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1970's Memories with Jim Bellano · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hi everybody, welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Tim Hannon and I'm joined by uh Steve Wirt.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: And in this episode, we're going to talk about the nineteen seventies.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Steve, what's the first thing that pops into your mind when you think about the 70s?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Platform shoes, ABBA, the Bee Gees, my birth, uh lots of recession, lots of America losing a lot of wars.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's that's a pretty good list.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: I for me it's just like the color brown.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like everything was like that brown and burnt orange color back then.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Even even the furniture.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure Gerald Ford wore something brown at some point after he fell down the stairs.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: So so Steve and I were born, as Steve mentioned, in the 70s, but we yeah, we were a little too young to really experience that decade in sports, and we know it was it was so memorable for many of the people here in Pittsburgh.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: And since we always strive to bring you a Pittsburgh sports memories from a fan perspective, we sat down with a guy named Jim Bellano, who has written a new book about the 70s from his perspective as a fan.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: The book is called Fond Memories from a Forgettable Decade: A Sports Fan's Attempt to Rehabilitate the 1970s.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: So we hope you enjoy this conversation with that book's author.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: All right, folks, we are joined by Jim Balano.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: He is the author of a new book entitled Fond Memories from the Forgettable Decade: A Sports Fan's Attempt to Rehabilitate in the 1970s.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: Jim, welcome to the show.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Tim.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you having me on.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: So you write that the ultimate thesis of this book are that your experiences as a sports fan from that era surpassed those experiences of any other fan from any other place and any other time.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: Tell folks what you mean by that.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, and you know, I'm not, and I kind of go into it the idea of people jumping on bandwagons, but because of my background, I'm I was born right outside of New York, right outside of the Bronx, really, not only New York City.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I made annual trips to western Pennsylvania, southwestern Pennsylvania, about an hour south of Pittsburgh.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew to love a group of teams.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: In baseball, it was the Yankees, of course.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: My father um instilled that into me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And going out to Pennsylvania uh for summers, we were always there in July and early August.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point, the idea of going to Three Rivers to Pirate Games came in.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I became a Steeler fan shortly thereafter.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my kind of relatives uh brought that on to me.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: They bought me a jersey at one point, and of course, the amount and New York was kind of a a vast wasteland for professional football in the 70s.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the Steelers became my team, especially with the Immaculate Reception.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I have these three teams, and if you look at what those teams did in the 1970s, four World Series wins, four Super Bowl championships, a number of championship games, a number of uh NLCS and ALCS games, I just don't think it's comparable.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've tried to think of it like tried to put two disjoint, and it's not too disjointed based on my background, from New York, spent summers in Pennsylvania.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I was trying to think of someone else who I don't know, were they a cowboy fan, and then they were also a Celtics fan or something, and or a Packers fan and a Celtics fan in the 60s.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: How how would that work?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's my claim based on that.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I that makes a lot of sense.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, those intersections of teams in in that decade really gave you a lot of things to celebrate and a lot of good memories.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and, you know, I I uh my co-host Steve and I, we were born during the 1970s, so we were we were a little too young to experience those memories the way you did.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I I thought it was interesting reading about your experiences growing up during that time.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I believe you you would have been something like nine or ten years old at the start of that decade, and then I believe you were in college by the time it ended.
• 4:43
  unknown: Right.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: So tell us a little bit more about how being in that stage of life during this time really influenced your your sports memories from that era.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, um, well, the Pennsylvania experience, as I point out, was kind of out of necessity.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um my grandmother and my mother had grown up in a small town called Republic, Pennsylvania.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say Republic, people go, I don't I don't know where that is.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to say Uniontown, and it's right, it's kind of right near Uniontown, so they can get a little context.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a poor coal mining town, and we had cousins out there, but my family's history was kind of especially kind of tragic, and um, and you know, really felt the um the weight of the uh the Great Depression, and also my grandfather having committed suicide at the time left the family uh by itself.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I had that connection there.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: So but going there was no picnic.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: We were there, it was kind of very dysfunctional, there was not a lot to do.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And somewhere, as I said, uh we took a trip to Kennywood Park, and I think a year or two after, um the idea came why don't we go to a Pirates game?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Pirates had won the World Series against the Orioles, big upset in 1971.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I had been a kind of a Pirates fan.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we went there, and of course it was just it was fantastic.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was in the the heat of, you know, there's two factors here.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's the teams I like, and then there's teams I grew to kind of loathe during the same decade.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the Cowboys always seemed to win, always seemed to get their way.