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REWIND: Pittsburgh Sports Tragedies · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody, welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Tim Hannon, and I am joined by Steve Ward.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: The esteemed Steve Ward.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think no one's ever called me esteemed before, but I'll take it.
• 0:21
  unknown: Uh
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: This episode, uh we are going to talk about Pittsburgh Sports tragedies.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Pittsburgh Sports, obviously a lot of great moments, a lot of great players and things to celebrate.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, there's the flip side of that where uh a lot of people that uh were gone way too soon.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and so in this episode, we wanted to look back on some of those stories and then also remember the lives of those people.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't think you can start a list like this, Steve, without uh Roberto Clemente, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that's probably number one on this list For sure.
• 1:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Clemente, a Hall of Fame outfielder for the Pirates, 3,000 hits, 15-time All-Star, two-time World Series champion, MVP of the World Series, MVP of the National League, 12-time gold glove winner, and and maybe even more important than all that is what a great advocate he was for Latin ball players at a time when there's still a lot of very open racism in baseball.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think if if you're doing a Mount Rushmore of Pittsburgh people, not just Pittsburgh sports figures, but just Pittsburgh people, I think Roberto Clemene has to be on there.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Would you agree?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean the Mount Rushmore thing's kind of been done a lot.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, if you would like I always liked better the uh you were redoing the mural.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, remember the mural they used to have downtown with I think he was on there, wasn't he?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was Matt Mario and Mean Joe Green.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it was him running around the like yeah, Stim standing on second with like his hat, yeah, after it's it was at the 3000th hit, yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, definitely.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I prefer the mural, I guess, than just for a visual.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll stick with mural then instead of Mount Rushmore.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I I I really don't want to spend too much time here on Roberto Clemente because honestly, at some point.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: He starts a whole podcast.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like he he yeah, we have to do a deeper dive into his life and the impact that he had on the city.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we will talk about his death.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: He he dies trying to help victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: He had gotten reports that I guess the Nicaraguan army was stealing the supplies he had sent down to help these victims, and he decides, you know what, this time I'm gonna go there myself.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And on New Year's Eve in 1972, his plane crashes and Clemente is killed at the age of 38.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know people in this town, this this was you know right right before Steve and I were born, but I know people in this town to this day who remember exactly where they were and how completely devastated they were when they heard the news.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um wasn't it Neil Walker's dad was supposed to be on that plane and he traded spots with them, I believe.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I mean.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, like everybody has to think they actually crashed because they put too many supplies on the plane or something like that.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like they overloaded the plane or something like that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there was also a whole controversy about that plane um uh having been deemed unfit or not inspected, something to that effect.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we'll we really do need to do a deep dive into Clemente because there's a whole story behind that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, you really can't start this list without putting Roberto Clemente on it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very sad, very tragic.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Was definitely at the end of his career, but still had a whole life in front of him and dies at the age of 38.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Next guy on our list is Dustin Straussic.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dustin Straussick was an offensive lineman.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was selected by the Steelers in the 11th round of the 1990 draft.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are not 11 rounds in the draft today.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's with the equivalent, Steve, I guess, of what an undrafted free agent today, probably, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: 11th round.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: He would have been an undrafted free agent.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and he Strozick plays his way onto the team and ends up being with the Steelers for nine seasons, which is pretty impressive for an 11th round slash undrafted free agent kind of a player.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nine seasons with the Steelers.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And during that time, he's a pretty valuable player.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's never a star, but he plays every position except center.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so he ends up playing a lot.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime there's an injury or a guy departs in free agency, as has happened a lot during that era.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's plugged in.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is during a time when the offensive line in the running game was really the backbone of the Steelers' success, the 1990s.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Strelzik, also a character.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's this big bearded guy who smokes cigarettes and rides motorcycles.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like really like a guy you would expect to see at a biker bar instead of an NFL uniform.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh very big personality, fun-loving type of guy.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Also not afraid to speak his mind.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Steeler said he would pick up the red phone on the Steeler sideline just so he could scream at the offensive coordinator to run the ball more.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if that was Chan Gailey.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's like yelling at Changley.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, run the ball more.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, but but it's funny too to look back at the 1990s as being such a different era because you don't think of it as that long ago.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you had this guy, Myron Cope.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I remember listening, I would listen to Myron Cope do the post-game locker room show, and he'd be looking for Justin Strelzick to bum cigarettes off of him.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So here you have like the reporter and the players all smoking in the locker room after the game.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't like the 30s, this is the 1990s.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just it's just funny to think like you would never see that in an NFL locker room post-game today.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, here we are not that long ago.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what was happening.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And like what a down-to-earth like guy.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there aren't a lot of those guys left in the league now.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's very true.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's very true.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Straussick has some injuries near the end of the 90s, uh, several of them off-the-field injuries, and the Steelers end up having to release him, and things kind of seem to spiral after that.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: He and his wife file for divorce, and a lot of his former teammates say he struggles to adapt to life away from football.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: By 2004, friends say he is definitely dealing with something, whether that is CTE from his playing days, whether that's depression, some other mental illness, that's unknown.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is known is that on September 30th, 2004, Strelzik leads New York State troopers on a very dangerous 40-mile highway case.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The police had punctured one of his tires, like they had laid down one of those strips that punctures your tires and it and it blows his tire out, but he keeps driving his car on the rim, and he's swerving in and out of traffic, he's throwing beer bottles at other cars, and eventually he collides with a tanker truck.