Thoughts on the City Game

As you know from a previous post, I attended the Pitt-Duquesne basketball game this past weekend, aka, The City Game, and I found it to be a bit of a lackluster event in spite of the best efforts of the schools' respective pep bands, cheerleaders, dance teams, and, oh yeah, the basketball teams.

Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that on Thanksgiving Weekend, neither school was in session so the student sections on both sides were virtually empty, and that the Consol Energy Center was only half filled.  Mainly, however, I think that this stems from the one sided nature of what this "rivalry" has become.  Pitt has now won this game thirteen years in a row, and 31 of the past 35 times it has been played.

This year, Pitt was tired, I believe, from two tough games earlier in the week in Brooklyn, and allowed the Dukes to make a game of it for awhile...

...but in the end, overall talent prevailed, and a 17 point Pitt victory was the result.

I have opined on this subject in the past ( http://www.grandstander.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-city-game-steel-bowl-and-special.html ), but this game just does not have the significance that it once held in this town.  Pitt upped its ante as a basketball school decades ago when it joined the Big East, and now the ACC, and somewhere along the way, Duquesne made the choice that they were not going to make the "All In" commitment needed to compete in the elite circles of college basketball, or even in the top echelon of the Atlantic 10.  Duquesne shouldn't be criticized if this is the direction they wish to take, and, in fact, perhaps they are placing athletics in the priority that people often SAY that they should be (except, of course, when your school loses all the time), so perhaps they should also consider stepping down, perhaps to the Northeast Conference, and compete with schools, such as Robert Morris and St. Francis, to name two local institutions, who seem to place athletics in a similar perspective.

Jamie Dixon and Jim Ferry can say all they want about how much this "rivalry game" means, but if they were REALLY honest, I am guessing the neither school would be too upset of this game was no longer scheduled.

As far as the Event went this past Saturday, my vote for most outstanding performance goes to this guy:

Yep.  The kid who played the bass drum in the Pitt Pep Band was more enthusiastic than any player on the court.  He would actually leave his feet and jump into the air as he beat hell out of that drum when the band played, and his spiked Mohawk hair style only added to his panache. Loved him!

A Sunday Morning Sports Brunch

A Sunday morning look at the wide, wide, world of sports.....

The NCAA tournament hopes for the Robert Morris University Colonials came crashing down at the Sewall Center yesterday with a 69-60 loss to Mount St. Mary's, and believe me, the nine point spread doesn't reflect the totality of the Mount's win.  RMU took a lead early and the Mount tied the game at 15.  Then the Mount took the lead and never again lost it.  Late in the second half, their lead went to over twenty points.   A too-little-too-late Colonial surge in the final minutes made the final score look closer than the game actually was.  Actually, from the very beginning, this game just didn't feel right for Robert Morris.  Poor Shooting + Tenacious MtSM defense = A Bad Day for the Colonials.

On the bright side, as regular season Conference Champion, the Colonials do get an automatic bid to the NIT, so they got that going for them, which is nice.

*****

The Pirates seem to be pretty much under the radar this Spring Training, and maybe that's a good thing.  If there are low expectations, then there's no where to go but up, right?

In taking a look at the averages in this morning's paper, however, let's ignore the fact that Jerry Sands, Neil Walker, and Pedro Alvarez are all hitting below .200, because Spring Training stats are meaningless, and instead look at the stats of Starling Marte and Jose Tabata, because good  Spring training stats offer Hope, right?

Marte is following up a torrid winter League campaign and is hitting .421 (8-for-19) this spring.  Tabata is hitting .333 (6-for-18) with four doubles, a home run, and five RBIs.  Both of these lines are encouraging, but the more intriguing story to me is Tabata.

After a disappointing season that saw him injured and sent back to the minors in 2012, he seems to be a forgotten guy, one who will be, at best, the fourth outfielder for the Pirates.  He is still, however, only 24 years old, and maybe being out of the spotlight has removed some pressure, or maybe he just gets it that this could be his last chance to make it with the Pirates, but what if this hot Grapefruit start isn't just another spring training flash in the pan?  What if this is the year that he breaks out and becomes the player that everyone hoped he would be?  How great would that be?

*****

The biggest sports story in the city today however involves, you guessed it, the Steelers, and their releasing of James Harrison.  He's 35 years old, he's been injured, and he was making too much money.  He was also, probably, still the team's best linebacker, but that third factor - "making too much money" - is what spelled the end for Harrison as a Steeler.   As all NFL teams do, they decided that it was time to reduce that contractual obligation, but Harrison balked, so bye-bye, James.

A one time Defensive Player of the Year, and the author of one of the greatest plays in Team and Super Bowl history, that 100 yard interception return for a touchdown, Harrison was also, how can I say this, a thug on the field, a guy with numerous illegal hits, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines to his dubious credit.  There are lots of guys in all sports who you like when they play for "your team" but you dislike intensely when that play for the "other team."  Steelers fans will realize this the first time Harrison, playing for another team, goes helmet-to helmet  with Ben Roethlisberger or Antonio Brown.

