Pittsburgh for a Day

I was born in a white trash suburb that butts up against the the southwest side of Cleveland, a West-Sider in the city's vernacular, i was born and raised there and left at the tender age of 17 to go play hoops in Wyoming and after that i spent a few summers there and some breaks and some shit happened and i bounced around and ended up in Pittsburgh, unable to escape the my beloved rust belt, yet if you ask me where i'm from i always say Cleveland and then add that i now live in Pittsburgh, of course this makes for long football seasons (American throwball that is) cuz i am a die-hard Browns fan, same with the Cavs and the Tribe, in my adopted city i support the Penguins cuz C-town has no big league hockey team and it helps me have something in common with my Yinzer neighbors, but if there is one thing i'm not it's a Steelers fan...

For those who don't know the rivalry between the Burgh and C-town dates back somewhere to the middle ages and for a long time it was dominated by the Browns and then the Stillers hired Chuck Noll and everything started to shift and then of course that scum sucking shit bag Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore and re-named it the Ravens and as i've said in the past i'd rather have no title than win one with Ray Lewis and the rest of the cheap shot artists called the Ravens defense, yet when the Browns moved the people who sympathized with me most were Steeler fans, they too had been robbed of something they grew up with and of course the Ravens would soon become the main rivals for teams and though the rivalry still exists for the Browns and the Steelers it's not nearly as intense as it was, but to get back to the move by scum sucking shit bag, Stiller fans would look at me and say "damn man if they can move your team they can move any team, even ours", of course i stated that their team actually had owners with grace and class and most likely wouldn't make the money grab that scum sucking shit bag Modell did (all so he could still go bankrupt a few years later and be forced to sell the team with the sweetest deal in the NFL) but we'd sit and talk and rib each other about past games and they'd usually buy me a beer and say this one is for you and your team, in short i found out that Stiller fans are good people...

Which brings me to this, come Sunday when i walk into Heinz Field i will be Pittsburgh for a Day and cheer on the Steelers, yes i have a ticket to the AFC Championship game (a free one at that) and i will put aside 40 years of animosity and dis-taste and hope that the home team gets a shot at title #7, for the rust belt.

See i've tried to explain to people that being a Cleveland sports fan is about the most noble and idiotic thing you can be, it's been 40 odd years since we've won a title in anything and yet we keep showing up and putting on our colors and hoping against hope that this will be the year, hell in Pittsburgh it seems like a birth rite to see your team in the Super Bowl or Stanley Cup final, they've won 2 and 3 since i've been around and lost a couple others but in Cleveland we've had the Drive, The Fumble, we were the only team to lose to the fucking Braves in the World Series, we lost another World Series in the seventh game when we had a 2-1 lead going into the bottom of the ninth only to have that fucking muppet Jose "the Rapist" Mesa blow the lead and then lose in the 11th, i was in the Flats for that one but that is a post in itself, we've had Red Right 88 and of course just recently we've had The Decision, to be a Cleveland sports fan is to be like a fucking abused spouse, we just keep getting hit and shit on yet we get up in the morning and smile and say "i still love you" and i still do and i'm not going anywhere i just am gonna sneak into the rich guy's house and live like he does for a night, eat his food, drink is booze and hopefully shag his wife, besides the saving grace is they are playing a team from NYC and if there's any town where i roundly hate all it's sports teams it's New York (sorry UB)...

Of course Boston is a close second cuz there is nothing more annoying than listening to Red Sox fans whine about not winning a title for 80 fucking years, i used to point out that in that time the Celtics won 16, the Patriots won a few, the Bruins won a few more but just because they didn't win in baseball it was like some horrible injustice, the only good thing about the Red Sox winning was Saux fans could all shut the fuck up, and of course most of my dislike of NY teams comes from the Yankees cuz i despise the fucking Yankees and i also despise art star hipster kids who all talk about moving there cuz that's where you make it, little do they know they have to work five jobs to live in a shoebox with a hot plate and a toilet, they just think it's fucking cool and New York is pretty cool i just never want to live there, a few visits were enough but i digress, i hated the Giants with the Tuna and the Knicks annoy the shit out of me with Spike Lee jumping around court side, the Jets have that asshole coach with a penchant for feet and running his mouth, the Rangers and Islanders grate on me, hell even the fucking New York Red Bulls piss me off with Handball Henry and Roget's Santa Cruz...

So in just under 48 hours from now i'll be drunk and most likely freezing my ass off in some beautiful 8 degree weather and hopefully toasting another AFC title and the two week party that goes along with it leading up to the Super Bowl, i'll bask in the glow of another man's swanky house and then come Monday i'll crawl back to the shack that we Cleveland sports fans live in and give a speech much like the one Crash Davis gives about the show on the bus in Bull Durham... so in the words of my Yinzer friends and neighbors... Here We Go Stillers Here We Go...