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: The Reds were very similar, the Orioles were like that, the Raiders were similar.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, this is kind of the context.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it was easy to latch on.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the Pittsburgh Pirates uh trips really saved me, uh saved my summer vacations and brought back a lot of good good memories to talk about.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: The New York experience was easier because I live right outside the city and I could go to Yankee games regularly.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: You you talk about those trips to Republic and you know, uh especially as a young kid, the the experience being a little bit um uh I I don't know what word you would use, but but certainly not not exciting for a young kid, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: And and like you said, there was all those family dynamics going on.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: What was what was that like?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Just writing about the experience, recalling all those family dynamics.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Did you did you talk to people in your family when you did this book to sort of you know shape shape that narrative about what that time was like?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I did, I I would talk to my sisters, but it was pretty clear to me.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, both my mother and father had passed away long past.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as I said, my aunts and uncles are gone, grandparents gone.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um I had my sisters left, but you know, the the memory is just so it's so ingrained that we went there and it was not great.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: If I just you got you mentioned to your sisters, they would they would pick it right up.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was all about we'd go there, there'd be chaos.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Aunt Marie and Uncle Joe would be fighting.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um we would try and do fun things, but there wasn't just a lot going on.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, this was like an old coal mining company town house, so it's a half-house.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so living there were my grandmother, my aunt, and my uncle, and here, and it was a two-bedroom, and here come my father, my mother, my two sisters, and myself, and my aunt, six of us, just dropped in that half home.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the sleeping conditions, the eating conditions, just the the resting watching TV conditions were were just kind of cramped.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think it it added to the uh the chaos.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: I I can imagine, and I I just I I think that's pretty interesting that what came out of that, you know, you would think would be some resentment or some longing to forget about that time of your life, but what came out of that was this fandom of the teams in the area, the like you said, the pirates and the Steelers.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: And and you already mentioned that first trip to Three River Stadium.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: You talked about how it was new and exciting, and I believe you got to see Roberto Clemente play shortly before he died.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Is that correct?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I did in 72, would have been July of 72.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: First game was a game against the Reds, which of course led to Heartbreak, one of the one of the many heartbreaks of Reds Pirates uh playoff series.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I did.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I saw him uh uh against the Reds and they won the game, which was fabulous.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um then it all came crashing down in the NLCS, and of course, in um I think it was New Year's Eve that year, he was killed in the plane crash.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah, the the you had the Bob Moose wild pitch in the NLCS, and then he was killed on New Year's Eve and just uh yeah, shocking set of events there.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: Now, in terms of the Steelers, uh you talked about New York kind of being a wasteland for football, and and I believe that you referenced the NFL blackout role as kind of playing a part in you uh coming to to love the Steelers because uh the Giants weren't necessarily on TV every week, correct?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they you know it's um and I think I had I had bought into the Steelers earlier with the Immaculate Reception.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I remember going crazy when Stabler ran that ball in so late in the game.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was devastated.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: But even for my other friends, if if I look around at my friends, my friends were cowboy, Viking, Raider, Redskin, and Dolphin fans.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's kind of who we saw on TV.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I I really, you know, I say it's anecdotal, but I remember the Cowboys seemed to be on every Sunday, and the Giants were not.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I I think that's that's it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: We just had this void of uh of a team, and it didn't happen in baseball.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Baseball, you could see your team.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: There were no blackout rules.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I know the rules were there.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't recall the specifics of how many times Dallas preempted the Giants or somebody else pre-empted the Jets, but it just seemed to be it seemed to be there all the time because why else would we all gravitate to these other teams?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that that makes sense.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and when you're a kid, you you want to you're interested in the teams that are good.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: You're not you're not you don't have the years invested where you can withstand this year after year of, you know, three wins, four wins, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: And and you know, it's funny, Jim.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're one of the few people that uh can say that you watched the Immaculate Reception because uh it was blacked out here in Pittsburgh.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: And and so there's always people, it's funny because there's a bunch of people that say they saw it, but they if they were here, they unless they were at the game, they they didn't see it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: So you're you're one of the few people that is a Steeler fan that can actually say you saw it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well was it blacked out, say in bars and things like that, or just just I believe it was blacked out on all local television.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I I don't know if you know I I know when I was a kid, I think by that point you had things like satellite dishes.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you had that in 1972 to pick up, you know, out-of-town stations, but I doubt it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right, no cable, right.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, so so yeah, it was really the people at the stadium, and then you know, if you lived in in Erie or Altoon or, you know, a town that had an affiliate station that wasn't in the Pittsburgh market, then then you saw it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a that's criminal.