I like I said, I don't always agree with him, but I like that it he makes you think.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And if somebody can engage you in that way, that's that's the sign of a good columnist or opinion person.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
17:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, but go read his columns and then read the comments or the mad column every week.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and it's always don't go back to Sterakuse, you bum.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Poor Tim Bennett, I wish he was back on the radio.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: I really do.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Um next up sticking uh Mark Madden.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Um and Mark Madden, you gotta understand it's a shtick.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: It's like KISS.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, KISS really isn't knights in Satan's service here, people, okay?
18:23
SPEAKER_00: They're not sacrificing puppy dogs and stuff, okay?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Mark Madden, if you watch wrestling, wrestling has a heel, has a bad guy.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: That's Mark Madden's shtick, is to be the bad guy of Pittsburgh Sports Radio.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And he does it well and it's entertaining.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't laugh at it, you know, come on.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the whole point.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Is it's just, you know, uh the only thing that kind of annoys me is he he does this, and he does this just to get under people's skin, is he'll pick whoever the most popular steeler at the time is.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And who else I have?
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Bettis or Heinz Ward?
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Myron Cope back in the day.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, he had a that was more personal, I thought.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: With with him and you know, Cope.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: But but but basically what you're saying is he'll pick a really beloved Steeler figure that just to antagonize.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Once again, it's just just to get people going and and stuff.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: He holds a grudge against the Steelers too because he thinks Dan Rooney got him fired.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: He's I forget off a channel.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Channel 4 used to have one of those late-night roundtable shows, and he said something negative about the Steelers, and he thinks Rooney's passed away now, got him off that show.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's true or not.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: But I mean I find Mark Madden entertaining.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Even my wife finds I mean, if if Michelle's laughing at Mark, yeah, he must be doing something right.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I kind of like Mark Madden, but you're you're right.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: He he will annoy you, and then you have to sort of catch yourself and be like, okay, don't get annoyed by this.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: This is on purpose.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And like you said, Steve, he his background was in wrestling.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: He was in WCW.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's like going to watch a wrestling match and then getting really like furious that the bad guy wins the match.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: It's like, what?
20:06
SPEAKER_02: It's a stick.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think of a good wrestling bad guy who's a good wrestling bag.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: The Iron Chic.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: What the Iron Chic beat Hulk.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, you know.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just setting up for WrestleMania next week when the Hulk pins, you know, or whatever.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: That's a great up-to-date reference, Steve.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: All the way back to 1983, baby.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: CM Punk.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't really follow wrestling that closely.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: But uh, we'll get torched over that one.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Um The Bubster.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: The Bubster.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And uh the Bubby just annoyed me because he was he was a decent quarterback, but he never did anything to ever help the Steelers win anything of any consequence.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: And then like when they need okay, Bubby, we need you to throw that critical interception when you play for Denver so we can make the playoffs.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look, now you're a Hall of Famer.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: The Bub.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Bubby just wasn't, you know we we covered this in our 80s Steelers podcast.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: Um the offense that was built around Bubby was putrid.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: So he was kind of set up to fail anyway.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh and he just wasn't a very good quarterback.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: He he just and then he was sort of a goofball, and you know, he you know, I don't know.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: He was sort of entertaining, but then you know, it wore thin whenever he just started playing worse and worse.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the Swedish bikini team, I don't think he ever got them for Christmas.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh the good old Bubster.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Um Matt Cook.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh he he's like like who's uh the penguins have had other instigators over the years, Barnaby and Casparitis, but Matt Cook was beyond the beyond on that one.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was just cheap shot after cheap shot.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: After cheap shot.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And it didn't make a difference.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: They still had, you know, Steckle still was hitting Sidney Crosby in the head.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: So what was the point of having Matt Cook?
22:10
SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of the nice things since Sullivan came in, is they just gave up on the Ryan Reeves.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like there's no point in it anyway.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: We're just going to get a fast skating team.
22:20
unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: Matt Cook was actually a good player, too.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Not a great player, but he was actually could play hockey.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: And I think the the hard thing about Matt Cook was he always forced you to like really um make moral decisions.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: You can't check a guy from behind into the boards.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: That's like hockey 101.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: As a fan, when your guy hits the other guy, it's it's always righteous.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: There's just no defending Matt Cook.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: And Matt Cook just always forced you to say, like, uh I I can I don't know if I can really defend that.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: And he got some massive suspensions.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: One year he was suspended right before the playoffs, which really hurt the penguins in 2011, um, for something he had done at the end of the regular season.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, he just he always forced you to, you know, um try to defend the indefensible, and and a lot of times you couldn't do it.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Good old Mac Cook.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Where what what uh coffee stand is he working at?
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, we got uh I kind of got three pit ones here.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: We'll just rattle them off.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: We'll start with um good old smiling Steve Peterson.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: He's um now he's a mixed reaction guy, I think.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Um we'll start with the good.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Um Pit Sports in the 90s when he took over was an absolute train wreck.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: They were probably on the verge of like almost losing like their football program.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: But he did bring them back.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: He hired uh Walt Harris and uh brought the team back to at least respectability.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And then as a second term, he did for better or worse, I mean that's a topic for another day, he did get pit into the ACC.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: So I would say that was his two big positive reactions.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Now the two negative things he did, and this still is going on today, they just had a bulletin board up.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: They want to they still want to put a campus stadium as he got rid of Pitt Stadium, which to me I the more longer they've been down at Heinz Field, I think the longer I see that that that's a mistake.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: They Pitt should not be down at Heinz Field.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: They should have just remodeled Pitt Stadium.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, people think, oh, you put him back on campus, there's gonna be, you know, full house every week.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: I went to a lot of games at Pitt Stadium where it was just as full as Heinz Field.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, so I don't think the stadium is as I mean, it's bad that it's off campus, but it's not the only reason that Pitt has attendance problems.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And then the bigger problem was he fired Dave Wanstadt and then hired uh Mike Hayward and Ton Graham.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Mike Hayward who ended up getting in some sort of domestic abuse situation, they had to fire him two weeks later.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: And then Todd Graham, a total carpet bagger, very mediocre coach, and just quite honestly a joke.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: He he really, really is a a joke when it comes to pit coaches, and that's saying something.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Um next up on my uh hit list parade of things that pit ADs is Scott Burns.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: I would call Scott Barnes the worst AD in pit history, and that's because he got rid of the most successful basketball coach, Jam D Jamie Dixon, that Pitt ever had to hire his friend, Kevin Stallings, in the most joke search ever.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: And he he only did it, I think Kevin Stallings only took the job at Pitt because his son was in the Pirates organization and he thought he would be able to see his son play baseball.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Was Kevin Stallings the guy that went ON16 in the AC?