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a pretty big explosion and he is killed.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Steve, do you remember when that happened?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember seeing the video.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's video of it.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not not good, not a good way to end.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whatever was going on with him, he just never could uh seem to find uh find the help or get the help he needed, apparently.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you know that was uh that was definitely a sad way for him to go.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it would have been nice to see him at those uh Steeler alumni weekends.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I definitely he definitely would have been a fan favorite.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and his story is uh portrayed in the in the Will Smith movie Concussion.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Justin Strelzick is one of the characters in that, and and the whole thing around his death and everything.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, again, uh whether that fell under the category of CTE or something else, those things are always hard to say, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are there are certainly people that can struggle with mental illness without having played football.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you gotta remember the brain is probably the least like understood you know, organ of the body.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's probably you know, it's the most complex and um Yeah, they just just as time marches on and we learn more and more about it, you know, hopefully things will get safer and treatments will get better.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Very sad story for a guy that was very well liked in Pittsburgh.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the next guy on our list is Michelle Briere.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: In 1970, Michelle Briere is a promising 19-year-old rookie for the Penguins.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Penguins head coach Red Kelly compares Brier to NFL running back Red Grange because of how fast and graceful he was on the ice.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like he looked like a running back skating up and down the ice.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: He has a pretty good regular season, uh, but then he really goes to the next level in the playoffs.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: He leads the Penguins in scoring in the playoffs, and he eliminates the Oakland Seals with an overtime goal in the first round.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Who are these Oakland Seals, yeah.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'd have to look up the history.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think they um I I don't think they've moved or folded.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think they got absorbed into another franchise that still exists today.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they they have you can trace their history back through some franchise that exists today, I think, but don't quote me on that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, yes, the Oakland Seals were an NHL team that the Penguins eliminated on an overtime goal by Michelle Briere.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that year, the Penguins actually come within two wins of making it to the Stanley Cup finals, which is pretty big because remember, this team is only three years old at this point.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So here you have this young player on this young team, lots of optimism ahead, very similar to where the Pirates and Steelers were at this point in the early 70s, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: These teams that were were up and coming and their best years were ahead of them.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that summer after the Penguins are eliminated, Bear goes back to his hometown in Quebec to marry his girlfriend, and he and a couple of buddies go out one night, he has a few drinks, unfortunately gets behind the wheel of his Mercury Q Mercury cougar, and he's going way too fast, he can't negotiate a curve.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: The car flips and ejects him out.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: He suffers massive head trauma, languishes in a coma for 11 months, but never wakes up.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize that.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I knew he died in a car crash, but I didn't realize like he was in a coma for 11 months.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's it's he he never wakes up.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's he's semi-responsive at times, you know, like the the you know, uh squeezing his hands and that kind of stuff, but not not ever where he's able to communicate or anything like that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the the reports at the time, there were even some media reports that the penguins were expecting him back mid-season and stuff like that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, well, he got in this car accident, he was just gonna need time to heal.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was just something that was unrecoverable.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: He passes away the following April at the age of 21.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's that's just heartbreaking for so many reasons.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the penguins, they don't really have much success after that, or another bona fide superstar of that pedigree until Mario Lemieux comes along 14 years later, but of course, you know, means so much more than just hockey, because this was a guy with literally his entire life in front of him.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: His fiance and he had a son together, so that boy grows up without a father, and then his fiance is now 70 years old, and she never does marry anybody else, and says even to this day it's really hard to talk about.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So his son has to be like older than us, like in his 50s.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the athletic, I believe it was the athletic.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll have to post a link to it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, does a really good uh follow-up story about this, and they they interview his fiance, they interview his son, who is now uh I want to say like an investment banker or something like that, and has has a family of his own.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and just just what a sad story it was.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: His son even has a Christmas card from his dad, and you you almost cry reading this because it's that Christmas um of 1970, and and in the card, because Brier was in Pittsburgh and his son was living in Canada at the time, he says, you know, Merry Christmas, and hopefully this is the last Christmas you have to spend without your dad.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just uh it just it's like crushing it.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: He still has that card.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the that same article, the family talks openly about they wonder if people in Pittsburgh know who Michel Briere is at this point, because it's been so many years, and remember he only played for the Penguins for that one season, and the Penguins weren't very popular at the time.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think they retired his number, didn't they?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that's the one thing that helps because anytime you go to a Penguins game, yeah.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's there's only two banners hanging from the ceiling, or two numbers hanging from the ceiling, and it's 66 and 21.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, even if people don't know who he is, people come to games and they're like, boy, there's I know who Mary Lemieux is.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who's that other guy, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe you learn the story.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that that helps that those are the only two numbers retired, right?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that keeps his memory alive.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the blue.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's in blue, too, because that was the colors back then.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they wore.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh two footnotes to the story.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the penguins, not not a good history with car accidents, also killed in car accidents.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: General manager Baz Badstein, who we talked about in our episode about the penguins tanking to get Mario, and also head coaches Ivan Halenka and Herb Brooks killed in car accidents.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Stay out of a car.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why her Herb Brooks died.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: That was a weird one.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about even Holinka's rec.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, herb Herb Brooks was like just driving down the road, or he wasn't drunk, or he had a car accident.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was Baz Bastian was the same way.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was on his way home from a um some kind of benefit that they had in the city.