Football
My beloved Pittsburgh Steelers are waxing the hated Cleveland Brownies 34-7 in the fourth quarter of today’s game, so it looks like the 2007 NFL season is off to a good start. Not that I care about football, but now that the Mariners have imploded, it’s nice to have some group of overpaid professional athletes to root for at least once a week.
Football is a stupid game and professional football is even stupider, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are something else. Far more than a mere professional sports team, the boys in Black and Gold represent a last bastion of successful labor struggle for worker’s rights in a post-industrial world. (And this even though, I’m sure, the average salary for a Steelers player is well into seven figures and nearly all the starters are, no doubt, Republicans, or at least, fans of trickle-down economics.)
On my commute home the last few years, I have been passing a minivan parked in Montlake with a Pittsburgh Steelers bumper sticker; “Yay,” I would say to myself everytime I passed, “Go Steelers!” Some time after 9/11/2001, a “Bush/Cheney” bumper sticker appeared on it. “Yuck,” I mused, “I guess not all Steelers’ fans are cool.” But about a month before Superbowl LX, when the wrongheadedness of the current presidential administration’s policies, especially in the Middle East became patently obvious, the Bush sticker was removed, proving to me that rooting for the Steelers keeps a person from going totally astray.
I have high hopes for my boys this year; Big Ben Roethlisberger is fully recovered from his concussion; Willie Parker already has his first 100-yard game of the season, and wide receiver Hines Ward is set for another Pro Bowl season. Surprisingly to me, they’re pegged at 20-1 longshots to win the Superbowl . I should put down $100 on them right now. That should give me more than enough to cover my airfare to Arizona and tickets to the game, too.
Football is a stupid game and professional football is even stupider, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are something else. Far more than a mere professional sports team, the boys in Black and Gold represent a last bastion of successful labor struggle for worker’s rights in a post-industrial world. (And this even though, I’m sure, the average salary for a Steelers player is well into seven figures and nearly all the starters are, no doubt, Republicans, or at least, fans of trickle-down economics.)
On my commute home the last few years, I have been passing a minivan parked in Montlake with a Pittsburgh Steelers bumper sticker; “Yay,” I would say to myself everytime I passed, “Go Steelers!” Some time after 9/11/2001, a “Bush/Cheney” bumper sticker appeared on it. “Yuck,” I mused, “I guess not all Steelers’ fans are cool.” But about a month before Superbowl LX, when the wrongheadedness of the current presidential administration’s policies, especially in the Middle East became patently obvious, the Bush sticker was removed, proving to me that rooting for the Steelers keeps a person from going totally astray.
I have high hopes for my boys this year; Big Ben Roethlisberger is fully recovered from his concussion; Willie Parker already has his first 100-yard game of the season, and wide receiver Hines Ward is set for another Pro Bowl season. Surprisingly to me, they’re pegged at 20-1 longshots to win the Superbowl . I should put down $100 on them right now. That should give me more than enough to cover my airfare to Arizona and tickets to the game, too.
posted by Professor Dave at 1:29 PM
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