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um and when you saw that play, Jim, I I um my my father was at that game and and I asked him, you know, when you left the stadium that day, did you did you realize you had seen something that was gonna be relived literally for the next 50 years?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, no, he said it was a quirky end of the game, you know, and I was happy that the Steelers won, but but you know, he didn't feel like, okay, this is this is this is like the greatest play in NFL history.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: How did you feel at the end of that game?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Did you feel like that was gonna be something that people are gonna always remember?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I I doubt it, and I'm I'm trying to separate my 50-year mind from the moment, but my my my big take from the takeaway from that was that you know, and this is kind of so emblematic of Steeler games, you know, here they and especially the 70s, you know, they ran the ball, Jarella kicked the field goal, and and so that's what that game was.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And here they were up, and time was ticking, and La Monica was ineffective, and Stabler comes in, and boom, and there's like a minute left, and you're just devastated.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember just you know, exhilaration because it happened.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was bizarre.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I analyzed it whether did Fuqua hit it, did Tatum hit it, did it touch the ground?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I mean I didn't see it as that.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was just elation from overcoming what looked like a devastating loss.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it was fourth down.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: You you write in the book also about um the you know, the highs and lows of a sports fan, and and you really sum it up in that week because you had the Immaculate Reception one week, then the next week you had the game against the Dolphins with the fake punt.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then I and I think you had Clementi's death shortly after that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: So uh man, just the highs and lows, right?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: The extremes.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's you know, it kind of gets behind the book, is that I and I think maybe teenage years, I mean, you try if if I look at it, look at my life as a sports fan, as you get into the 80s, I got married in the mid-80s, got divorced in like 2005, had two kids in in between, two daughters, and you just can't invest in sports like you could when you're a teenager.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So everything is is kind of live or die.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And coming off that big high, here's a week later, and we're looking good against the Dolphins.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're winning, and we're shutting them down.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, you know, the cypel play was kind of early, but it it just was like, what are we doing?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was tied, and then you know, Bradshaw had gotten hurt and was out of the game, and that of course puts everyone's on pins and needles, and it was just it fell apart there.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he came back and we got close, but it it was it was tough because because and that was their undefeated year.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right and you know, they talk about the Dolphins undefeated, nobody's done it, and we were pretty close to doing it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, sports is about what if.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: What if Bradshaw had played the whole game?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, or what if they would have sniffed out that fake punt and stopped them.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a lot of what ifs there.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh once again, folks, the the title of the book, Fond Memories from the Forgettable Decade: a sports fan's attempt to rehabilitate the 1970s.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, Jim, I think uh, you know, it's right there in the title, and you repeatedly refer to it in the book, the 1970s is the forgettable decade.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: What are some of the reasons you call it that?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think in two reasons.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, it's it's always gotten kind of a raw deal, um, because it's bookended by two decades that at least perceive themselves to be, you know, monumental decades.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: The 60s, of course, goes without saying they think it's it's it's the greatest decade.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the baby boomers are just kind of reaching, they're somewhere between retirement age and and a an assisted living facility or so.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, but they're still, you know, I I live in a town that's that's got a lot of baby boomers in it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a hippie vibe in this town of Windham and Willamantic, where I live in Connecticut.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they're still wearing tie-dyed shirts around.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they they they they think they think they were it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course you got the go-go eighties.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's when America turned around.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at least you know the Reagan years and things like that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the 70s are this era of, and I think the Pittsburgh area can appreciate it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was start, you know, the decline of the the coal industry had certainly started to decline, the steel industry as well.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it was just a rough time.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was malaise, it was inflation, um, oil embargoes, gas prices.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you turn the corner, it seemed like you know, the American dream had slipped away.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not Allentown, because that's the other side of the state, but it's kind of what Billy Joel's Allentown talks about.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: And and yeah, you had a lot of you know, Steve and I were joking earlier that uh, you know, the the kind of the theme colors of that decade were that brown and burnt orange.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, that was all the the uh you know I I look at um pictures of my family room when I was a kid, and that was all of our furniture and our curtains and everything.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and and that that kind of fit that decade, didn't it?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: That that theme color.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even if you went retro today, you wouldn't choose the colors from the 70s.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't have a wardrobe from the 70s.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you notice, people have they have like um kind of like revival parties, and they have six parties and they have eighties parties.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: We don't really have seventies parties.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they haven't heard of too many.