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Holinka, I don't know.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think I want to say that happened in over in the Czech Republic.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think so, yeah.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know much about that one.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But just, you know, gosh, just uh not a good, you know, when you have four uh figures, sports figures from the same franchise killing car accidents, you know, uh that that's just pretty major ones too.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like just you know, some guy that had a cup of coffee here.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you you could also add Tim Horton to that list was killed in a car accident, who played for the Penguins.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: He literally did have a cup of coffee here and made lots of coffee.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh another another kind of eerie thing.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we said Briere Warren in the number 21.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was also the number worn by Roberto Clemente.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the number of Pirates Hall of Famer Archie Vaughn, who tragically drowned at the age of 40.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a really good sports, Pittsburgh sports book called Unlucky 21, Steve, where the authors talk about how that number should be retired across the board by all the local teams, and they even point out how Stewers cornerback Dion Figures, who wore number 21.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, he got shot.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, was a victim of a drive-by shooting, but fortunately didn't survive.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: But he wasn't even like he was just driving down the street and somebody shot a bullet and it hit him.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like he was in some sort of shootout or even in a bad situation.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was just driving down the street in his neighborhood, and it's like they weren't even shooting at him, they were just shooting and well that hence the book Unlucky 21, right?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Clemente was trying to help people.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Archie Vaughn was I I you know uh uh I think that was a fishing thing where he drowned.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's um yeah, it's I I I don't know, you know, you have to believe in superstitions and stuff like that to to think it's unlucky.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you certainly you could argue, you know, the Steelers have had I don't, you know, Moel Day Moore, Emma Zaraway.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I think Trey Norwood just recently had number 21.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh stay out of the river, Trey.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I mean, is it bad luck or is it coincidence?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but that's kind of eerie that you have.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh three guys that were number 21 who died very, very young.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Next guy on our list is a guy whose name that a lot of folks are probably not going to know, but who played a very significant role in pirates history.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Guy's name is Harry Pulliam.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was a newspaper editor who owner Barney Dreyfus makes the president of the Louisville Colonels.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as we talked about in a previous episode, the Louisville team is contracted by the National League and kind of folded into the Pirates in 1901.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Polium is highly respected in baseball, and the significant role that I alluded to earlier is that he is the one who convinces a guy named Hannes Wagner to sign with the team.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but remember in that previous episode we talked about during that era, Steve, how the American League had been formed and how they were pillaging all these players from the National League before they finally made a truce.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Pirates didn't really lose any of their star players during that era, which is why they were winning pennants.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And reportedly one of the reasons was because the American League owners had a lot of respect for Harry Polium.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So not only is Harry Poliam responsible for getting Hannes Wagner to Pittsburgh, he's also responsible for keeping him here.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's so respected, in fact, that the owners vote to make him president of the entire National League.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, again, a name you probably don't remember, but during that time is very well known, very well liked, very successful.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, his mental health starts to decline.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: People say he stopped socializing.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on, and he's whenever he's around people, he goes on these rants about how the National League owners want him out, even though he's an honorable guy.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of theories as to what happened to him.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: One is that the stress of the job that he had being the president of the National League just overwhelmed him.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very famous incident in 1908 known as Merkel's Boner, which which I I still can't get over that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the name that they chose for this.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: It means mistake, too.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I get it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of other synonyms for mistakes you could have used, but I mean it was 1908.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was 1908.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: The backstory there, if you if you're not familiar with that story, is that uh the Giants and Cubs are playing in a game that's going to decide the pennant.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Giants get what they think is a game-winning hit.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: All their fans storm the field, but the Giants guy that was on first base is a guy named Fred Merkel.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: He allegedly never touches second base, and so he's out.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they go into the stands and fight the fans for the ball.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: For the ball and touch second base, yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a huge controversy, right?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, the role is you have to touch second or you're out.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and how do you how could you possibly determine if you touch second, there was a thousand people on the field?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So so what what what has to happen is the president of the National League, who is Harry Polyam, has to make a rolling, and he rolls in favor of the Cubs, which of course ticks off all of New York City.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and so a lot of people hate him after that, but he was gonna it was either gonna be that or everybody in Chicago was gonna hate him, right?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of in a no-win situation there.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he could have done what they did with the George Brett situation, make him replay the inning.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: You you could, but I mean, either way, again, the Giants you took the penant the Giants would have won the pennant had you had you had they gotten that hit.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, you had to you still had to roll one way or the other, and it was the Giants.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that's maybe that's what's going on with him, is it just he knows that a bunch of people hate him, and that's that's probably hard.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably not a job he ever had before where he had to face that kind of pressure.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: The other theory is that he was never seen dating a woman, and he kind of wore flamboyant clothing, and so the theory is that.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, 1908.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: The theory was that he was a closeted homosexual, which of course, you know, to your point in those days a lot more socially taboo, especially being in the sports world.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, all this just speculation.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the reason, he does take a leave of absence early in the nineteen oh nine season.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day in July of that year, he leaves his office.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says that he's not feeling well, and then later that night, workers at his apartment building find him bleeding from a gunshot wound to his head.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's also a gun right next to him indicating that he had shot himself.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I won't read the details because it's far too graphic, but needless to say, he's in he's in pretty bad shape when they find him.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: They tried it asking him what happened, and he just keeps insisting that he has not been shot and he has no idea what they're talking about.