Chris Mueller on how to fix what went wrong in last night's Pirates-Braves game

In lieu of a half-assed rant from me about home plate umpire Jerry Meals' bad call that cost the Pirates a win in a 19-inning game, just read what 93.7 The Fan's Chris Mueller has to say about it.  Chris rants with his whole ass, and I mean that sincerely.  Also, follow Chris on Twitter and check out his call-in show.

RIP Sidney Harth

My mother passed along the obituary for Sidney Harth, who passed away a few days ago.  I never got to hear him play the violin, but I saw him conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1987 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and then I had the privilege of working with him a few years later at the 1991 MENC All-Eastern Orchestra Festival in Pittsburgh.  OK, "worked with" is being generous, since I was in the far back of the viola section.  He was a firm and knowledgeable conductor for that weekend.  We only played one piece, Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, and he made sure we were fully prepared to play every note.  We were so well-prepared that one afternoon of the three-day festival he decided we would sight-read instead of rehearse.  So he split the orchestra in half (by having us take turns) and half of us read Schumann's Symphony No. 3 while the other half read a Brahms symphony.  I got to play the Schumann, which was a real treat for me as it quickly became one of my favorite symphonies.  I still have the recording of our rendition of the Tchaikovsky.  I only wish we'd been able to play at Heinz Hall instead of a massive concrete hall in the Lawrence Convention Center; the sound would have been so much better in a proper space.

It's hard for me to believe that was twenty years ago.  I remember it like it was last week.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame

One of the good things about dating someone who lives in a state that I haven't visited extensively is the opportunity for me to be a tourist.  On New Year's Eve, my girlfriend and I went to Canton, OH to visit the one and only Pro Football Hall of Fame.  The pilgrimage was her idea, as she'd never been there either.  We're both Steelers fans, and yet we both neglected to wear anything remotely football-related (unlike most of the other people at the Hall that day, many of whom wore football jerseys or shirts).

The first stop on the tour is the history of the pro game.  There are exhibits of old uniforms and protective equipment and features on early professional teams.  Other panels and displays trace the development of the NFL and its merger with the AFL in the late 1960s.  Next, there's a section dedicated to the NFL's 32 teams, with helmets and team records and facts.  Famous Detroit product Jerome Bettis gets the honor of representing the Steelers.

The next room is the heart of the Hall, with the well-known bronze busts of all the honorees.  I couldn't resist taking pictures of all of my favorite players and coaches (the Hall has a liberal photo policy).  Touchscreen computer displays help you find your favorite Hall members and show highlights and interview clips.  Terry Bradshaw's interview, which must have been filmed for his induction in 1989, shows him wishing for one more chance to run a two-minute drill in a Super Bowl with all of his players.  He says "I could still play two minutes."  I love Bradshaw more than any other former NFL great, but even in 1989 he'd have had a hard time running a few plays.  Other exhibits in the Hall show highlights from past Super Bowls and feature memorabilia from current NFL players.  I liked the exhibit panels for other leagues, like the now-defunct WLAF.  (Scottish Claymores forever!)

The final stop on the tour is the Hall's theater, playing "The Road To The Super Bowl."  I hoped the film would be a retrospective on past Super Bowls, or show how tough it is to get through an entire season and win a championship.  While we waited for the theater to open, video screens on the ramp showed training camp footage from past seasons.  It was fun to see now-fired coaches hollering at their players.  The movie started with playoff highlights from last year, then the theater rotated 180 degrees to show a larger screen on which we saw the NFL Films' reel from Super Bowl XLIV.  We watched as New Orleans beat the Indianapolis Colts, with all the miked-up hits and cheers reverberating around us at top volume.  It wasn't bad at all, but the film made me wish I'd visited the Hall last year so I could have seen the Steelers' victory over the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.

The Hall has plans to expand further, and some of the displays (especially the history of pro football) are low-tech and antiquated and could use some modernization.  I'd like to go back in five or ten years and see how the Hall has updated their exhibits.  And I'm sure that a decade from now they'll have busts of more former Steelers for me to fawn over.  I like this idea.

The Slater story comes to an end (for now)

As I expected all along, Steven Slater pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal mischief this morning and took a deal that would keep him out of jail.  He'll have to pay JetBlue $10,000 to cover the cost of the emergency slide as well.