• 18:37
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and you're right about the way it was here, it was it was not a good time, and I think that's why uh people were just so so proud of the sports teams, because yeah, Pittsburgh had long had this image, and it took years to to shed this.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: We've talked about this on the podcast.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: You you can dig up like an intro to a game from 1998, and they'll be like, oh, the smoky steel town and and steel mills, and it's like the steel mills were long gone by then, but that was still how people thought of it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you had all this success in the 70s, it was kind of saying to the rest of America, hey, this is this is this is a town to be proud of, and I think that's why people to this day still love those 70s teams.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it was also and it was it was the ethic.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, the American century really was about the growth of the middle class.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, you know, that's the kind of that was the Pittsburgh ethic.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was middle class America.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was when the American century thrived, you kind of think of Pittsburgh.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: You think of, you know, working class, blue collar, lunch pail, buy a house, raise the kids, have a couple summer vacations, and that that's what you did.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when you think about that generation that came out really of you know the devastation of the Great Depression, when you had soup lines and people were out of work, and then you go right into World War II.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that's a that's a proud generation, and it's a proud era.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when things went went bad, I mean, it l it definitely left a hole.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's um it it you know, the middle class kind of still hasn't recovered.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: It makes perfect sense.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so so Jim, this is this is a fan podcast.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Steve and I aren't media members, we're not former players, we're just fans talking about these events.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so one of the things I really appreciated about your book was how you, you know, you recount some of the big events from back then through the lens of a fan similar to what we're trying to do on this show.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that struck me was how you wrote about the teams you hated, and you even alluded to it earlier, you know, you mentioned the Cowboys, the Reds.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what were some of the reasons you hated those teams back then and and kind of wanted to see them lose?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: And and do you still feel that way about any of those teams today?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hated them.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely hated them.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think, you know, I think the Cowboys, I saw I don't know, I hate I hate to think it's just it's jealousy, because they were just so successful.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they were so shiny and clean cut and white, and my teams were a little rough around the edge.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: We had we had sideburns, we had froze, you know, we had a little longer hair, and and we were working class, and they were they they were kind of elitist.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: On the other side of the Raiders were just the antithesis even of good middle class.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, I don't know where they were from, but they were a dirty team, I thought.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I th and and I believed in, you know, I think I don't I don't go back as far as Gary Cooper, but as far as uh a uh a movie uh icon.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the strong silent type is kind of what what I admired, and and that's kind of who the Steelers were.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know we're not we're talking about Pittsburgh, but even, you know, I talk about my New York side.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I loved the 70s Yankees so much more than the 90s and 2000 Yankees, even though that team was more successful.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because they were kind of working class.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: They put it together and and and got some championships.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: The other ones, they brought in Clemens, they brought in Boggs, they brought in Red Sox, Johnny David.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: How could I like those teams?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: How could I even like them?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: But why didn't I?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think the Boston thing was a natural thing for New Yorkers.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that Immaculate Reception game really cemented the Raider hatred.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: No doubt about it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then the years that followed, just what else could it be?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: How could you how could you have anything other than animus for that?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the Raiders go back to, you know, the late 60s against the Jets, the Heidi game, uh AFC Championship game.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Raiders were always notorious.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Dallas was it was kind of opposite.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I hated them both the same, but one's kind of this clean-cut, um, you know, almost a military type organization, and the other is like a street gang, and yet I hated them both equally.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: They were the antithesis.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the Steelers were right in between.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then and then the in baseball, the the Reds, uh, because as you said, you know, there was all those experiences with them beating the Pirates, it wasn't until I believe until 79 where the Pirates finally got the better of them.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: So, um, how can you not how can you not hate that too?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they were kind of if I think about the 70s, they were kind of cowboy-like.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they were very they were the clean cut team, the hair above the ears, no facial hair.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the pirates were were not were not like that, especially as the decade got got longer, and was the sideburns and the mustaches, and and um, you know, it was just a it was just a I I didn't want to be them, I wanted to be who I was.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: So so going back to the Cowboys for a minute, you know, you write about those two Super Bowls between the Steelers and Cowboys, and and you go through the events around those, but you all also offer some some insights that someone like me who is a bit too young to remember those games would never get anywhere else.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: And and one example is you talk about how the Cowboys did this annoying thing whenever they came up to the line of scrimmage.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: So can you talk about that and what what bothered you about it?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it just it adds again to this kind of clean-cut, shiny white, prissy military school um approach to it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: They they would come up to the ball, and of course they they they you know they're the only ones who used the shotgun back then.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Landry kind of really developed it uh or utilized it.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they would come to the line, and instead of just getting in their three-point stance, they would Stalback would shout out something, who knows what it would be.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I think in the book I can't I can't even say the words I may have I may have um um attributed to him.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then they would stand up straight and then get back down in their three-point stance, and I don't know what it was for.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Was it for showing off?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was their thing.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was just annoyed me.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Everything about the cowboys annoyed me.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: Elitist is probably a good word to describe that, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's like we do things this way because we're the cowboys.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the other cowboys thing, I don't know if you if I pointed out in the Super Bowls or uh is that they wore their white jerseys at home.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they wanted to wear their white jerseys at home.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when they went on the road, everyone, most people wore dark at home, most teams, so they got to wear their white jerseys again.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: They always got their way.