*****
The Pitt Panther hoopsters begin the Big East tournament this week in New York against much nostalgic weeping (literal and figurative) because this will be the end  Pitt's association with the Big East Conference.  Hey, it was great run, but please let's stop with the gnashing of teeth over this.  Last I looked, the conference to which they are headed has a pretty good reputation as a basketball conference, doesn't it?  I would think that games against Duke, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest will soon be the equal of games against Georgetown, Connecticut, and Villanova.  Plus, Pitt will still play Syracuse, so we'll still have Jim Boeheim to  kick around.

Of course, the "Big East" will survive as a basketball-only conference consisting  of, for now at least, the seven Catholic universities in the conference, and this, Ironically, is what the Big East started out as in the first place way back when.  I heard sportswriter Bob Ryan on the radio the other day saying that he absolutely loves this, and that the fact that this is occurring at all is the extension of a huge middle finger by college basketball to the "Football Is Everything" culture of college athletics.  Great line.

*****

I have been trying to watch the World Baseball Classic, but it's hard to get into.  Maybe if the USA advances that will make it pick up the interest quotient.  On the other hand, it seems that the WBC may best be remembered for that Pier Six brawl between Canada and Mexico yesterday.  If that is the case, perhaps the concept needs to be re-thought.

The City Game, the Steel Bowl, and a Special Anniversary

Earlier this week, Pitt easily defeated Duquesne in this annual "City Game".  My friend, Fred Shugars, was in attendance and offered the following observation on Facebook:

If you've never been to The City Game, you can't call yourself a Pittsburgh sports fan. Best spectacle around--both student sections, both bands, both sets of cheerleader and dancers, and a mascot dance-off!

Well, who am I to disagree, and I am sorry to say that I have not yet been to a "City Game" as it exists in its current iteration, but I will say to Fred, and to anyone else who (a) may not be a long time resident of Pittsburgh, and (b) may be under the age of, say, 60, and as such has no memory of when Duquesne was a significant player in the world of college basketball, and was, in fact, far superior to Pitt in the sport, both nationally and locally, that the Pitt-Duquesne  Rivalry has changed quite a bit over the years.  

The rivalry between the schools used to  manifest itself in the annual Steel Bowl Basketball Tournament.  For those who don't remember, two schools would be invited to play in the Steel Bowl, which was, if memory serves, held in December.  Pitt would play one opponent, Duquesne the other.  The hope would be that both teams would win their opening round game, and then face each other in the Championship.  It didn't always work out that way, but it usually did.  While I can't say this for certain, I am guessing that my first trip to a college basketball game was probably to a Steel Bowl event, where I, the son of two Duquesne grads, would furiously cheer for the Red & Blue.

Over the years, I know that I saw the University of Miami's Rick Barry play in the Steel Bowl, and I also saw the UCLA Bruins play in the event.  Unfortunately, I caught the Bruins after Lew Alcindor and before Bill Walton.  Yes, I was witness to a game during the glorious Steve Patterson Era.  Although after the game, I did go down on the floor and shake hands with John Wooden.  True story.

Pitt and Duquesne used to compete and recruit the same players, usually local kids like Bill Knight, Bill Zopf, Mickey Davis, and the Nelson Twins.  At some point in the mid- to late 70's, thew rivalry may have hit its peak when Tim Grgurich coached at Pitt and Mike Rice coached the Dukes.  Both were alums of their schools, and the rivalry was most intense.  Then Pitt joined the Big East, the basketball program took off and they never looked back, while the fortunes of the Dukes have been in a decline that with few exceptions, has been going on for well over thirty years.  I seriously doubt that either the players or the coaches, if they were honest with themselves, care a whole lot about this "rivalry" game.

I will say that I plan on taking up Fred's call next year, and be there at the 2013 City Game, but at the risk of sounding like a hey-you-kids-get-off-of-my-lawn old timer, I will hold fast to my belief that games between Pitt and Duquesne just ain't what they used to be.

How does all of this tie in with that "Special Anniversary" mentioned in the title?  Well, you see it was forty years ago today - December 8, 1972 - that Marilyn and I went out on our first date.  And where was that first date, you may ask?  Well, it was at the Civic Arena for the, you guessed it, Steel Bowl opening round doubleheader.  I  can't recall who the two opponents were, I do remember that Billy Knight played for Pitt, and I'm pretty sure that both Pitt and the Dukes won their games.  You can forgive me, I hope, if I'm fuzzy on the details, but I had more important thoughts on my mind that night than the results of a couple of hoops games!

Happy Anniversary, Marilyn!!!!