I have yet to be contacted by the media for my thoughts on the story, so I'll put them here.  Don't call me:  I couldn't care less what happens to this guy.  Although I fully expect that he has a future in reality TV.  He'll be the host of a show on Bravo or some other two-bit network within a year.  He has to find some way to pay that fine.

I was in Pittsburgh over Labor Day weekend on a semi-secret mission.  We ate ribs, toured the Warhol Museum, avoided a Bret Michaels concert, had some delicious Indian food in Oakland, and walked all over the city.  I flew JetBlue again and this time there were no incidents whatsoever.  Both flights were as unremarkable as possible, which is just what I want out of a trip.

I'm still thinking about the NYRO preview and other ways I can promote the orchestra's upcoming season.  Rehearsals begin Thursday night and I can't wait to get back to playing every week.

Watching hockey games with a group

Last year, every game I saw of the Pittsburgh Penguins' Stanley Cup playoff run I watched at home by myself.  It was great having total control of the food, drink, and TV, but when we scored and won games I had no one with whom to celebrate.

This season I've been watching some of the playoff games at Foley's in Herald Square.  It's the home base for the NY Pittsburgh Penguins meetup group.  I've met some great people, talked hockey, reminisced about Pittsburgh, and watched the Penguins.  I tried watching some Steeler games at a bar near my apartment last fall and while that was fun, somehow it felt like more of an effort.  Maybe it was all the beer drinking on a Sunday afternoon, something I'm not used to doing.  And the group at that bar didn't feel all that welcoming of newcomers.  But the Penguins fans at Foley's have been friendly and engaging.  Tonight is game 7 of the conference semifinals against Montreal, and I wouldn't miss watching it at the bar.  There will be some live-tweeting.  I'd live-blog the entire game, but it's hard enough to avoid spilling beer on my phone.  I'm sure my laptop wouldn't survive the night.

Let's Go Pens!

This is the year I follow baseball

I've been getting exasperated at all the baseball talk on Twitter this week.  It's just spring training, for God's sake! The games don't count!  Yesterday I threatened to live-tweet the Steelers' arrivals at training camp and the tackling dummy drills in July as payback.

Then I reconsidered.  Many, many of my friends are huge baseball fans.  And I am not.  Why should I be annoyed?  They're just excited that their favorite sport is back, even if they're playing meaningless games.  Live and let live.

Then a Twitter conversation earlier today about the viability of the Pittsburgh Pirates 2010 roster and their chances for improvement made me think about my own lack of devotion to my hometown team and baseball in general.  I realized that I couldn't explain myself in 140 characters. 

I didn't grow up as a baseball fan.  Johnstown, PA is well within Steeler country and so I became a Steelers fan at an early age.  My parents watched or listened to the Steelers games every Sunday.  I can count on one hand the number of times my dad and I threw a ball in the yard, and most of the time when we did it was a football.  I idolized Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, and Lynn Swann.  As for baseball, I knew who Willie Stargell was (I even shook his hand once) but I barely knew that the Pirates existed.  I never played Little League.  I never wanted to play and my parents didn't see any need to push me.  Baseball just wasn't on my childhood radar.

In middle school I used to get free tickets to Pirates games from my school in exchange for earning good grades.  (I was a massive geek then, just as I am now.)  My mother would drive us to Pittsburgh on Friday nights after work and with Pittsburgh's notoriously bad traffic we'd usually get to the stadium sometime in the 3rd inning.  Our seats were always in the 600 level, seemingly miles away from the field.  I had only the faintest idea who the players were or how baseball games worked.  Since this was the mid-'80s, the Pirates were rebuilding.  Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Mike LaValliere, and Andy Van Slyke were all playing for the team, but they weren't stars yet.  We saw a lot of crappy Pirates losses.  By the 7th inning the game was already out of hand, my brother and I would be making fun of the morbidly obese peanut vendor in our section and my mother would be ready to leave.  I don't think I saw an entire game from start to finish until 7th or 8th grade. 

By the time I graduated from high school and went to Georgetown in the fall of 1992, the Pirates had become a contender in the NL East and had made two trips to the NLCS.  All of Pittsburgh knew that the the 1992 Pirates were our last chance for a World Series appearance for a long time.  My freshman year roommate was a guy from Atlanta named Mark.  We didn't get along, and the 1992 NLCS between the Braves and the Pirates didn't help our relationship.  Everyone on the 1st floor of Darnall Hall watched Game 7 of the NLCS in the lounge.  When the Braves' Francisco Cabrera got the game-winning hit and Sid Bream scored, everyone in the room cheered for the Braves.  I was alone in my suffering as I watched the Pirates react, unable to believe what had just happened.  To add insult to injury, Mark led a victory parade up and down the hall.  The Pirates broke my heart that night.

