I admit it, I like to find a deal and when I do I usually jump on it. A few weeks ago while I was watching a Steelers’ game at Pubilc House (A Steelers’ Bar in NYC) I was musing about getting a Steelers’ jersey. I went back and forth about it and decided that I didn’t want to spend the money that it would cost. Then someone on the Steelers mailing list mentioned a site where you can get jerseys for cheap. The catch is that you have to order them from China. I visited the site several times before deciding to take the plunge and get a shirt. Since they are cheap ($20/shirt) and the shipping was a $20 flat fee, I decided to get one old school home jersey (Mean Joe Greene) and one old school away jersey (Jack Lambert)

The day that the shirts arrived I was giddy with excitement and really psyched that I got the shirts. Today, I wore one of the shirts (the home jersey) and someone pointed out to me the gross misspelling of Greene:

At that point I noticed something else odd about the jersey, the color of the numbers seems to be a bit off.

It’s really subtle, but if you look the numbers aren’t white, they are sliver. Oakland Raider silver no less!

Needless to say this shirt is going to the bottom of the closet never to be seen again.

Oh yeah, the Lambert jersey is fine. I’m glad the money I spent wasn’t a complete waste.

Last night was a very interesting experience. I went to my first live WWE event. One of my resellers and I have been talking about doing this for a while and a few months ago he bought the tickets for the event. As luck would have it, I needed to be up in Boston for some meeting this week so the timing was perfect. The seats were on the floor across from the fixed camera.

If you watched NXT last night or will watch Smackdown on Friday night, you may see me. I’m the guy in the yarmulkah.

I’ve been a wrestling fan for a while because I really enjoy watching the athleticisim that they display and some of the plots. I know that it’s not a lot of people’s cup of tea but hey, it’s one of my guilty pleasures.  Here are a few things that I learned last night:

• The pyros that they use for the beginnings of the shows or some of the entrances are very, very loud. Kane’s entrance took me by surprise since I wasn’t expecting that they came out of a commercial break so soon.
• Guys like Kane and Big Show are really, really big. They don’t just hype it on TV.
• CM Punk is one of those wrestlers that you like even if they are a heel.
• After the pyros go off, there is a lot of smoke still in the air for a long time. 
  
• There are a lot of children at these events.

And unlike the Cylons from the reboot of Battlestar Galatcia, we may know what the plan the Pirates have actually is before long.

This winter there was much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth when the Florida Marlins were singled out by Major League Baseball and the Players Association and told that they have to spend more money going forward. “The Pirates are next” we heard from various columnists the likes of Bill Madden, the NY Daily News writer who hates teams that aren’t the Yankees, Red Sox or Mets (and maybe the Phillies). If Madden had done a modicum of research he would have known that the Pirates were never going to be next.

That was confirmed yesterday when Rob Biertempfel from the Tribune Review wrote an article about how the Players Association is OK with what the Pirates are doing right now.

“We’ve been in touch with the commissioner’s office and with people in the Pirates’ (front office) over the years about how things are going,” Weiner said. “To date, at least, we have been satisfied that the new administration there understands the conditions of the basic agreement. I can’t get into the specifics, but it appears to us that they have a plan.”

This plan includes spending a lot on a baseball academy in Latin America, being one of the top 3 big spenders in the draft the past two seasons (something that is likely to continue this year) and developing players which they will spend on when the time comes.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things that I’m not happy about with the Pirates. I wish that they could have signed Sano, and the returns that they have gotten in some of the trades has been less than impressive. I would rather them spend the money on players that have the potential to do well with the Pirates rather than just pay for past performance and didn’t do anything with the Pirates.

Right now the Pirates are a game above .500 and although I don’t think that this will continue, things are looking up.

Here is a amusing cartoon that was in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when the G-20 was in Pittsburgh last summer.

It’s Sunday, I’m back from San Jose and spring training starts about in a little more than a month. That means it’s time for me to take up defense of the Pirates that can do no research and complain about them. This time it’s the New York Daily News and their grupmy columnist, Bill Madden. Madden hasn’t liked the Pirates since Mazeroski got elected into the hall of fame by the veteran’s committee many years ago. This is mainly because he is a good friend of Yogi Berra and Maz caused the Yankees not to win a world series.

But back to the present. Madden seems to be of the opinion that MLB will be cracking down on the Pirates to spend more money on the major league roster. His logic is that since the Marlins were told to spend more money the Pirates will be forced to do the same.