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Kevin Stallings is horrible.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Um what's it as the Dixon?
26:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean it's just it's horrible.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I it's just I I still don't understand I understand the the cronyism, but I didn't realize it was that bad.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And that was just, you know, th those were three of the w probably worst moves in pit history.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: All right, who's up next?
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh good old go with uh Cliff Stout.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: He was a backup quarterback for the Steelers in the 80s.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Um he was okay, I g um until he went to the Maulers or no, he did he play for the Maulers?
26:37
SPEAKER_00: No, he played the players.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: He played for the rival team.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: He played he was he was the starter.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: Bradshaw was injured late in his career.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh Brathaw's last season, he played two quarters in the whole season, and Stout was the the starter that whole year.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: And um uh they made it to the playoffs, they got blown out by the Raiders, and people really started to hate Cliff Stout because first of all, you the guy that is the successor to Terry Bratshaw is gonna have a tough time anyway.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: Um but Stout wasn't very good and I I think his personality didn't rub off well on people.
27:10
SPEAKER_02: And he ended up playing in the USFL, not for the Maulers, for some other team.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right, and they came to Pittsburgh.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Came to Pittsburgh to play the Muller, and what happened, people threw snowballs at him.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think the other team still won.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: I think the team he was on still won.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: But people couldn't wait to to go to that Maulers game.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: So just to just to throw things at Cliff Stout.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: So I'll call Cliff Cliff Stout the uh Brian Greasy couldn't.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: There you go.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: Give him the Brian Greasy award, yeah.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Brian Greasy's only fault in life was that he wasn't John Elway.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the same thing.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: You follow the man, it's um you know, even if you're pretty decent quarterback, which obviously Cliff Stout probably wasn't, but I remember his son was supposed to come to Pitt, and that never worked out.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: But good old Cliff, he's uh dodging snowballs in Three River Stadium.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Um another good one, uh Cordell, Cordell Stewart.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Another guy's probably mediocre, treated unfairly, rumors like just persistent, persistent rumors, and they're still out there.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Like I mean, and and you know what's ironic?
28:19
SPEAKER_00: If that happened today, he'd probably be celebrating.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, he probably would make a whole reality show if he hasn't already had one.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Very very mean-spirited rumors about his sexuality.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Um just just stuff that had nothing to do with football, right?
28:35
SPEAKER_02: With football.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Cordell was uh Cordell had a lot of flaws uh on the football field and a lot of talent, too.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: He you know, very up and down career with the Steelers.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: But boy, uh yeah, people just had him getting arrested.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, and and you know I Sports Illustrated even um did an article where I guess Cordell actually went to the locker room and pulled the whole team together um to address some of these rumors that were out there because they were that strong that he felt like he had to address it with the team.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's really just you know again, that has nothing to do with football.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: If you want to criticize his play on the field, that's fine.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: But um But it got a lot more personal than that with Cordell, and so he was he was very, very aided.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if anybody has a reason to not like Pittsburgh, I would think it would be Cordell.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: And I and I I think too, like some of it was he didn't take like like you have the opposite of that, where like Ben will throw an interception and it clearly wasn't his fault and he'll take the heat for it normally.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Cordell was the opposite.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: It was like he would throw an obvious interception, like not my fault.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, and I think when you're the quarterback, you have to learn, you know, even if it isn't your fault, you just take the heat, you know, because you're the quarterback and that's and then he cried on the sidelines in Tampa and that you know, in football that's you know not manly.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: So Yeah.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean he just remember it was so like boy, we're getting old, but it was it's so different.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: That happened nowadays.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it would be as big a deal, maybe.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think ultimately, you know, all that stuff was in there, but then he also threw a really costly camp um interception in the 97th championship game.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: He threw two fourth quarter interceptions in the 01 championship game.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: We just did a podcast about the 95 Steelers, and we talked about, you know, some guys have greatness and some guys don't.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Cordell was in that latter category.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: He didn't have greatness.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: And it was tough because the Steelers had some really good teams that he led and he could not get them over the hump and to a Super Bowl.
30:39
SPEAKER_02: Um and so, you know, that combined with his personality, combined with crying on the sidelines, just made him a guy that people, especially towards the end, just didn't like it.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that last year with Tommy Mags, people were probably and he never really had that much success anywhere else.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Um Dave Parker, uh great talent.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a home run hitter, but um he had some off-the-field substance abuse issues.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: And why were people throwing batteries at him?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Like he wore a helmet out in the field.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Like I because I remember my dad who loved Dave Parker.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, still would talk, I guess I've never actually seen, but there's some throw he made in the All-Star game that's like some tremendous throw to get a guy out at home.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, he could feel, he was a five-tool player, he could hit, he could field.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Great, great player.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: He's not in the Hall of Fame either.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: It and and it's just like I don't understand like why people hated Dave Parker.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Was there an attitude thing?
31:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it's a little bit before our time, I think.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, Dave Parker, his success came in the 70s, like you said, he won two batting titles.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: He was the I think he was the National League MVP.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: And I I think it was during that whole Pittsburgh drug trial era.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: And he he was a heavy cocaine user.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh I I think it probably had a lot to do with that.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: But yes, people threw batteries at him at the river state.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: He had to wear a helmet.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean and it's it's a shame because uh he was a he was a really good player.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: So maybe I don't know if there's some attitude or like you know, I don't know what it was.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: A cultural But when you throw a bat when you get batteries thrown at you by the home fans, then I think you fall into the list of reviled.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh Terry Bradshaw.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh once again, Pittsburgh hates quarterbacks.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's the easiest.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: It's the easiest target.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: It's like goaltender.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Goaltender, same thing.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: We'll get into that later, too.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: But goalie and you know, quarterback, it's the two most obvious positions.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and Bradshaw, you know.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: Bradshaw's another guy who didn't endear himself and who still in the years since has not endeared himself.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: He Bradshaw is really um, you know, I I hate to use the word bipolar because that's too strong of a word, but he'll say things and then like he'll he'll say something completely opposite that goes against what he said previously.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh so you know, he he's better at Technology, he's better at the fans who cheered when he got hurt, and some of that's probably understandable.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, he also was very mistake prone.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he won four Super Bowls.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: He also threw bad interceptions, he struggled early in his career, so very up and down, and and a lot of fans didn't like him and haven't liked him since.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: He sort of left Pittsburgh, didn't come to Art Rooney's funeral, didn't come to Chuck Noel's funeral.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: A lot of fans hate him for that.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, tough, tough.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, he kind of made up.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: He came back at Heinz Field.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: I remember they had a big like Terry Bradshaw day, and I thought maybe him and the fans and the organization at least I know him and Chuck Noel, but Chuck Knowle was not you know, Terry needed a hug and Chuck Noel wasn't gonna give you one.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that's the way you know it is sometimes.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: You gotta find it somewhere else, I guess, for and then he said those things about Tomlin, like, you know, I don't think Tomlin's a great coach and stuff.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And I mean I think at the time maybe that goes under like, you know, we were talking about hot takes and bad takes.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: That's I think after this season that's probably a little bit of a bad take there.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: Just just a guy that's yeah.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Hot and cold up in the middle.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Appreciated he won us four Super Bowls, but boy, a lot of people don't like him.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh Roger Marino.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Roger Marino was so so we can bump him in.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: Probably him and Howard Bowden went in the same category.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Well we find him coming up.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: So so in the nineties.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Unless you want to haul off on him, you want to save him for how much.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's let's hold off.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh Bob Round Tripper Kipper.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh Bob Kipper was a middle relief pitcher before they were cool.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: And uh in the 80s, he seemed to always give up home runs.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: In the uh that was where he got his nickname, Bob Round Tripper Kipper.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: It was uh fun fact, he gave up the 500th home run to Mike Schmidt, the great Phillies third baseman.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: So uh he has that going for him.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's like a minor league baseball coach somewhere, but uh Bob was pretty mediocre and he was pretty good at giving up home runs.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the and and remember the three rivers remember the bullpens at three rivers stadium were like sort of on that on the down the side of the field.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: So you had a lot of um seats like surrounding the bullpen, and that that did that wasn't good for Bob Kipper.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: He got he got harassed.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Old round tripper, how many have you given up today?
35:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh Marion Hosha.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: He's he's a paycheck, he was a rental player for one season for the Penguins, and I think people just hated him because he he left after one year.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, he left to go to the Red Wings beaten us.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: So so we did a podcast about the 09 Penguins again.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: Go back and listen to that if you haven't already.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Um we talk a lot about Marion Josa there.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't personally hold anything against him.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: And honestly, the Penguins got the last laugh and all that because they won the Stanley Cup the next year, but people still really hold it against Marion Josa for leaving for the team that had just beaten us.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good old Marion.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: He picked wrong.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh every Steelers offensive coordinator ever.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, there's no way, I mean, Todd Haley, Bruce Arians, uh all the way back to Joe Walton, Ron Earhart, I mean, you could just go on and on and on.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: It's when the Steelers lose, it's it's almost always either the quarterback's fault or a coach's fault.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: And if it's an assistant coach's fault, it's always the offensive coordinator, always.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, this last season, uh, where um the most recent season where Ben Rothesperger got hurt and we had Doc Hodges playing quarterback, you know, that was the fault of the offensive coordinator for not being creative enough.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, meanwhile, you have a guy in there that has no business being an NFL quarterback and you're just trying to not have him make a mistake.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: Again, everybody will always blame the offensive coordinator.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter who it is, it doesn't matter what his record is, it's always that guy's fault.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: I think too, like, you know, a lot of these offensive coordinators, they didn't have a lot of quarterback to work with.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, like Doc Hodges.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, is Bruce Arians or um who's the other one?
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Todd Haley really that great, or it was it Ben Rothelsberger, you know?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what did Todd Haley do in Cleveland?
37:30
SPEAKER_00: You know?
37:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he had he was okay in Kansas City.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Bruce Arians I don't know, I guess you could argue Bruce Arians is probably a better offensive coach than you think.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: He's made more with less, but you you could argue all that.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: All I can tell you is that when he was here, he was the bad guy.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: Like it was always his fault.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, and then and then when he is Ben Sack too much.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's why he got fired.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: He's too buddy buddy with the quarterback.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Ben Ben gets hurt too much.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: So they bring in Todd Haley, who revamps the offense and has Ben get rid of the ball quicker.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: And then what does everybody say?
38:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh, they let they let Bruce Arians go, and now he's coaching the Cardinals and doing great.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: Why did we ever get rid of Bruce Arians?
38:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so you can't.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, Bruce is burning through four quarterbacks at the end of the year, yeah.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: You can't you can't the offensive coordinator is always just gonna be a target.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: He's the bad guy.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: End of the story.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's see who's up next to our best of the rest.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh Todd Graham, we've covered him.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh he literally has no soul.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's true.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: Todd Graham would have been like in my top three, but I was you know, we were going for sort of a consensus pick here.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: And and so Todd Graham was only here for one season.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, I mean, I I don't I didn't know human beings couldn't have souls, but Todd Graham has no soul.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: And he he not only left after that first season, um he sent a text message to one of the assistant coaches to ask him to relay to his players, this is before the season had ended, yeah.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: That he was taking another job.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: Like he picked up his smartphone, he was like, please tell players uh I am sorry, taking another job, wish you well, Todd.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: And the season wasn't over yet.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: But well, whose fault is that?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Because he had done that at Tulsa.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, like what you like what did you expect from this guy?
39:20
SPEAKER_00: And and the the the whole thing was like I watched a year of this guy coaching.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: What was so special about Todd Graham?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: He was like mediocre as mediocre could be.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
39:30
SPEAKER_02: That was the other thing.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: He so Todd Graham had this, they called it the high octane offense.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: And we ran all these uh quick no-huddle plays, and it didn't work.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: We there was a couple of games where we had like big leads that we blew because we weren't nursing the lead at all.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, it it was a failed experiment.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: Then he left and sent a text message, didn't even have the guts to tell his players face to face.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I I can't talk anymore about Todd Graham.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: It gets me gets me too robbed, but let's move on.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh someone controversial, I'm surprised he's on the list.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: I like this guy.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't hate him, but Carl Krauser.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: And I I think this goes back to there's it it's almost like the Harrison, like you have to have this attitude to play point guard in big time college basketball.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: He wants the ball with 10 seconds to go and he's gonna score.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's the type I mean, I just remember that game in the was it the sweet 16 or might have been the round before where Wisconsin, he has four fouls on him, and he just drives in there and puts it in to put Pitt up by one or two points and win the game.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: That's the type of person it takes to win that game.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, you gotta have the guy that's gonna put his X up after he makes a free throw.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: And I realize that you know Pittsburgh is kind of more of a lunch pale, you know, blue collar, and that isn't Carl Krauser per se.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: But I just I just think he was a really good point guard.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: He's a little bit of different port guard.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: He's not like people seem to like Brandon Knight, who's more of the passer and distributor, whereas Krauser was more of the playground drive-in and get you some points.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: And I just I really like that style of play.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: So I think there was two reasons people didn't like Carl Krauser.
41:15
SPEAKER_02: You already touched on the first one is that he was sort of a me first kind of kind of player.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: And not only did that not fit with the city mentality, it also didn't really fit with Ben Howans' kind of defensive.
41:28
SPEAKER_03: Well, well, same thing.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: Dixon had this Dixon had the same uh coaching philosophy.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh and then I think the second reason is that Carl Krauser had like a really, really punchable face.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: He just had a very punchable face.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: And he always made this face of something didn't go well, he looked like a little kid who was about to cry.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: He did have some immaturity.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: I remember one time, I guess against Bradley like shoved the guy after like the guy made a basket, and like he did do some stuff like that.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: If if you if you've ever been around a toddler who's starting to not get their way and starts to get that wrinkled up face where they're like the tears are about to flow, that was like the Carl Krauser face.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, people just just weren't fans of Karl Krauser.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: And then I don't think he ever did anything big enough to sort of redeem any of those things.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: He didn't he didn't win any big tournament games.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: They always lost in the Sweet 16 when they had Krauser and really when they had everybody else.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: Well he wasn't he wasn't an NBA talent, that's for sure.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: But he was a good college player, and like I said, I think sometimes you need that guy, a point guard, that's just like, okay, give me the ball, I'm gonna win the game.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's just the nature of the beast with him.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Brandon Knight was more of give me the ball, I'm gonna find.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: In LeVance Fields was kind of the same, but not as like LeVance feels a little more team player, maybe, so maybe that's why he's not as on this list.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the uh best of the rest.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: I guess we're ready for the uh top ten.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready?
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Psyched up for the top ten.
43:00
SPEAKER_02: Let's start the count too.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Number ten, we're gonna start with some politicians who don't love them, guys.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh we got two guys that are tied for this.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: That would be uh mayor, former mayor Tom Murphy, and former governor Ed Rendell.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: And the reason they are on this list is because um the whole plan B fiasco.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: So back in the good old days of the high-heady days of when sports teams will actually pay for their own stadiums, that was pretty fun.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: The owners figured out that like the stadiums are like a white elephant and that ties you to the town.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: So, like, we'll make the taxpayers pay it so we can leave and threaten to move the team and you're stuck with the stadium.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a great deal for billionaire owners.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: So what they did was they put it, they had to put it to a referendum to raise the taxes to build Heinz Field and PC Park.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, everybody voted against that because hey Roonies, you have a million billion dollars, pay for your own stadium.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, they said, we don't like that, you're going to pay anyway.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: And they got the Mayor on board, who was Mayor Murphy.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: So they said, oh, they didn't say no, they just said they wanted a different plan.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: So plan B, they basically opened the Brinks vault to a city that was in debt at the time and let both stadiums be built with public funding, PC Park and Hinesfield, and you can debate that any way you want.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: So roll around, what, 10 years later, eight years later, the penguins are playing in the Civic Arena, which truly, they really did need a new.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: It was a bad place to watch hockey.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: So they really did need so the penguins come out with this.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Pennsylvania decides in all its wisdom it's going to legalize gambling.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, the penguins get in with this group called the Iowa Capri, and they come up with basically no taxpayer funded.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is give them a gambling license and collect like$8 million a year and get out of the way.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is get out of the way.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Just get out of the way.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: You make money, they build a stadium, no taxpayer money used.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, that wasn't good enough for the people in charge at the time, who was Murphy and Ed Rendell, and they decided, well, I'm going to prove a point, especially Mayor Murphy said, Well, we're not just going to build you, you know, your stadium.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: So they did not end up getting their license, and they made them take the taxpayer money.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: And in the negotiations, Ed Rendell literally was sitting there pounding on the table at the Penguins during these negotiations, like he's freaking Kruise chef up at the U.N.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm sure Ed Rendell, when he was negotiating with his buddy Jeffrey Laurie and the Eagles and whoever owns the Flyers was doing that to them, I'm sure.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and Ed Ed Rendell is, you know, he he's just as bad as Murphy, and thank God they're both off doing something else with their lives at this point.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: Bob O'Connor was the mayor at one point during that, too.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: And I don't remember Well, he had passed away.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, but Murphy was before O'Connor.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: So but but it was really what I remember about the the casino license was they were gonna give a casino license to somebody in Pittsburgh.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Like they had designated one license was gonna go to somebody in Pittsburgh, and there were three groups vying for it.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: And the penguins, like you said, it hooked on with that ala Capri group.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: And so if you just give it to them, you're gonna build a casino anyway.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: Um and if you give it to them, then we get a free arena without any taxpayer money.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: And they ended up giving it to a guy.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh Barton.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: They gave it to Barton, who never never had the money to build it, ended up dying in the penguins got it anyway.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good thing.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: The penguins didn't get it.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: No, who got it?