Since 1992, the Pirates have given me few reasons to hope for another appearance in the NLCS.  There have been five-year-plans that have lasted for eight.  There have been bad trades and terrible free agent signings.  Ownership has failed to show anything resembling a commitment to putting a winning team on the field.  The Pirates moved into a gorgeous new stadium in 2001, among the best in baseball, yet the product on the field has been mediocre and sometimes atrocious.  I've had no incentive to follow the team.  I even bought a Mets cap a few years ago when they were hot and I went to a few games at Shea.  I considered giving up on the Pirates and going all-in for the Mets.

But I refuse to abandon my hometown team.  I can't deny being a Pirates fan any more than I could deny that I love Mahler's symphonies.  And now that I have baseball writers, bloggers, and fans among my friends, I don't want to be left out of the sports conversation all summer.  So this season I'm going to make a real commitment to following baseball.  I can't promise that I'll love it the way so many of my friends do.  But I'll try to watch games with more than just a casual interest.  I'll keep track of how the Pirates are doing, even if they swoon in the middle of the summer.  And when I go to Pittsburgh in August for a game, I'll know who the players are, how well they're hitting, and what the pitchers' records are.  This much I will do.

OK, baseball: are we cool?  As for the Pirates: don't disappoint me again.  I'm not asking for a World Series ring.  I'll take a .500 season.

The Pittsburgh Symphony comes to New York

Tuesday evening was "NYRO Goes to Carnegie Hall" as a small group of us ventured north of our usual Times Square neighborhood to the city's most famous concert venue for a performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony and Anne-Sophie Mutter.  I hadn't seen the Pittsburgh Symphony in about eight years so it was a treat for me to have my "hometown" orchestra here in my adopted hometown.  And I was glad to see familiar faces like Andres Cardenes (concertmaster), Anne Martindale Williams (principal cellist) and Randolph Kelly (principal violist) in the orchestra.  For a few moments the experience took me back to my childhood, when my mother took me and my brother to concerts at Heinz Hall and I would be fascinated by everything: the musicians, the conductor, the program, and the sheer size of the hall.  Carnegie Hall is no less impressive, though I forgot how steep the upper balcony is.

The first work on the program was Johannes Brahms' dazzling Violin Concerto, with Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist.  I've been a fan of Ms. Mutter's work for many years.  I could listen to her play all day long.  She attacked the double-stops with a vengeance and handled the lighter melodic sections delicately and with ease.  I thought the orchestra balanced well against the solo violin, as music director Manfred Honeck kept his players in check and allowed Ms. Mutter's virtuosity to show.  The third movement was especially spirited, and Honeck practically danced on the podium.

After intermission the concert resumed with Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1.  Frequent readers know that I love Mahler almost above all other composers, and that his Symphony No. 1 is one of my all-time favorite works.  As fond as I am of the Pittsburgh Symphony, I couldn't help but measure their performance of the symphony against my favorite: Alan Gilbert's performance with the New York Philharmonic last May.  At first I was slightly disappointed as some of the strings seemed unable to find the right harmonic for the ethereal opening of the piece.  Honeck took some liberties with the tempos, which my friends found excessive but I didn't mind as much.  It was a crisp performance but not as energetic as I would have liked.  I didn't think the musicians or the audience got into the music until the climax of the first movement, which gave me chills despite my earlier misgivings.  As the concert went on the orchestra improved.  The brass, especially the horns, were outstanding.  But the brass and winds also overpowered the strings in a few places, upsetting the delicate balance Mahler indicates in his score.  The finale was appropriately bombastic and I couldn't help grinning when the horns stood up near the end (always my favorite part of any performance).  The audience erupted with applause and Honeck and the orchestra took several curtain calls.  They played Josef Strauss' "Die Libelle": Polka Mazur, Op. 204 for an encore.  At the time we couldn't hear Honeck when he announced the name of the piece so we had to play "name that tune" until my friend Susanna tipped me to the title this afternoon.