• 25:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Bothered me.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: And and and then that moniker of America's team.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean that that that just, you know, it's it's it just you're you're just saying that this is a team that that represents the whole country.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, meanwhile, uh 27 other fan bases are like, well, what about us, right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's funny because I travel, I have a daughter in North Carolina, my other daughter was in Florida, and I'm amazed at the steeler bars that I run into when I go when I go visit these places.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not America's team.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a very good point.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and a lot of those Sierra bars came out of the 70s because that's when you started having people displaced from this city because of what you mentioned about the way the economy was going.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that is w that really ironically helped spread that phantom all over the country.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: So something positive came out of something negative there.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they travel well.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: My daughter went to the Rams Steelers game last season.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: She said it was it was a Steelers' home game.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 27:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was crazy.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: You always find a lot of uh Steelers fans at the opposing stadium.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, Jim, you talk a lot about how you experienced games.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh for example, you write about watching the uh Steelers and Colts 1976 playoff game on a black and white TV as you were putting up a Christmas tree, I believe.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what would you say is your most memorable fan experience from this era?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Not necessarily even like the best moment, right, or the greatest uh achievement by one of your teams, but just the most memorable uh experience for you personally watching or attending one of these games?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have to say, um, and I I make a point of it that in the 70s the the two sports, baseball and football, were watched very differently.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because we were able to go to baseball games.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: I never went to a football game in the 1970s.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know anyone who went to a pro football game in the 70s.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So football was a television sport, and in that the greatest achievements have to be the four Super Bowls.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the Immaculate Reception was was just the wildest thing.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was just crazy.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was the depth of despair.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was over.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I had really just come into my own as a Steelers fan.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So here I am, I'm their fan, things are going great, and then someone just stabbed me in the gut, punched me in the gut.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then that turned around.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that really triggered it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was all in from that day on.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: There was no turning back.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: On baseball, I mean the Pirate World Series were both great.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um 79 was kind of an out-of-nowhere thing.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed that and um and taking the money of my hallmate there in college.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, believe it or not, because of my kind of Pennsylvania roots and my Slovak roots, I really loved Babushka Knight, going to Babushka Knight.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was it was kind of an odd thing, you know.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: You always heard about babushka because my grandmother wore babushka.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know Slovak, but I threw around Slovak words, Shedzi's, Peneji, Kabasi, Borogis, you know, we ate and then Babushka was one of them.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we went to this game, and it was Babushka night.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, here's this city, this entire city, embracing like my own heritage, or half my own heritage.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was it was crazy, and it was it was a blowout uh also.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that that that's my good memory from from baseball.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was uh that babushka night was, I believe, 1975.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you talked about um during the game, whenever the pirates would do something good, people would start waving the babushka's like almost like terrible towels.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was yeah.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: The terrible towel came first, I'm sure, but um I'm sure you know the babushka was a natural extension.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's that's again, um, I keep going back to uh there's so much good insight.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's funny, we live in this day and age where you can uh you know read all kinds of accounts of events, right?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: All kinds of things on the internet, you can read all even old newspapers, but there's something different about that first person experience.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that Babushka night really is a great example, Jim, because I I went and looked that up when I read about it in your book.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if you and i I found the uh Pittsburgh Post Gazette article from the day after, and all they really did was uh recap the game.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this person got a hit in the sixth inning, and then this happened in the bottom of the seventh.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: And somewhere along the way they mentioned, I think they said they called it Ladies' Night or something like that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: But they they didn't say what the giveaway was, they didn't talk about how people were waving the babush because right, that's that's the kind of um detail you only get with a first-person experience, and that's why, again, I just I found your book really interesting.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, because tidbits like that, you're you're just not gonna find that kind of stuff anywhere else.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if that was the high, and then maybe we can extrapolate and say the dolphin lost the week after was the low, my my most vivid low for the pirates has to be that Lee Mazzilli game at Shea Stadium when I had to leave early and was drinking.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Can you believe my friend's father did that?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a cardinal rule.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: How could you do that?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so so so share that story with our listeners.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's it's the mid-70s.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's probably 75, 76 now, I'm thinking.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so the Mets are in in kind of rough times.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: They've passed their two World Series, one win, one loss.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to promote, they're giving away tickets on dairy milk cartons.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's how kind of desperate they were.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: But a friend's father comes to me and says, I have tickets for um uh a Monday night game, Pirate Stealers.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he knew I was a pirate fan or whatever it was, but he takes me down there with his son.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we're sitting in the upper deck, and that year was interesting because the Phillies, it must have been 76, because the Phillies were about to take over the National League East, and they'd stay there until 79.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: The pirates would kind of step aside.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it was definitely 76.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we go to the game, and the Phillies started to collapse as early as late August.