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he passes away pretty soon after that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Baseball cancels all of the games on August 2nd because that is the day of his funeral.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So again, still still a highly respected guy that baseball cancels literally all their games across the board just because um that's they want people to be able to honor him and go to his funeral.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So little known guy, but pretty sad story there.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it must have been pretty influential for them to cancel the games like that.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then another guy who, you know, uh mental health not being what it is today, who knows if that's something that he could have gotten help for, you know, or somebody would have tried to encourage him to seek help for, you know.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I back then they they it was it probably was worried that if you admitted to somebody you were struggling that they were gonna just lock you away in a in an institution.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So just unfortunate.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Next guy we'll talk about is Dwayne Haskins.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Haskins was a quarterback who is recruited by Ohio State, becomes their starter in 2018, and promptly lights the road on fire, uh 4,800 yards passing, 50 touchdown passes in 2018, wins the Big Ten championship game, wins the Rose Bowl, is the MVP of both of those games.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Steve, I forgot how good Dwayne Haskins was at Ohio State.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I did not remember that he threw 50 touchdown passes.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the college season.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in a college season.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like what is that, 10, 12 games?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's four touchdown passes a game.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, impressive.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he's he's selected in the first round of the draft by the Washington, whatever they were called at the time.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he he kind of has like the traditional rookie season.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: He sits behind a veteran for a while.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then they make him the starter, he's still getting his footing.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like really, really similar to to Kenny Pickett's rookie season in Pittsburgh, right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so then he he goes into 2020, that's his second year, and that's that's kind of the year where, okay, he's not a rookie anymore.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: They make him the starting quarterback right at the beginning of the season, he gets all the first team reps.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: They actually even make him a team captain.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really his team to lead now.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So big expectations, but it does not go well.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Haskins plays poorly, and the Washington coaches reportedly are upset with his work ethic.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: He loses his starting job in only four weeks into that season, which is I mean, when you have a franchise quarterback, your quarterback of the future, even if he's struggling, you think you're gonna stick with him longer in the four weeks.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that to me, Steve, that tells me that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that rookie year they he wasn't like showing up and stuff, and yeah.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Some guys, like I think, you know, he started his whole career, had all this success, and all of a sudden, you know, doesn't realize the level of talent has jumped up that much, and you know, you kind of gotta rise to the occasion.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and to make matters worse, he's photographed at an event.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there seems to be some dispute as to whether that event was a birthday party or a strip club.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the real controversy is that he's hanging out with a bunch of people without a mask on.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, this is 2020.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: The NFL had these very strict COVID protocols for its players.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Washington decides to release him in the middle of that season, which is shocking because he'd been drafted to be their franchise quarterback just 18 months before that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers decide they're going to take a flyer on him.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: They sign him to back up Ben Rothesburger and Mason Rudolph for the 2021 season, and after that season, Ben retires.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really good opportunity for Haskins to get his career back on track because the Steelers had Mason Rudolph, Mitch Trubisky, and Haskins as their quarterbacks.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this is before the draft, right?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And before they drafted Kenny Pickett.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, at that point, Haskins probably has just as good of a chance to win that job than any of the other two guys.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve, you and I talked about this at the time.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking maybe this could be a steal.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, like you, like you said, he he he's young.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: He goes to a place like Ohio State where you just you're elevated to godlike status for being a star quarterback at a place like Ohio State.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna make you lax.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, you know, um like you said, you you never realized you had to work hard.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then then he gets drafted by arguably the most toxic organization in the NFL.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and and like violating violating the COVID protocols was dumb.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like you should have just been more careful.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't like he killed someone, right?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't, you know, it was just him being dumb.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it it just like you just saw this as like a maybe, maybe he'll just he'll come to an organization, he'll have to work for a starting job, and he'll turn things around because he still had a ton of talent.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, didn't you think he was I just thought he was very talented athletically.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was tall.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: He he wasn't Jamarcus Russell.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: He actually had some skills, but he ends up kind of having the career arc of Jamarcus Russell, unfortunately.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um fortunately for him, but like I don't I just want to say the guy just couldn't get it together between the ears.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: His his problem was all between the ears, it really was.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he just never he just never could get it together between the ears, you know, leading up to, you know, just more just off the field stuff that he just never could quite for whatever reason, he just and you know and you you can you know I know people have gotten in trouble for criticizing it, but um, you know, I'm sure we'll go over that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's the situation he was in at that time was of his own doing.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'll leave it at that.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, the the the reason he ended up you know ending tragically is because you know he did it, you know, no one else was responsible for that but him.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what Steve's referring to is on the morning of April 9th, 2022, he's struck by a truck while inexplicably trying to cross a really, really busy interstate in Florida, and it's a bizarre story because why would be why would he be locking on a four-lane interstate at 7 o'clock in the morning?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: There were initial reports that his rental car ran out of gas, but then why wouldn't you just call for help?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you go out walking?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't 1981 where you had to go walk to a gas station.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I was really praying that it would just come out that there was some logical explanation, but to to what Steve was talking about, what instead what came out was that he had a blood alcohol level of 0.24, which is incredibly over the legal limit.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he had multiple drugs in his system.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was also reportedly in a rental car with a woman who was not his wife.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I I just I I just feel for his widow and his family because not only did they lose a 24-year-old kid with his whole life in front of him, but now they have to deal with there being this, you know, kind of seedy details around his death.