Of course, any sane person knows that the best part of Steelers season has nothing to do with winning SuperBowls or hanging out with friends on Sunday afternoons. It’s all about the Roethlisfurter and Polamalunesian. These two delectable dogs are only available during football season and are half-price the day after any Steelers victory. If I may be so bold, I believe they’re the very reason Pittsburgh has such a long standing love affair with its gridiron heroes.*

Sadly, Franktuary offers no seasonal franks with a Penguin theme. If you have suggestions, send them our way! As for the Pirates, well, until they cross that impenetrable .500 divide, they’ll have to wait to be immortalized in sausage format.

*See previous post about balogna, spelled phonetically.

I put “Styx” in quotations because I know nothing about them other than that they’re very famous and they sing a song called “Mr. Roboto.” Oddly enough, they skipped over that one last night. I put “baseball” in quotations because, well, this is Pittsburgh. Oddly enough, the Pirates won.

Since, deep down, I’m a Yankees fan that’s really not why I’m writing this post.

Instead, I’m writing because tonight it occurred to me that the Pittsburgh Pirates were my host . For that matter, any time I attend any professional “sporting” event the home team is my “host.”

So, shouldn’t the boys in the dugout clean the bathrooms as well as clean up the general debris left around the stadium after a game? I mean it is “their house” after all. I clean my house and its bathroom(s) after guest(s) are over. I suppose people in the income bracket of professional athletes typically hire “maid(s),” but a good thought nonetheless.

On this day in 1928 Peter Matz was born in Pittsburgh, PA. In 1950 Branch Rickey signed a five-year contract to be GM of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And in 2006 I made this historic blog entry from 325 Oliver Avenue.

Why is it historic? Well, ask yourself this. Why did the chicken cross the road? Make sense now? I didn’t think so.

I just got a side job handing out free newspapers before Pirates game. It sort of found me. I start tonight. Hopefully it goes well!

Wait, I’m confused. Well, no I’m not, but maybe you are.

My dad, who was born blocks away from the House That Ruth Built, is in town visiting me this weekend. He’s visited me several times in the past but never while the Pirates have been home, and he specifically scheduled this visit so we could see them play at PNC Park. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll enjoy ourselves, but I have the feeling we’ll be watching the out of town scoreboard a little more closely than we’ll be following the Buccos!

No matter what game we end up paying more attention to, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll enjoy a hot dog at the ballpark. Of course, I’d enjoy it a lot more if it was a delicious Boar’s Head all-beef frank from Hot D***a instead of the Silverstar standard that has a strangle hold across the Steel City;).