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And something like a 13-game deficit was down to about four games when I go to this game.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the Phillies are idle, and all of a sudden I'm I'm in the mix.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's September 20th, I think.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we still have plenty of time to catch them.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we're watching the game, it's kind of a back and forth.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: The Mets are, I think we're tie with the Mets, or the Mets were ahead and we scratch back.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then Willie Stargill hits a home run, puts us up by one.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: We go to the seventh, we go to the seventh inning stretch, we go to the eighth.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: The ninth inning's about to start.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: T'Colby comes in, right?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: All he has to do is shut the door.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Top of the ninth, we bat, we don't, you know, and the bottom of the ninth, and it's over.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Top of the ninth, and I swear I said to my friend, I remember it like yesterday, this is why I never leave a game like this.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because here I am all excited.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're about to do it.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the father says, Come on, let's go.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: I want to beat the traffic.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just looking at him, probably like he just stole my, you know, he just stole my shiny toy, like a like a young child who had their stuffed animals snatched from them.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and sure enough, we left, and we get in the car, we're driving back on the Van Wick Expressway, and there's the radio on, and here comes Lee Mazzilli, two out, two run, walk off Homer.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And just that was the beginning of the end.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Pirates never recovered.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: And it was all because you left early.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, because I left early.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure if I were there.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he would have never hit that home run.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: He never would have hit that ball.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: I have to believe that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's that experience is is so it it's it's funny.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: When I read that, the first thing that popped into my mind was I was at a Monday night football Steeler game against the Giants, and it was the reverse situation.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: The Steelers were losing by, I want to say, 20 points.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: And my dad was like, hey, look, you have school the next day.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's they're getting killed, we're gonna leave early.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: And sure enough, on the way home, Steelers score a touchdown, and then I think there was a turnover, and then another touchdown.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: They eventually came back and tied the game.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, I can't believe I I left this early, right?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like I I I missed it.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I kind of had the same uh creedo cre credo after that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm never going to leave a game early because you never know what's gonna happen uh when you do.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Did you mope around the house and make your father feel guilty?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: I I I yes, I did.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the only thing that I will say the only thing that um was the saving grace in that was they came all the way back and tied it, but then the Giants kicked the last second field goal in one anyway.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: So so uh there was that.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: At least I kind of felt like, okay, well I would have just stuck around and watched them come all the way back and lose.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I would say uh my highest point of a Steeler game, not 70s of all time, I was at the game with my one of my daughters.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was at well, I was at the Franco Memorial game, that's one thing, but I was at the I was at the Pat Steelers game the year after the Jesse James disaster, and they won 17-10.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it was a nail biter, and that was a that was a great, great moment.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was at I was at that game too, and and it came down to you know, Brady was driving them in the final minutes like he always did, and then we stopped him on downs at at maybe like the 20-yard line or something.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: Which which you just you were just waiting because I I'd been to enough of those games where here he comes, he's just gonna come back and score a touchdown because that's what they always do.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, we actually beat them.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: So um I I I I think you obviously put a lot of research into this book, and a lot of it was, I'm sure, around the events that you could go back to things like old box scores or old newspapers or other documentation for.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: But then you kind of had some stuff that you really had to do some sleuthing for.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and one of those things was you were trying to figure out the specific date uh where you went to Yankee Stadium to see them play the White Sox, and you talk about sort of your process of figuring that out.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: So, so what what what was your process when you were writing this book of of researching not only uh you know facts and stats, but kind of researching your own memory and then cobbling all that together to make it a book?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was a lot.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: The book, and you know, because I I worked, this was my first endeavor with with writing a book, I really spent it, I spent my weekends doing it.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not great working at home, so I like to go to a library, I like to get out of the house.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent my Saturdays and Sundays doing it for about a year and a half before I turned it over to the publisher.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of research, and I kind of would start with the kernel of memory.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know I did this, for example.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know I went to Babushka night.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: When the heck was Babushka night, right?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know I I I'm not even sure what year it was, right?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I know I went to that game.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually had some help, I'm trying to think of the the gentleman's name, over at the Heinz Sports Museum.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I actually wrote him and I said, could you help me out?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um because I was actually looking on the internet and I had a date, but there were two babushka nights that year, I think.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: There was a there was a later one in September after Labor Day, which I couldn't have gone to, and it wasn't as successful.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I had my my memory and I made sure the memory was clear.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I would check it out with somebody.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I remember the a Yankee game, um the Bobby Mercer tribute game I talked about.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: I said to my friends, we went to Wildwood that weekend, right?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: We were in Wildwood, New Jersey.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: And but that wasn't that the night we worked the overnight at Pathmark, you know, in the supermarket?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Yeah, and so so I started with mind memory, reinforced it, cobbled it together, and then had to go to the sports side.