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I will mention, to be fair, that there was a lawsuit filed by the family alleging that Haskins was the target of uh a quote, blackmail and robbery conspiracy, and then he was drugged prior to his death.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not that's true, I'm not sure we'll ever know the answer to that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but but to your point, Steve, just you know, that was kind of his unfortunately.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a shame because there's been a lot of other quarterbacks of a lot of other players in the league that have done stupid stuff and have are still alive.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like Ken Ken Stabler, you know, was infamous.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's his name from the 50s, like quarterback for the Steelers, you know, wrecked his car into a trolley.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um what was his name?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Bobby Lane.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Bobby Lane.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he isn't the first person to you know to have these kind of problems.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: He won't be the last.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: But it's you know, a shame that he had to pay the price with his life.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: It it really is.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, again, car accidents and stuff like that are tragic to begin with, but when you have again all those CD details and and seemingly, you know, like you said, self-inflicted based on what the the findings of the investigation were.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: It just super unfortunate and sad.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he really he really did have a great chance there.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: The Steelers, Ben Rothesberger had retired, and they don't draft Kenny Pickett if he's on the team.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: If he's on the team, I don't think they draft Kenny Pickett.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a fair uh a fair statement.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I obviously I don't know who drafts Kenny Pickett at that point, maybe the Jets.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: The Jets love fit players.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But but I mean that that it just he he just had a ton of talent.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and like you said, really it was it was more about him just not having it, like you said, between the ears.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: But got there's plenty of guys like that who who've been able to turn their careers around with maturity and time.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, the mistakes just that he made he wasn't he didn't get that time, whereas other people, for whatever reason, have um been able to well even Terry Bradshaw has had his issues, you know.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: He see it hasn't cost him his life, thank goodness.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's been able to have a successful career.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so just a very sad story there.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the next guy we'll talk about is Bob Johnson.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Johnson has a an interesting early life.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: He serves as a medic in the Korean War.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: I never knew that, Steve.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: I did not, yeah, I didn't know that.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's un that's unbelievable.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then he becomes a teacher and eventually he starts It was a great day to practice medicine, I guess.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he used to say every day at the battle lines.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he starts coaching hockey.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's a very successful college head coach, and then he has some success in the NHL.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: He takes the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1986.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they do lose that series to Montreal.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in 1990, the Penguins are going through an identity crisis.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, they have had Mario Lemieux on their roster for six seasons.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's the best player in hockey, but they've only made the playoffs once in those six seasons, which is hard to believe because you have to remember back then the NATL had 21 teams, and 16 made the playoffs, just like they do now.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So literally, that means in five of Mario's first six seasons, the Penguins were among the the five worst teams in the league.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that one year they lost to the Flyers.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that was like, yeah, that was that series where they just scored a bunch of goals.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they couldn't win in Philadelphia.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, they they just kept losing at the spectrum.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean they were you you you look at like where the Oilers are right now with McDavid, you know, and yeah, they are kind of in the same spot.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're kind of in the same spot, but they've at least been in the playoffs.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Even won a playoff series or two.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Mario, they they they like you said, they had that one year where they they made it to the second round and lost to Philly in game seven.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: But that that was it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: They were they were just awful.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: With and here they have this generational talent.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it when when Bob Johnson is hired, uh they're they're really at a crossroads.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and that's really a whole that comes with a whole wave of kind of front office house cleaning.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ket Craig Patrick is brought in to be the general manager.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Scottie Bowman is brought in to be the director of player development, and then Johnson is brought in to coach the team.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he Bob Johnson really well liked coached by both the fans and the players, and that was really welcome at that point because the penguins had cycled through these guys like Pierre Creamer and Gene Ubriaco, who were not well liked, especially Ubriaco.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Especially by Mario.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll have to get into some of those stories in a different podcast.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, Gene Ubriaco and Kramer were just not coaches that were good fits here in Pittsburgh.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so as Steve mentioned, Bob Johnson had this great catchphrase, which was it's a great day for hockey.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and sure enough, the Penguins undergo a huge turnaround.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: They win their divisions for the first time ever.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then Johnson leads them on this magical run through the playoffs, which culminates in a Stanley Cup.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that was and him being called the Professor by uh who was the coach of the Bruins back then?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, uh Shoe Guy.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Melberry.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Melberry called him the professor.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that was that was big.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the penguins were this morabound franchise.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: They had been around for for about 25 years at that point, never done anything, and here they are winning the Stanley Cup.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Again, kind of like we talked about with Michelle Briere, their best years are in front of them.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, though, just a few months after winning the cup, Johnson is diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer, and he passes away on November 26, 1991, which was what, five or six months after they won the cup.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would that that next season was very sad.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: They had like a candlelight ceremony for him in the arena.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Just very tragic.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is yeah, one of the more And it happened like you know, like you said, while the Penguins were really rising to prominence, and like you said, looked like they had a well, they did have at least one more cup run in 'em.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe, maybe more, maybe he keeps Mario hot happy, I don't know.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems like hockey coaches were are fired or hired to be fired.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: So fair.