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh somebody else ended up dying.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: Somebody else, but they gave it to a guy that didn't have the the resources to actually build a casino.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: So they they they bought the whole thing.
46:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's just it's so typical.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean I I don't want to certainly get into politics in this podcast, but regardless of your political affiliation, there's just a long list of just bungling, you know.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: It was all political posturing.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: It was yeah, that really changed my view on politics.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: I used to think it was just if you paid a politician off, they went on their way.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: This was all about you have to do it our way, the way we say, the way we say it.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's what it really came to.
47:18
SPEAKER_02: There was some there were some uh yeah, just their reasons for picking that that barden over over the the penguins group made no sense.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: You know, it wasn't.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: It made no financial sense.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a business decision.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: It was pol politicians insulated in their little political world making decisions that weren't good.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, a lot of a lot of anger certainly uh at the politicians related to how they handled some of the arena and stadium situations.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh sticking with the uh good old penguinis, uh the guy that created all this mess with the penguins, that would be uh Roger Marino and Howard Baldwin, although I blame more Baldwin.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, agreed.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh he put the penguins into bankruptcy.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: He signed like a really big deal with Mario Lemieux that he knew he couldn't pay for.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: And then he made a really awful Penguins movie called Sudden Death.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Which is basically diehard in the Civic Arena, but there's no Alan Rickman.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Which, you know, if you don't have Alan Rickman, I think he kind of lost Die Hard, you know, lost the whole movie.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: And in Van Damme instead of Bruce Willis.
48:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean Yeah, yeah.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the um Baldwin took over the franchise from the Debartula family as they were winning Stanley Cups in the early 90s.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: So you you had this highly successful franchise with the best player in the world at the time.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: You had all kinds of fan interest.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that the pit Pittsburgh was a hockey town at that point.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: How you go from 1992 on top of the world winning Stanley Cups, uh games being sold out, to 1999 having to declare bankruptcy.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that just says it all about Howard Baldwin.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh Roger Marino was a Boston investor who was supposed to come in and write the ship.
49:04
SPEAKER_02: He made things worse.
49:05
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, that ownership group just I mean, it almost literally uh ruined the franchise.
49:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a lot of people.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, on a positive note, because Mario signed that big, big like, you know, it's like a bankruptcy sale.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: And the only way to like, you know, write the ship was like Mario just took the team.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: It's like fine.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: Since you can't pay me, just give me the team.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Just give me the team, and that's the only reason we still have a team here today, to be honest.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: But but that was because of Mario and Mario lost a lot of money doing that.
49:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: It should be noted.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that goes back to the the thing too with the uh the arena was like then Mario had to play this whole political game.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
49:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm visiting Kansas City, and and that was all because of the politicians.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: So I mean Mario got kind of the shaft on that, but to his credit and the person that he is, you know, he really bailed the the city and the team out twice.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: Thank thank goodness for Mario.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: He's a legend.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: Number eight.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: Number ocho, that would be Dwayne Washington and Chad Scott.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: Years of giving uh Steeler fans uh heart attacks there as their defensive back play was not quite up to snuff.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: You know what the the hard thing about Dwayne?
50:19
SPEAKER_02: So if so there's been lots of bad cornerbacks in Steeler history.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: Dwayne Washington and Chad Scott, they weren't awful.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: Like they were good enough to stay on the team for like eight years.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: But man, did they give up a lot of big plays and get burned a lot.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: Dwayne kind of reminds me of uh a half step slow Ike Taylor.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Like he never got like till the end when he was finally done, he never got like flat out burned.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: But like something weird would happen.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Like the ball would bounce he had terrible hands.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: He had terrible positioning.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: He'd be he'd be right on again.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: But it would the guy would still catch the ball.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: Because he'd just have his backbone or whatever, like in the wrong way.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: He yeah, you're right.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't slow.
51:02
SPEAKER_02: He just never was in the right position.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: But Chad Scott probably should have been a safety.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: I I've I've often thought that.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: Like he just like especially after the first couple years, like because he was big too.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: Chad Scott was big.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: He was a number one number one draft pick, too, and I think that might be why they stuck with him as long as they did, because he had a lot of pedigree.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he he just he was more e I saw him get burned just flat out like people like run by him.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Dwayne, like, I never felt like people like ran by him.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: He just was like, whoops, whoo!
51:34
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell The the thing the thing I always remember about Dwayne Washington is in the first couple years at Hines Field, they they always play this public service announcement at some point during the game.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: And the public service announcement is, hey fans, please respect each other, don't throw things on the field, blah, blah, blah.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: It's it's a standard thing that they play.