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: What did what did this person do?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, Clemente got a in that first game I went to, Stargew got an RBI, Clemente had two RBIs.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't remember that.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know I went there, I know they played the Reds, I know they won.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to go back, find the date, find the game, and look at the stats to kind of put it all together.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a real it was a real labor of love, this book, it sounds like.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I didn't even bother, you know, like the 1977 game, they played the Mets at Three Rivers.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Here I am on vacation, I get stuck watching the Mets, right?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even though it's at Three Rivers, and I don't even know which game it was.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: All I know is I looked at the I know I went to see the Mets, and I know it was during the week Sunder Sam got caught, the 44 caliber killer.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all I knew.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was in Pennsylvania when Sunder Sam got caught.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I look at it, they had they played the Mets like a four-game series and swept them.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't know which game it was, but I knew I went to one of those games.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's pretty cool.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Leave it at that.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_03: I I think, you know, and and labor or love, I think, also probably uh describes your fandom during that time because I, you know, you're you're growing up in New York, you had you you had the family in re your mom's family in Republic, but you know, uh today, if you want to if you want to be a fan of an out of market team today, you can watch their highlights on YouTube.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: You can connect with other fans on the internet of that team, right?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: Back then, you had your local newspaper, you had your local news, 11 o'clock news showed the highlights, you had like your local talk shows, sports talk shows, uh, and then you had, of course, the people you know that lived in the area that also rooted for those teams.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: But if you weren't in that area, you didn't have a lot of connectivity to to the team, other than when they were on national television, right?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there was no way I would have had any connection.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I might have, you know, liked the Pirates.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're kind of an underdog team, which I like underdogs.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And even though the Steelers had so much success, I always saw them as kind of an underdog team.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no way I would have latched onto the Pirates if I didn't go there and visit and have the family connection.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I talk about this, even though in football, because of the blackout rules, people went to gravitate into other franchises.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: In baseball, I didn't have that problem.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: I could watch any Yankee game, any Met game if I wanted to.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: But any Yankee game I wanted to at any time.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would never have, you know, when when when the um and there was no inter there were no interleague games either.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it was the American League and that was it.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: The National League, I never saw unless I went to a Met game or till the f till uh the fall.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's that that's that's another interesting thing that people won't ever remember.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: I remember uh uh being really excited when the All-Star game was in Pittsburgh in the 90s, and I I was a big fan of Frank Thomas and Ken Gurphy Jr.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I got to see them uh hitting in the home run derby that they had at the River Stadium.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: But I would have known you never got to see those guys play, right?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: And and so that's really the way it was for all those years.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh folks, once again, the the book is called Fond Memories from the For Forgettable Decade, a sports fan's attempt to rehabilitate the 1970s.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we will link to um where you can find that in the show notes if you're interested.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: And and Jim, I I think you know, from that era, one of the things that I always thought that was really overrated is the Jackie Smith drop in the Super Bowl.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: And you cover that and you make this really interesting point about how we as sports fans often extrapolate things.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like if this thing in the third quarter would have gone differently, then the outcome of the game would have gone differently.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's not really accurate logic, is it?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's it's terrible logic.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think that's part of this broader another reason for disliking the Cowboys and the Raiders is they forever whine and even the Ortlers to a lesser extent, they whined about a play.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: They whined about the Immaculate Reception, they whined forever.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: They still I have a friend, he still talks about Jackie Smith.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying that's at the end of the third quarter.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: That game, I I think it would that would have made it 21-21.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: The final was 35-31.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so much could have happened.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I talk about Jarella missing a field goal in the first half.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if he made that, should I say the game would have been over after Randy White fumbled and we scored after that?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, and and I think it I don't think it was a great pass, I think it was a bad pass.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was low and behind him, and sure he should have caught it, hit him in the hands, but they're making way too much of it.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: They still show that clip all the time and they play the uh The call from I think it was Vern Lundquist saying he's got to be the sickest man in America.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think Staubach even said he threw it behind him.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: And and and like you said, see, the the logic that people use there is that it made it 21 to 17 instead of 21 to 21.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so since they lost by four points at the end of the game, those were the four points that would have made the difference.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: But that assumes that when the Cowboys were driving late for those those late touchdowns that they got, that the Steelers would have, you know, if the Steelers were up by multiple scores, they're going to play a different style of defense than if they're up by one score.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: They just were.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and they were going to let them chew up clock and get yards because go ahead and score your touchdown, but if you're going to take two or three minutes to do it, we're okay with that.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: So you're right.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's definitely something that I don't think people always give give thought to.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: When the s when the Cowboys scored the second touchdown to make it thirty five thirty one, You know, it was after the one onside kick, there were like 20 seconds left on the clock.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was done.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't gonna they weren't gonna score another touchdown.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: They the field goal was no good.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but you know what you know what I think contributes to it?