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think it's to me it was it's less tragic for the franchise and more tragic for just him personally, because think about like this is a guy that like he he his whole profession, he literally reaches the pinnacle of his entire profession and seemingly has like you said, a dynasty to lead forward, and then just like that he's gone.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and and I I know my pastor always talks about how life's greatest trials often follow life's greatest highlights, and he uses that as a reason why our faith is so important because life is unpredictable and nothing really is ever guaranteed to us, and I think this is just such a perfect example of that.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you never know every every day uh every day above ground.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just gotta be happy.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just happy to be here, Tim.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just happy to be here.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good perspective to have.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Next guy we'll talk about is David Little.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Little is an outside linebacker for the sorry, an inside linebacker for the Steelers in the 1980s, and he's a pretty good linebacker.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: He makes a Pro Bowl.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's voted team MVP in 1988, and he starts 89 consecutive games at one point.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely a very solid guy.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: He has the unfortunate distinction of playing on some really bad Steelers teams.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the guy who came before him at that position was Jack Lambert, and the guy who comes after him is Levon Kirkland.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of sandwiched in there, yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just just and if he plays in a different era or on a different, even on a different team in that era, he's probably much more heralded as a as a star player.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's also very active off the field.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: So today the Steelers have this tradition where their players visit children's hospital in Pittsburgh and they always take pictures and they post it on the Steelers website and stuff like that.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: David Little's the guy who started that, although he didn't do it as some as part of some organized team PR activity.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: He just did it.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: He would just, yeah, he would just go there every Tuesday to visit kids.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: No cameras, no fan.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's like remember Troy would do that?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Troy, it like he would just like no cameras, no nothing, just just like, oh, I'm going up and visiting.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it'd be like, hey, here's Troy Palmala.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's so cool.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I like it when they do it and they don't they don't tell anybody.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's because it's like I think it's shows some sincerity, whereas like sometimes you see people like, okay, you're just, you know, here to make the news.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: I um I there was an article I read years ago in Sports Illustrated, Steve.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was this very long form article that somebody did about George Steinbrenner.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and George Steinbrenner was a guy, obviously, that was not well liked, didn't have a good public reputation.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the author of this article had dug in and found all these stories that Steinbrenner wouldn't confirm, but the people, other people in the story did about him, you know, helping people, and and this one waitress paid for her son to get this surgery that saved his life.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and the and the reporter's like, my goodness, look at all this stuff you've done.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: People don't even know about this.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh people would think so so much differently of you if they knew all this stuff.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Steinbrenner said something to the effect of uh if if you if you're giving to someone and someone besides you and the other person knows about it, then it's not giving.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that just that always stuck with me because I like if there was ever a guy that could have used a uh a PR boost.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: A PR boost, and he just was like, no, I I don't care because it's not the right thing to do.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I just that just always stuck with me.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe just like the the the badass rep too.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like yeah.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: He did kind of lean into that a little bit.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like he even hosted Saturday Night Live once and did a sketch where he he was playing like a uh grocery store manager and and thought it was ridiculous that you know they were hiring and firing all the workers.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so he did have a sense of humor about you know his reputation.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I just that always stuck with me.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is that you know if you're if you're if you're giving to someone just to show everybody how great of a person you are and and taking cameras and and all that stuff, I I I still think about that when I see the Steelers or or any other sports team post about things like, oh, look at our players visited the hospital today.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think sometimes it is sincere and it's not terrible, but you know, I don't.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I that that just always stuck with me, that George Timer story.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think David.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's also like people like Tun Jolkin and Craig Wolfley that you know, and then when they do they do their walk for the homeless, but they're doing it to raise money for the light of life mission, then you know Well, in that case, you have to be public because you're trying to read it.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fundraiser.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just, hey, like I'm sure both of them go down.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I know for a fact Tunch did, I'm sure Craig does too.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: They they go down to the light of life.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: They just they probably don't even know they were there.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the person David Little was.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what happened to him in 2005?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's lifting weights at his home in Florida, and he accidentally drops a 250-pound weight on his chest, and it rolls onto his neck and suffocates him, and he dies at the age of 46.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: So just a tragic way for him to die just an accident lifting weights.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a movie, yeah.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think he had some kind of they they said he had some kind of heart condition that kind of like caused like these little flutterances.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was they think that that's probably what caused him to drop the weight in the first place, but then once it once it rolled onto his neck, he couldn't get it off.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he survived by his wife, Denise.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: They had three children.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: So just again, incredibly sad, good guy.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully a guy that people will remember in Steeler history because it just he wasn't on the 70s teams, he wasn't on the 90s teams, he wasn't on the 2000s teams, you know, some of the great teams.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was he that one that one stretch of time in the last 50 years where they were bad, that was basically his whole career.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a shame.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's a shame.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I've I've heard of him, but I didn't know much about him.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I do remember that weight story, him like it's just a weird, weird thing, like just a total fluke thing.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: As opposed to like, you know, other people that like it's kind of you know, you he didn't put himself in a bad situation.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you never know when you're gonna go.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it goes back to that, you know, whether it's just some sort of weird twist of fate, like a cancer or an accident, or you know, you're doing stuff that maybe isn't the wisest course of action, you know.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and that's the kind of the thread through this whole um episode is like you said, that very different accidents, uh, maybe putting yourself in bad situations or other people causing you harm.