Based on last night's concert I think the Pittsburgh Symphony is in good hands with Honeck at the helm.  I'll have to try to hear them again the next time I'm in Pittsburgh.  I love the New York Philharmonic but I'll always have affection for the group that defined orchestral music for my childhood.

Some random musings about the Steelers

My reaction to the Steelers' fifth straight loss last night (to the Cleveland fucking Browns) was to finish off a bottle of rum and send texts and e-mails that I would later regret. Sleep did not make me feel much better.

I'm not here to swear off my team or call for anyone's head. The Steelers won the Super Bowl last year and have two championships in the past five years. I've been blessed as a fan. But five-game losing streaks are not something I'm used to seeing from my team. Especially when those losses are to the Chiefs, Raiders, and Browns, all among the worst teams in the league. Now we can include Pittsburgh in that group. Those six wins on the schedule look like flukes now.

I have a plane ticket and a game ticket for next week's game vs. the Packers. I'm going to get up before dawn next Sunday morning (also my birthday) and fly to Pittsburgh to see my team. Two weeks ago it looked like a playoff contender showdown. Now the Steelers are just playing for respect. I'm going to the game with Holly, a Packers fan (though I won't hold that against her). It's the first time I've dated a serious football fan and then had my team play her team. That scenario alone will make the afternoon more interesting. If we don't kill each other during the game we'll have a great time.

It's going to be hard to watch the playoffs without the Steelers. The good thing is that my blood pressure will go down and I won't order my best friend to leave my apartment because he's rooting for the other team. And then there's the long off-season of regret and ruminations. The Steelers won't be down for long. I have faith.

And I have the Penguins.

Did the Steelers lose, or did I affect the outcome?

I have an unhealthy number of superstitions when it comes to watching the Steelers play. I wore the same clothes for every game in the Steelers playoff run last season, and they won the Super Bowl. I hadn't bought a Steelers jersey since 1996 until I bought the Harrison jersey last week. I wore my new #92 for the game yesterday and even put a photo of myself in full regalia on my Twitter feed. Was that hubris? When the Bears started moving the ball on the Steelers, I moved myself to the kitchen. I watched a few of the Penguins' playoff games from my kitchen and they seemed to play well when I did that. The kitchen didn't work for me yesterday. Or maybe it was working, but then I moved back to the couch because the food I made was ready to eat? And that's where I was when Jeff Reed miss his second field goal of the night. What if I'd stayed in the kitchen for the second kick? Would he have made it?

And what about the new jersey? Does this loss taint it? Does it have bad "mojo" now? Or was it the kitchen? Maybe I should have worn my old black jeans to watch the game instead of blue jeans. Sure, they're out of style, a size too big, and worn out, but I wore them throughout the 2008 playoffs.

These are the questions I ask myself the day after a Steelers loss.

The Pirates keep on rebuilding, and rebuilding, and rebuilding

There's been some uproar over the Pittsburgh Pirates' latest trades. For those who don't follow baseball that closely (and that usually includes me), the Pirates have traded away nearly all of their regular players from the past few seasons. It hasn't happened all this week; it's taken a few years. But the point is that they've traded away all of the players who have had any semblance of talent in favor of prospects or cheaper, less talented players.

There are voices of reason in the storm. I understand what they're saying: the Pirates, on the verge of their 18th straight losing season, weren't going to win with the players they had, so why not get something for them? I don't have a problem with that philosophy in the short term. But it's been the Pirates' management strategy for too long to trade away good players with big contracts for lesser, cheaper guys. They've made some terrible free-agent choices too, and their baseball draft picks haven't worked out. You don't have 17 straight seasons below .500 without everything coming together. But the last big-name player I remember the Pirates re-signing was Jason Kendall, and that was ten years ago.

The idea is that the front office is assembling a core of prospects that can contend two to three years from now. I've heard that before, when it was the Pirates' first five-year plan in the mid-1990s, and again a few years later. We've seen how well that has worked out. In order for this team to succeed, the players have to perform on the field, and management must be willing to compete financially for free agents. Pittsburgh isn't going to lure top pitchers with a sub .500 team at all the positions. What incentive is there for a top slugger to come to Pittsburgh if he's going to waste his best years on a terrible team? Management has to make a commitment to winning at all costs. I don't see that from the current ownership.