51:53
SPEAKER_02: And for some inexplicable reason, those first few years, they had Dwayne Washington record the message.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: I could imagine people were excited about that.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: So you know, somebody would catch a touchdown over Dwayne Washington's head, and then during the TV timeout, it's like, hey fans, this is Dwayne Washington.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Just want to make sure everybody respects each other, and it's like, boo, we hate you.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was it just I always felt bad for Dwayne that that he was the, you know, the, hey everybody, let's be nice guy that they chose.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: And they never did that again.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: They always had um like like uh you know uh Craig Woofley or like some retired guy or some media guy do that announcement years later.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: They never again had an active player do it because poor Dwayne always got the wrath of the stadium every time he came up on the scoreboard.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: Poor Dwayne.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't catch a break.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Um number seven, and uh maybe it should have been higher, but uh good old Operation Shutdown, Derek Bell.
52:52
SPEAKER_02: So so so describe what Operation Shutdown was, in case people don't know.
52:56
SPEAKER_00: So so Derek Bell was a typical like Major League Baseball player that had been a Major League Baseball veteran for a long time.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: And he was on the backside of his career.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: He was still an okay player, but not probably a starter, and he was an outfielder, and the Pirates had other outfielders they wanted to compete with him for his position.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, Derek Bell took exception to this, thinking, well, I should just earn my spot because I've been in Major League Baseball for a million years and nobody's gonna tell me when I should sit or stay or whatever.
53:28
SPEAKER_00: So he said, you know, if I knew there was a competition, I'm just gonna go into operations, sit down and sit on my boat or whatever and not do anything.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: And that just, you know, for some reason the fans took exception to that.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they don't like paying, you know,$50 a ticket to watch a guy not care, you know.
53:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that was, I mean, the thing about Derek Bell, first of all, he was a guy that burned the pirates.
53:52
SPEAKER_02: Like I remember that, like you said, he wasn't the greatest player, but he was good.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: And it just seemed like every time he played against us, he he always had some kind of big hit.
54:01
SPEAKER_02: And then you sign him, and that's never going to go over a while with fans where you're making, you know, I don't know, 20 times what the average person makes, and you're like, well, I'll just shut it down.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: I'll just go into Operation Shutdown.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: And then the fans and the organization were like, go right ahead.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh the funny thing about Operation Shutdown, little known fact, uh Derek Bell never did play baseball again.
54:26
SPEAKER_02: So technically, Operation Shutdown's still active.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: So they uh they he got shut down.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this was uh this was I think 2002, and he never played again.
54:37
SPEAKER_02: So technically he's been shutting it down ever since.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: And well he talked himself right out of the league, didn't he?
54:43
SPEAKER_02: Operation Shutdown is still active.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: So kudos to Derek Bell for you know sticking with his uh his goals.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: Well uh number six, but uh probably should have been higher would be uh one Antonio Brown.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: I I so man.
55:00
SPEAKER_00: The list of crazy that has gone on with him and um a great player, another guy that worked really hard to get where he's going, but the you know, the space between, you know, the million dollar talent and ten cent head that he I mean, how much money did he like literally lose himself by his behavior?
55:19
SPEAKER_00: If you could just if he just would have been imagine if the Patriots would have had him against the uh Titans, they probably would have won.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: I know.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean and he literally would have made more than enough money.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: I I and then the whole helmet thing and yeah, I don't I don't understand like what his and even Rosenhaus had the back of it.
55:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean when Drew Rosenhaus cuts ties, boy, you're in trouble.
55:43
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh yeah, I mean it's tough because Antonio Brown, I in in my lifetime as a Pittsburgh sports fan, there are three players who I feel like were the most exciting players to watch, not necessarily my favorites, but the most exciting athletes to watch.
55:59
SPEAKER_02: And I would order them like this number one, Mario Lemieux, number two, Antonio Brown, and number three, Larry Fitzgerald.
56:05
SPEAKER_02: Antonio Brown was so fun to watch play football.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: He was so good at his position.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: And then he just torpedoed his whole career.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: And he, you know, before that, he wasn't exactly stable before that.
56:21
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know, I you kind of felt like he was almost like Ricky Henderson or one of those, you know, one of those guys that maybe was a little out there, but you know, was still a good player, and you could just sort of ignore when he live streamed the locker room after the playoff game, or when he threw the Gatorade bucket on the sideline, or whatever.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, but then you know, eventually the crazy overtook the sanity.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, the stuff he pulled to get out of Pittsburgh, the stuff he pulled in Oakland, the stuff he pulled in New England, and the stuff he's been pulling ever since.
56:52
SPEAKER_00: Um He might never get back in the NFL, and that's a shame.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: He might not.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it and and I think people definitely revile Antonio Brown, which is why he's on this list.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: I think the reason we don't have him hire is because, like we said, he had all those great years and great memories, and hopefully someday we can remember him for that.
57:12
SPEAKER_02: And then number two, like he he has he needs like actual help.
57:17
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
57:18
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a feeling there's something.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:21
SPEAKER_02: There's there's guys that are jerks and oh, what a jerk.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: But like he's he like he seriously needs help.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: And and well, I don't I don't want to see him like hurt himself.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: That's how I kind of feel like this is you feel like that's the way his he's trending right now.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's like it'd just be nice, like, even if you never played football again, just uh have a healthy, long life where you know Yeah, work out some of your issues.
57:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:46
SPEAKER_02: So so it's hard for me to put him higher, but definitely a guy that you mention his name in Pittsburgh and you don't get a good reaction.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh one guy that uh we'll slip in here, uh 6A maybe, 6B, Richard Mendenhall, everybody's favorite Al-Qaeda sympathizer.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: He he uh he didn't get why uh we had to kill Osama bin Laden, um, kind of slipped into politics.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: Probably more reviled because he fumbled in the Super Bowl.
58:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
58:14
SPEAKER_02: Fumbling in the Super Bowl against Green Bay made him reviled.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh never lived up to that potential.
58:19
SPEAKER_02: He was a first-round draft pick and never lived up to that potential.