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what happens to the next guy on our list.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's Jose Castillo.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's the pirates starting second baseman in the 2000s, like David Lidd.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Plays on some very bad pirates teams.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, the Pirates were touting him as one of their hot young prospects, but as usually is the case for hot pirate prospects, Castillo never really lives up to that billing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's out of baseball altogether by 2009.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: In 2018, Castillo and Angels Infield or Luis Valbuena are riding in a car in Venezuela when it's ambushed by robbers.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: These guys in Venezuela had this scheme where they'd place this really large rock in the middle of the road, and then when a car would crash into it, they would rob the car.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: But in this instance, they tried to dodge the rock, it flips over, and Castillo and Balbueno are both killed.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Four people, including two teenagers, are charged with their murder.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: But Jose Castillo also, you know, taken very young and and you know, and it and is murdered by these guys that are trying to rob people on the highway.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: So another just very sad story.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: What was that Venezuela, you say?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that's that's a very tragic thing.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, obviously, once again, you know, kind of forces beyond his control, you know.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really remember him much, but once again, the pirates have been not that good.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I recognize the name, but I I don't remember like I remember Freddie Garcia or the their yeah, the the second baseman more than him.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: W we we could do a whole episode of um just the next guy for the pirates for the last 30 years, right?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Chad Hermanson and Chris Benson.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you does in in and you would at the time you would have known the names because if you listen to sports talk radio or anything, oh yeah, and he's doing really good in AAA right now.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: When are the pirates going to bring him up?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there would be a lot of hype, and then just as quickly it's forgotten because it didn't work out.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that would be an interesting list to go through because there's been so many of those guys, Steve, in the last 30 years.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we often remember, you know, the pirates trading away all their prospects or or or whatever, but really a lot of them, you know, they've they've made a lot of trades where they've gotten prospects back.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they never turn out, but they never turn out.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um Castillo kind of fit into that category.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh next on our list, I'm gonna lump both of these guys together, Todd Becker and Billy Gaines, uh two Pitt football players who die in eerie, eerily similar ways.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Todd Becker is a linebacker on the 1982 team, and in December of that year, Pitt is ranked to number six in the country.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna play in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day, which remember back then the New Year's Day Bulls was like the big thing.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: There was no playoff or anything like that.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: The night before they're scheduled to leave for that game, there's a big party on campus.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's finals week, it's college.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of college kids drinking in the dorms, letting off steam, nothing really unusual there.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Todd Becker had been banned from the dorms at Pitt.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve, do you know why he was banned from the dorms at Pitt?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Drinking too much.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe drug use, right?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Violence, something's kind of violent.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: He had squirted a fire extinguisher when he was a freshman.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like general hygiene.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: We don't put up with that at the University of the United States.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just Yeah.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's and and this is significant because this this kind of factors into the story, him being banned.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so he wasn't allowed in the dorms, but he sneaks in because it's a party and he wants to be part of it.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And later that night the campus police show up because I guess somebody had pulled a fire alarm, and Todd Becker panics.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he knows he's not supposed to be there.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna do?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna kick him out.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that again, this is you're remember, Steve, you're think put put yourself in his shoes.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're a college kid, you've probably had a few drinks, and all you hear are sirens.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you're about to fly to Texas to play in the cotton bowl.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you're thinking if you get caught, maybe you don't get to play in the cotton bowl, maybe you even get kicked off the team.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you have a lot of time to like rationalize and be like, well, what's the worst they're gonna do?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I could probably appeal.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you're not thinking any of that, right?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're just thinking, like, oh crap, I gotta get it.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: If I run, I can get away with it.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what he decides to do, he tries to climb out of a third-story window.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of other students try to stop him, but he's in college, he's a linebacker, he's like, I can jump out, I can make this jump.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, unfortunately, he hits a protruding air conditioner, spins in midair, and then lands on the pavement below head first, and he dies at the age of twenty.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's uh horrible.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is it is horrible.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's not it's not I I don't want to blame the university for banning him from the dorms for something stupid, but man, if that hadn't happened, maybe he doesn't try to jump out the window.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly not a smart idea to try to jump out a third-story window, but again, 20 years old, you think you're invincible, and and then unfortunately finds out that he's not.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was that was that was a bad, lot of a lot of poor decisions there on his part.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh two decades later, Billy Gaines is a wide receiver on the 2003 Pitt football team.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: He and teammate David Abdul had a fire that damaged their apartment.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they're temporarily living at the St.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anne's Church and Homestead.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: And on June 18th, there's a cookout at the church.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: Gaines and Abdul have a few drinks.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Later in the night, they decide they want to explore this old church.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, there's some legends about these mysterious markings that are hidden in the rafters of the church.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't this was around the time that the Da Vinci Code was really popular, Steve.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe they were thinking like it was, you know, it's an old church, maybe they'll find something interesting up there in the ceiling.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Again, they're college kids, right?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just something interesting to do.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, unfortunately, while they're up there, Gaines loses his footing, he crashes into the pews below and he's killed at the age of 19.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a really sad situation.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: The reverend at the church is even charged with involuntary manslaughter since he's the one who who had provided the alcohol at the cookout that night.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve, do you remember Billy Gaines?