The Pirates don't have to look far for an example of how to rebuild a team. The Penguins were terrible in the early part of this decade. They were sellers at the trade deadline and fans had few reasons to go to the games. But the team got lucky with their high draft picks and won the Sidney Crosby draft lottery. The labor shutdown in 2004 also had much to do with the Penguins' success on and off the ice. But a few star players weren't enough to get the Penguins to the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row and a championship this year. It took skilled play on the ice, ownership that was willing to pay free agents, and management that made the right trades at the right time to surround the stars with role players.

Right now the Pirates appear to be working on the last item, albeit without the stars. We'll have to see if it works this time. It hasn't worked before and, like many Pirates fans, I'm tired of waiting. I haven't given up on the Pirates so much as I've just given up on baseball. Without a great home team to root for, I can't stay interested. I'd root for the Mets, but somehow that thought is even more depressing. I'll just check out the Steelers training camp reports instead.

And I thought I had some bizarre game rituals

Nothing I've ever done for the Penguins or the Steelers -- wearing particular clothes, watching a game from a particular place, or standing in my kitchen through most of game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals -- comes close to what these people put themselves through for their team. God bless each and every one of them. Especially that "Youngblood" guy. He's really taking one for the team.

Presented with little commentary

Here is my favorite quote from this story about the delirious revelry that overtook Pittsburgh last night:

"Its awesome!" shouted Dan Jacobs, 23, of Baldwin, who was back on the South Side after four years of college in Boise, Idaho. He joined up with friends at a party on 17th Street. He paused to show off his Jordan Staal jersey -- "because he's so hot" -- before rushing off with girlfriend Renee Amendola to find a rest room.

Sir, I applaud your enthusiasm.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are your 2009 Stanley Cup Champions

I've been waiting a long time to see the Pittsburgh Penguins win a 3rd Stanley Cup. I was barely a hockey fan when they won their first two championships in 1991 and 1992. I knew little of the rules of the game and I watched only a few of the games in those playoff runs. I remember watching the clinching game 6 of the 1991 Stanley Cup Final, but I wasn't really aware of what it meant to be a hockey fan.

Two years later at Georgetown, I was surrounded by sports fans of all kinds. I bet all of my friends on my dorm floor that the Penguins would repeat (or "threepeat") in 1993. And when the Penguins won 16 or 17 straight games at the end of the regular season, it seemed like a safe bet. Sadly, the Penguins lost in the conference semifinals, and I learned not to bet on my teams again.

Since then, I've watched the Penguins falter in the conference finals in 1996 and again in 2001, and then last year in the Stanley Cup Final. When the Penguins were in 10th place in February, I didn't expect them to even make the playoffs. They switched coaches and went on a tear. When they were down 2-0 to the Capitals, I thought Ovechkin had their number. Then the Pens came back to blow out the Caps in game 7 in Washington. They swept the Carolina Hurricanes, something I never expected, and that put them back in the Stanley Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings. They were overmatched by last year's Red Wings squad, and I feared the same fate would befall them this year. When they were down 2-0 to the Wings, once again I thought all was lost. I should have had more faith in my team. They won every must-win game, beating the Wings at home in games 3, 4, and 6, and in the process overcoming a terrible 5-0 blowout in game 5. Going into game 7, all I could think was "anything can happen."

The Penguins played out of their minds in game 7. They controlled the puck, clogged the area in front of their net, and blocked shots as much as possible. Marc-Andre Fleury deserves all the credit in the world for bouncing back from a disastrous performance in game 5 to allow only two goals in the last two games. The Penguins played most of game 7 without team captain Sidney Crosby, who left the game early in the 2nd period with an injury and only played two shifts in the 3rd. Throughout game 7, my heart was in my throat. I thought I got worked up for Steelers games, but it turns out that it's easier for me to watch football than hockey. In football, I scream at the TV on every play, but each play is only 10 seconds long. Then I get a break and a chance to breathe. During game 7, I held my breath every time the Wings got the puck into the Penguins' zone. As the game wore on and I saw my team playing their game for the first time all series at Joe Louis Arena, I was able to relax a little. Then the Wings tied the game and I was back to hyperventilating and trying not to scream at the TV.

When it was over I nearly forgot to cheer. I saw my team carry the Stanley Cup around the rink. Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Fleury, Staal, and the rest will have their names on the Cup along with Lemieux, Jagr, Ron Francis, and the rest of my heroes from those great teams in the early 1990s. It was a great night for hockey. Now I need to make room for a Penguins poster on my Steelers championship wall.