On Tuesday, July 28, the Pittsburgh Steelers will return once again to the hallowed grounds of St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., for the 59th consecutive year. They will prepare for the upcoming football season and carry on a seasonal rite that is more ingrained in the psyche of this region than anything else, including the New Year and the changing of the seasons.
As it stands, Major League Baseball's (MLB's) Pittsburgh Pirates are 53-52 on the year, which is a big deal. The Pirates are hardly ever over .500 at this point in the season. Still, they are in second-to-last place in their division, which means the cheapskate owners will soon start trading away star players to “rebuild” for some fictional time in the future when they will commit to winning.
What this means is that the vast majority of the sports media in this town will spend more time and editorial space on a third-string quarterback candidate than on the entirety of the MLB team in town. That’s just a start.
Thousands and thousands of Pittsburghers will don their white Steelers away jerseys to help fend off the summer heat and make the short trek to Latrobe just to sit in the sun and watch the Steelers practice.
Canadian whooping cranes are known for the vast distance they cover each year when they migrate from Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park to coastal Texas. I’m told you can set your watch and your calendar by them. But they have nothing on Steelers fans.
Very soon, the air in Latrobe will be filled with Aaron Rodgers’ signature pre-snap cadence, “Green 19,” interspersed with the native species’ own signature call: “Got anymore Aahrn City in that coower of yours? I’m all aht a cold ones.” Translation: Do you have any more Iron City beer in your cooler, because mine’s empty.”
And so it begins. It starts in the July Western Pennsylvania heat and humidity, and it ends, usually, on a torn-up mud-and-grass surface at the confluence of Pittsburgh’s three rivers on a cold winter’s day, somewhere around 15 degrees Fahrenheit, with wind.
The summer wear is replaced by thick layers of black and gold clothing, but the beer and the personalized golden “Terrible Towels” are ever present.
It's #TowelTuesday! How many Terrible Towels do you have? pic.twitter.com/hNEUc5QJ9P
— SteelersNationUnite (@SteelersUnite) November 26, 2019
Baseball season will come to an end, and no one will notice. Hockey season will start, and while Pittsburgh has a solid block of die-hard hockey fans, it will be noticed, but it will be treated by the region the same way you treat your brother-in-law when he stops by your house to borrow your nail gun: “Oh, hey, yeah, it’s in the garage. Help yourself, just make sure to close the door on your way out.”
All eyes will now be fixated on Steelers games, Steelers pre-games, Steelers practices, Steelers injury reports, press conferences, social media posts, charity activities, you name it.
Wherever you live, chances are it’s still summer and it feels like summer. Starting this week, in Pittsburgh, it’s football season. The weather will be football weather, regardless of the temperature. And without checking the scores on Mondays, you’ll know by the mood of the people you see whether the Steelers won or lost the day before.
In the next few months, the nation will conduct midterm elections to determine the fate of a nation. In Pittsburgh, most people won’t notice unless for some reason the fate of the country depends on new Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy making the call to go for it on fourth and long. Otherwise, people around here will catch up with that other stuff later.
Sometime around the first or second century A.D., the Roman poet Juvenal wrote his Satires. In Satire X, he came up with the phrase panem et circenses, which translates to “bread and circuses.” His point was that the Roman people had a tendency to abandon their political responsibilities and civic engagement in favor of the two things the powerful gave them: free grain (bread) and public entertainment (circuses and games).
Something tells me Juvenal’s been to Cupka’s Café on Pittsburgh’s Southside before. As for me, you’ll know where to find me. While I won’t abandon my political responsibilities and civic engagement, I will have one eye on Aaron Rodgers and company for the next few months. Hey, it’s my guilty pleasure. As we say in Pittsburgh, “Unless yinz are writin’ a book, I don’t want to hear abaht it. Don’t be nebby. Mind yer own bizness. Oh yeah... Go Stillers n’at.”
Translation: “What I do with my free time is my business. Go Steelers.”
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