That’s all well and good but if he had bothered to read any of the excellent work that Post Gazette Pirates’ beat writer Dejan Kovacevic. This past week he reported from sources outside of the Pirates organization that they were not going to be a target. This is something that he was also told by the commissioner of Major League Baseball. (Dejan also has a nice take down of Madden’s article, citing the real 2009 salary of the Pirates).

Yeah, we’ve sucked for 17 years and are a laughing stock for most of the league and press. But having fools like Madden not even bothering doing any research into the situation is just lazy journalism.

It’s bad enough that there are fans who feel that if we just spend more money we’d have won a world series by now. That is just not the case.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I like to watch professional wrestling. Yes, I know that the winner is predetermined. I watch it more for the athletic display that the wrestlers show and for the “soap opera” qualities that go on leading up to matches or hyping for the upcoming pay-per-view event.

I was watching WWE’s Smackdown via Hulu this week and I realized something. There are a few wrestlers out there that are able to perform and get the crowd involved as both a face (good guy) or a heel (bad guy).

One of those people is Chris Jericho. His wrestling ability is unquestioned, but it’s his work on the microphone that really sets him apart from the rest. It doesn’t matter what side of the line he happens to be, he is always entertaining. The phrases that he uses are tremendous and the tone/inflection in his voice makes it really worth it.

There are only two other current wrestlers that I would put into Jericho’s class and one that is getting there. The first one is Kurt Angle (a Pittsburgh native – of course he’s talented) and the other is Booker T. The one guy that is up and coming I think is CM Punk. I was watching his promo from the New Year’s edition of Smackdown and was impressed at how much of a heel he had become. I would have thought that he would always be a baby face, but that promo impressed me. Maybe it’s just the gimmick he has right now but I like the direction he’s heading.

Reason #10,183 why I love Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin

We created this situation. What we are going to do is control what we can control, and that’s our preparation of play for the game. We’re not going to cry over spilled milk. If there’s any level of disappointment in terms of how this thing unfolds, it’s going to be on us.

Wow. The Steelers sure don’t make it easy on their us do they? They played another game that went down to the wire and unlike the ones in the past, they were able to pull this one out. They have now won 2 games in a row and are still in the playoff hunt although they need some help. They first need to win their game and then help can happen (the Jets or Ravens lose).

I have said several times that it’s amazing how different the defense plays with Troy Polamalu out of the line up. I know that is not the most profound commentary but it’s true. What I think gets overlooked is that the Steelers also lost a major cog in the defensive machine who is overlooked. That is Defensive End Aaron Smith.

Smith is someone that made a major impact along the defensive line and because of the 3-4 scheme the Steelers play the linemen usually go unnoticed. I think that his injury, along with losing Troy really put the defense on its heels. Not only that but the replacements for Smith didn’t really seem to step up all that much.

Hopefully the Steelers will win in Miami on Sunday and make it into the playoffs. If they make it in then it’s a whole new season.

It’s well known that the Pittsburgh Pirates set a new record for inepitude last season with 17 seasons in a row with a losing record. While I believe that this will turn around shortly, what I didn’t learn until recently is that the Pirates have another streak that is a Major League Baseball record which may seem more unreal to most people. They have kept their ticket prices the same for the past 8 years. This is the take away from Frank Coonley, the Pirate’s President

“We haven’t performed over the last eight years, but we can’t keep it there forever,” he said in a phone interview from Indianapolis, where the league’s winter meetings are being held. “While fans appreciate the tremendous value they get now, I’m sure they’d love us to be in a position for us to raise prices because that would mean we’re improving.”

I’m glad to see that the Pirates are doing this. It doesn’t seem that they would be winning over more fans by raising their prices during this streak of ignominy.

I’m on vacation this week and it’s leaving me a lot of time to listen to the radio while driving around taking care of errands. While I’m listening to the radio I like to listen to sports radio and in New York City that means WFAN. The afternoon drive guy has been talking about the whole Tiger Woods situation (I’m not linking to it because I really don’t care what’s going on in his personal life if you want to know what’s going on please google it.).

A lot of callers are calling in and saying something along the lines of “I’m not going to dignify the Tiger Woods story with talking about it…” well guess what you fool, you just did talk about it!

Yes, I realize the irony of me talking about it but I’m not gong to add this to my tags so I’m sure that I won’t get a lot of views from this post.