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you watch the NFL film films of that Super Bowl, they show right after the drop, Jackie Smith is upset, but they show like the stoic Tom Landry, who's always cool, kind of go like this, you know, and Starback goes like this, and he's always so calm and cool.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes it like, oh yeah.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: That that that that guy blew that, you know, that killed them.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know what else is another one?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: The Renfro.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: The Renfro against the Oilers in the end zone.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's another one.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're still talking about that.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: And and and that, to be fair, that was a bad call.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: They they that was a very bad call that should have been a touchdown.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: But to your point, if you look at the final score of the game, it it's it it didn't, you know, I I I at least with the Immaculate Reception, that was the play that at the very end of the game, right?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: If that's incomplete, the Raiders for sure win.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: If it's complete, the Steelers for sure win, right?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: So at least that has at least some basis in okay, if it goes the other way, but you're right, some stuff that happens in the third quarter or the second quarter, you just can't, you can't extrapolate that.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: And even, you know, even all the way, you could you could go all the way up to the time of the tuck roll.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, uh people were so upset about that, and I people around here really hate the Patriots.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, nothing stopped the Raiders from playing defense after that, right?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they didn't get the ball, it wasn't the call didn't go their way, but they still could have played defense.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're the that that so it it yeah, it it's it's um I I was I I thought that section was really interesting.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: You did a good job uh kind of like again extrapolating that logic.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the fan, the fan, the fans, the mind of the fan.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, for sure, for sure.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: And it's always, you know, obviously, and I'll I'll be the first to admit that it's always always biased in you know whatever impacted your team.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and it works both ways.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, under the logic, I could look at Super Bowl X and say, oh, Jarella missed two field goals and an extra point.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's no game at the end, there's no Hail Mary at the end.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing because the game's over.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, you can't say that.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 47:26
  unknown: No.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: So so Jim, I'll I'll I'll I'll end with this.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: The the 1970s were of course followed by the 1980s, and that was not a good decade for uh the Steelers, the Pirates, or for your Yankees.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: So what was that like going from that pinnacle of all my teams are winning championships to all my teams kind of stink?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was rough, and I I think I even point out that that I think it was 84, the 84 championship game.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had no faith in Mark Malone against Dan Marino, just had no faith.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it was an odd time, I can tell you.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you I came to a crossroads, but I but I I crossed in the right direction.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: The Steelers were on the down on the decline.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: I won't say they were bad, they were on the decline.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the Jets were uh were resurging again.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I mentioned in the book if I have a team I like in New York, I don't like the Giants, I never did.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of like the Jets because of Namath, and they were the first.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the Sack Exchange and Gastineau and Todd and O'Brien and um Wesley Walker.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to myself, boy, these Jets are exciting.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what do I do?
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe maybe maybe I have to switch, you know, maybe it's over for the Steelers.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the Steelers came, I'm pretty sure the Steelers came in to it would have still been Shea at the time.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I watched the game, the game was on TV, and I said, No, I I can't root for the through this green gang green.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Steelers fan.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's imprinted on my soul.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so despite that, I I approached the crossroads and took the right turn.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean the pirates were tough in the in the in the 80s.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the Yankees.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had to you had to sit by and watch just about everyone else win World Series.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: And and it's we've done some episodes on the 80s where we we kind of tried to get into what happened there.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: There's all kinds of different reasons.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but you're right, it's um you know, and there are some good memories there.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: I I you know I I can pick out some really fond memories, but you know, I I I remember what it was like in the 90s when, especially when the Steelers went to Super Bowl 30, yeah, that was just for me, again, I was so young to to barely remember anything that happened in the 70s.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_03: And to see, you know, the Steelers after watching so many years of the Super Bowl, and oh my gosh, the Steelers are playing in this game.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_03: So but you you definitely made the right choice there with the Jets because they've done nothing but bring heartbreak for the for the last year.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: But then you know it was continued heartbreak because you had um you had the three pirate NLCS losses in the early 90s.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were back.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: You had Bonds and Bonilla, and and and we were back.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the red I don't I you know the Reds thing was one thing, but boy do I I mean I hate the Braves too.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean and it seems like they jumped around divisions, you know.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: What division were they in?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be in the east and they went to the west.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just to just to take the pennant away from us.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get it.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then the Steelers Super Bowl was that you know Yeah, it it made, you know, it's it's it's sometimes I think with with being a sports fan, though, those tough times make you more appreciative of the good times.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that Neil O'Donnell throwing those interceptions was rough.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_03: The the Sid Bream sliding in the home plate was beyond devastating.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: But then you had the next decade, you had the Steelers winning two Super Bowls, you had them winning uh against the Cardinals on a last second touchdown, you had the Penguins winning Stanley Cups.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_03: So it it again, it's it's sometimes when you suffer through that stuff that just makes it makes you all the more appreciative when uh when you have the good times.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: You you know what's funny?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: When I started writing the book, I had a whole another section on hockey, basketball, even tennis, because it was the golden age of heavyweight boxing in the 70s too.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Boxing, golf, it was the golden bear against Watson and Trevino, and and I had another like 15,000 words, and I said, if I put this all together, I'm gonna lose my real thrust.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about these three teams that won so much.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: If I start digressing on Ollie Frazier and Ken Norton and whatever, I'm I'm gonna lose it, or the golden bear versus um you know the merry Mexican.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna lose it all.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or the Olympics, even.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: So so although I do allude to the hockey team.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so I kept it.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I shoved that stuff aside.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe maybe the next time we'll talk about Penguins hockey.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: When they wore blue instead of uh the gold.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: The blue and white, yeah.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_03: All right, folks, once again, that's Fond Memories from the Forgettable Get Decade, a Sportsman's Attempt to Rehabilitate the 1970s by author Jim Bellano.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_03: Jim, thank you so much for joining us.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jim, I appreciate it.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's been had a lot of fun.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_03: All right, everybody.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: We hope you enjoyed that.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh please pick up Jim's book.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's a really good read.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, please connect with us on our website or on Facebook or Twitter.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: We'd love to hear your thoughts on the show.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_03: We'd love to hear your ideas for upcoming episodes.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you can connect with us uh in multiple ways.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we really appreciate everybody listening, and we'll catch you next time.