58:22
SPEAKER_02: And I think his last season in Pittsburgh, there was a game against the Chargers where he literally didn't show up for the game.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: I think he might have been hurt, but he didn't show up.
58:32
SPEAKER_02: He was still supposed to come to the it was at Hines Field, and he just like went A-WOL.
58:38
SPEAKER_02: He he was just a guy that was a little bit out there also.
58:42
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, not fond memories of Ricard Mendonhal.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: Which leads us to uh number five, everybody uh favorite uh Steeler quarterback, Neil O'Donnell.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh Mr.
58:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't throw interceptions unless it's to Larry Brown in the Super Bowl to cost you the Super Bowl.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: But uh we covered Neil pretty uh in-depth there in the Super Bowl 30 podcast, the one season.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh Neil was a mediocre quarterback, um, had a pretty good year with the Steelers, and then never did much of anything after that.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh just really people I just people just really rip on him, and uh probably rightfully so.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those two interceptions cost us the game, and uh, I can see why people wouldn't like him.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, the leaving for free agency and but I mean, like I think the Steelers kind of had the laugh s laugh on that.
59:34
SPEAKER_00: He really didn't do much of anything after.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
59:37
SPEAKER_02: But but that's that's his legacy in Pittsburgh.
59:40
SPEAKER_02: He threw the Super Bowl away to a guy that was covering grass.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, that grass might have scored, you don't know.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh number four, uh jumping back to hockey, uh, would be uh one Yarmer Yager.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: So we already covered the um Slovak part with uh Marion Hosa, so I guess we'll hit the Czech part of the country with uh Yarmer Jaager.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh Yager, I don't think people were as mad when he left when Ted Leonis of the Capitol signed him to a bunch of money.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that was what I mean, people kind of saw the handwriting on the wall with the Penguins.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's what ticked him off.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: I think what ticked them off was then the uh the I would play for Mario for League and then, well, I'll go play for the Flyers instead.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_00: That's probably what really irritated people more with Jauger, but that's how Yagger's been the last couple years.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: He's just been one of those veterans that has been hanging on to just get the last couple bucks out of his career.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, how mad can you really get, I guess, about all that?
1:00:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, he he was a guy, I mean, and again, when he was here, he was such a great player.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: He he was he might have been the most clutch.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: I I talked about the most exciting guys I've ever seen.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_02: He might have been the most clutch.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_02: You just got him in like overtime of a playoff game and he was the guy.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_02: And so he was great.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, but man, he he you know, he had a bad attitude sometimes when he was here.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: He was another guy like Bradshaw who just He would pout.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_02: He would pout and he would say things that were completely opposite, like you said about I'd play for Mario for for the league minimum, but then he went and played for Philadelphia for a lot of money.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, he just was a guy that was very inconsistent, you know, what he said and did, did not endear himself to people, um, supposedly has a very um fractured relationship with Lemieux.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: There's a great picture from two or three years ago.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_02: The NHL had like a hundredth anniversary celebration, and they took a picture with Lemieux and Yager and some of the other all-time great penguins.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh everybody kind of has their arm around each other, and Lemieux and Yagger are kind of standing next to each other like this.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's no hard feelings there, huh?
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_00: Good old yags.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh number three, another favorite whipping boy of uh sports fans is the goalie.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: And that the the goalie that probably gets the most abuse around here would be uh Tom Barrasso, or who's that?
1:01:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh the one announcer would always say it funny, Barrasso, or uh that was Doc Emmerich, but uh probably uh gave up that one goal against the Islanders.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: Somebody shot a puck from like you know halfway across the rink and it went in.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_00: Um he was uh standoffish, didn't didn't like the media.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: That's an understatement.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh wasn't endearing to the fans that much.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: Won a Vesna, but not here.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh won a couple Stanley Cups.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's the thing.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: Like he he won two Stanley Cups.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_02: He'll always be remembered for that.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_02: I think some people remember him more fondly.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but boy, he he was not a nice person.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh he he berated young goaltenders.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: Patrick Laleem was a guy that the Penguins had um who Barraso Brasso just thought saw any young goaltender as a as a threat to him.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh and like you said, with the media, he just was just mean and and stand office to everybody.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_02: Uh I think I think the the thing I always remember about um sort of the legacy that Barraso left was in uh spring of 2000 uh the Penguins were making trade deadline deals, and uh Craig Patrick had struck a deal to trade Barrasso to the Ottawa Senators and they were gonna get Ron Tugnut a goaltender in return, they were gonna get some other players in return.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: At this point in his career, Barrasso was definitely at the tail end of his career.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh and Craig Patrick not only uh Craig Patrick came out and said this publicly that he was, quote, afraid to call Barraso on the phone and tell him he had been traded, he was literally afraid to do that and almost didn't make the trade because he was afraid to have to call Barrasso and tell him about it.
1:03:55
SPEAKER_02: Now that's his job, and he did it, obviously.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_02: But I think that I think that kind of tells you all you need to know about the way people interacted with Tom or the way Tom Barrasso interacted with people.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and boy, and Craig Patrick, he had to deal with Herb Brooks.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh number two, and uh this guy's pretty consensus here, Barry Bonds.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_00: Greatest, probably one of the greatest pirates, I mean, outside of Honus Wagner.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: Never played uh never played in the minor leagues, went straight to the pros.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh was a great player, all-time home runs leader, hit a lot of home runs for the Pirates, uh very good uh fielder, um, general all-around jerk.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: A lot of arrogance there, I guess.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh spoiled kind of professional baseball player stuff.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_00: I think he said, you know, comments I'd have played for Jim Leland for nothing, you know, another kind of like those contradict you, and then you go sign with the Giants for a lot of money.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Um ended up never winning a World Series, got involved in the whole steroids things.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: But um Bond's definitely around here, definitely um Mark Madden, that's another guy.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_00: Mark Madden loves to hold up just to antagonize people.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: But you can't argue with his stats and his talent.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, he wasn't always warm and fuzzy.