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I remember that.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember David Abdul was never he was a pretty decent kicker that first year.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: And after that, he just was never the same after that.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: He just really wasn't.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean he's so bad.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's up there.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one that, you know, he's the one that's with him when he dies.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a hard thing to deal with.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kinda, and then I think he he was in a car accident.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: He broke his leg after that.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like he just I think he's still alive.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think, you know, that that kind of messed that like kind of derailed his college career.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sad all around, Todd Becker and Billy Gaines, probably young men who, again, like like most of us at that age just probably thought they were indestructible and they're both killed the same way in a fall.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you do stupid stuff.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've done plenty of stupid stuff, so that's sometimes just Yeah, gotta be gotta be careful out there.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Great grace of God that we we're still here, right?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the stuff we've learned.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: So for sure, yeah.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Last guy on our list is gonna be Eugene Big Daddy Lipscomb.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Lipscomb is a massive NFL defensive lineman back in the 50s and 60s.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: 6'6, 288 pounds, which I think would be big today, but back then, you just you didn't have players that size.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so he's a giant.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: He plays on those 1950s Ghani United's Colts teams that were winning championships, and he has a lot of success there.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers, as we talked about in our episode we did about Body Parker, are very much in the win now mode, and they're very into trading draft picks and play and young players for proven veterans.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they swing a trade for the 30-year-old Lipscomb in 1961, which is a little bit of a risk trading for a veteran who's 30, but it works out really well for the Steelers.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: The Lipscomb leaps the NFL in sacks during his first year in Pittsburgh, and he's named as a Pro Bowl in his second season as a Steeler.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's also well liked by the fans.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's stories about him seeing a kid on the street without shoes and walking him and his mother into a store to buy them clothes, stuff like that.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: People said he had a really big heart.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's he's really a bona fide superstar player, but regrettably, he's battling a lot of demons off the field.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lipscomb had a truckload of childhood trauma.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: His father died when he was a baby, and then when he was 11, his mother was pretty brutally murdered by her boyfriend.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was also uh always a big kid, so he was teased and mocked a lot.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when his mother died, the family member who they sent him to live with beat him.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a lot to carry into it into adulthood.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as an adult, he can't sleep at night unless he pushes his bed against the door to block intruders.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: He also keeps a gun under his pillow.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he also carries the police homicide photos of his mother around in his pocket and shows them to people.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, Steve, if that's not a red flag of yeah.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: He did drugs too.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and that and that's where it ends up going.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and, you know, he he medicates that pain with substance abuse and sex addiction.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and again, once again, an era where mental health awareness is not what it is today, although certainly people medicating with addiction is still pretty common today, even with mental health being where it is.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: It costs him three marriages, and by the time he's a steeler, he hasn't slowed down much at all.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in retrospect, a lot of people think that what led Baltimore to trade him to the Steelers in the first place was that they just couldn't put up with his his antics anymore.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because it was kind of a surprising trade.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of their best players, and they traded him away, and that's probably why.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, you you also an era where you didn't really know about players' lives off the field like you do today.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Steelers certainly don't help his situation at all.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Bobby Lane, who Steve mentioned earlier, he always takes the team out drinking, and while he buys beers for the other players, he always buys King Lipscomb a full bottle of whiskey.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's uh a bad idea.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not gonna help.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um this all comes to a head on May 10th, 1963.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lipscomb is out partying with a guy named Tim Black, who is an admitted heroin user with an extensive criminal record.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: And at some point, some point in the wee hours of the morning, Black says that Lipscomb injects himself with a higher amount of heroin, and he's unable to wake him up, so he calls an ambulance, but Lipscomb is dead on arrival.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of teammates and Gene Lipscomb's ex-wives are highly skeptical of that story.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: They say that Lipscomb was super, super terrified of needles and would have never used heroin.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: They think that Tim Black, who was, like we said, an admitted criminal, had drugged him to try to steal his money.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe some similarities are with the Dwayne Haskins story where uh, you know, um was it bad was it a guy very similar to Dwayne Haskins, a guy with a history of bad decisions, seemingly makes some bad decisions that end his life, but the family thinks, yes, he made bad decisions, but in this instance there was foul play involved.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whether or not that's true, uh don't know.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh a tragic end for for him.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I think we I I went over him Steeler Dark Ages a little bit.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he just wish he would have been around a little longer, maybe the Steelers would have had a little more success.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: For him just in general, just he was is he in the NFL Hall of Fame?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe he is.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and like you said, maybe if he has a couple more years under his belt.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the they also the autopsy they did on him found that he he actually had massive liver disease from all the drinking that he did, so he was probably not long for this earth, regardless.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it but it's it just you know that's a good example, I think, of a guy, and I don't know what Dwayne Haskins' childhood was like, but I think you you look at guys like that and you're like, how could you throw away all this you know glory and success that you could have had?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'd you know, I'd kill to make that much money and be a star and be beloved and all that, but then you have no idea sometimes what these what these people dealt with in their past and and stuff that it's just really, really hard to overcome without a ton of work and a ton of help, which probably wasn't as readily available in 1963.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they didn't make as much money back then, they almost made like an average wage.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a good point, too.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our episode.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, sad stories all the way around, disguise that you wish would have been here longer, uh, but wanted to remember their lives because and their careers, you know.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: In some cases brought us as Pittsburgh fans a lot of joy and and was for were fun to watch and just uh want to make sure they're remembered because some of these guys like Michelle Brere or people like that just you know think I think they get lost to time eventually.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: Especially Brere.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think people I mean, I don't know.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I knew about that Libskom guy.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's got he was kind of a larger than life character, but definitely at least, you know.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Justin Stralsik, you know, was in the movie and stuff.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: So good to be remembered, good to remember these people for their many accomplishments on the field, really.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, folks, thank you so much for listening.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate all the folks who tune into this podcast.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Please uh check us out on social media, on Facebook, or Twitter.
• 59:16
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• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and please tell your friends about the podcast.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Word of mouth is always our best way to get you listening.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: We'll catch you next time here on Fitzberg Fourth Memory Podcast.