1:05:16
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:05:16
SPEAKER_02: No.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean he he yeah, you can't he was even before he started taking steroids, um, he was just a great, one of the all-time great baseball players.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: Like you said, he could do everything field, run, hit, hit hit for power, hit for average, uh won two MVP awards with the Pirates, won a bunch of other MVP awards with the Giants.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_02: But another guy that just didn't endear himself to the fans, his teammates, him and Jeff Kent uh had a a huge dispute in his teammates on the Giants.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_02: Um just him and Vance Like didn't get along.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: Um and and so yeah, people didn't like Barry Bonds, and for good reason, nobody liked Barry Bonds uh throughout.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: Baseball, not just people in Pittsburgh.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, when he when he left, and again, people free agents have left Pittsburgh before and not been hated.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was right after he failed to throw out Sid Bream.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: It's like you're this great like gold glover in left field, and like you can't throw out like Sid Bream on one leg.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Sid Bream, yeah.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: Little known fact, Sid Bream had one leg.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was basically running like a three ready good race.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_02: He was hopping on one foot to home plate.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_02: So that that definitely hurt.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, the fact that that um if you watch the Ken Burns baseball documentary, um they do a whole thing on Barry Bonds, and you know, his father was Bobby Bonds, who is a major league baseball player, and his godfather is Willie Mays, who obviously is is an all-time great.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_02: And they talk about how Bobby Bonds and Willie Mays taught Barry Bonds, who spent a lot of time as a kid with those two guys, to have this chip on their shoulder.
1:06:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh chip on his shoulder.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: And I I'm not sure why.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_02: I I you know Maybe his motivation then on the B.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, Willie Mays and and Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays especially played in an era where, you know, black players weren't even allowed to play in the major leagues.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_02: So if Willie Mays had a chip on his shoulder, it was it was for pretty good reason.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_02: And maybe maybe uh some stuff happened to Barry Bonds that caused that, but according to this Ken Burns documentary, that was taught.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_02: And he never really let that go.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_02: And so um, yeah, he was a very tough person to deal with for everybody and was not well liked by the fans.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_02: And when he left Pittsburgh, I think a lot of people said good riddance.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, you ready for number one?
1:07:42
SPEAKER_00: And this is a pretty easy number one here.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_00: That would be Mr.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_00: Bob Nutting Jr., the owner of the Pirates and least successful sports franchise in the city.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: That would be you, Mr.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_00: Nutting Jr.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_00: Own it, live it, love it.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's done nothing with the team.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm just gonna uh in his defense, he does have two forces that work against him in baseball being in a small market is the big markets don't share the revenue of the local TV money, and the unions like it that way because then they can get their uh uh veteran membership all the money from the Yankees and Red Sox and the other teams with the big.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's the two forces that are allied against him.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh granted you can still put money in the payroll and you know, make money that way, but he doesn't seem to, they seem to be content with losing or just you know putting out a half rear-ended effort most of the time.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean it's it's a shame they have a beautiful baseball park and when they do have success, they don't try to sustain it.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_00: So I mean AI, at least yeah, I guess if you like to go skiing, you know, he's he's a good guy, he owns seven springs.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_00: And uh I mean I'm not one to tell people how to run their business or spend their money.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_00: You can do that however you want, but don't expect me to show up and spend tickets to your baseball game.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: And last time I checked, you got eighty-two of them a year to sell, and I'm not the one with the problem, you know.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not one with the payroll to payroll to make.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, Bob Nutting, his whole business strategy, like you said, is you know, run run the team um to make a a profit, run the team on the cheap so you can maximize your profit.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_02: It's not about winning, it's not about um anything that that has any benefits to the big thing.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: You can run you can run your team any way you want.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to watch it.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I think in Pittsburgh, though, there's the number one, the pirates have a a pretty rich history, so a lot of people felt betrayed by that.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_02: And then number two, you know, y the stadium that you're playing in was built with public funds.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it I think I think if you're running a uh I don't know, a hardware store that way, okay, fine.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_02: It's your hardware store.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: I think a sports franchise, you have a little bit more obligation to the community.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: So you're calling it more of a public trust.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_00: I uh yeah.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean it's not it's it's still a private business.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to get into that gray area.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_02: But you know, there there is a little bit more uh it's a different with a sports franchise.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: You're you're you're you have the whole community that you're it's trying to rally around that.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_02: You have a publicly funded stadium that you're playing in.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: And he can move the team, and with that he can move the team anytime he wants.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_00: He can always pull that card out of his back pocket.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_02: He won't though, because he's he's making tons of money this way.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_02: Um and like you said, they they had some success in the mid-2010s, and he just chose to um, you know, to not try to some owners would say, okay, we're gonna win now, we're gonna do it, we're gonna put whatever it takes to win now, and he he never had a desire to do that.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_02: And we it w went from a 99-win season right back to being in the tank.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, but people keep coming, and so he'll keep doing it.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_02: And uh it's sad.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_02: It's it's sad that that's what baseball in Pittsburgh has become.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people are apathetic.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_02: Even the people that come to the games, a lot of people come just for a night out.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's it's hot dogs and pierogi races and beer and whatever else.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_00: But the the days of the N EA, whatever gets you in the door, man.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_02: I think the days of the Pirates invoking the same kind of passion that the Steelers and Penguins do.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_02: It's it's hard to imagine those days coming back unless there's a different owner.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's it.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_00: That's our uh top list there.
1:11:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you didn't agree with them, um too bad.
1:11:41
SPEAKER_00: That's our list.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, you can always go on our Twitter feed at uh Pittsburgh Sports Memories, tell us where we're wrong.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you think we're wrong.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh thanks for uh tuning in.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're uh thanks for listening to our podcast, it's always greatly appreciated, and uh we'll catch up with you next time.