Hold My Cutter
Former Big League Catcher, Michael Mckenry & long-time broadcaster, Greg Brown team up for a one-of-a-kind podcast centered around baseball & stogies. Fascinating in-person guests include present & former players, managers, broadcasters, writers & other personalities, from politics to pop culture. Laugh, learn & live a little! with "Hold My Cutter"
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"If there is a better Podcast out there, we haven't seen or heard it. Hands down, Brown & Mckenry are blazing new trails for the entire industry. I can't recommend, 'Hold My Cutter' enough!" Podcast Entertainment Weekly Magazine.
Email: Holdmycutter@gmail.com
Hold My Cutter
Brian O'Neill's Remarkable Life Story
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Brian O'Neill's journey from surviving a near-death experience to becoming one of Pittsburgh's most beloved columnists reads like a chapter from a novel – except every word is true.
At 23, O'Neill was sucked through a storm drain pipe during a flash flood in Danville, Virginia, an experience he recounts with both terror and humor. "I honestly thought God was going to kill me in a sewer in Danville, Virginia," he shares. This brush with death unexpectedly launched his journalism career when his published account caught the attention of editors at larger papers, eventually leading him to the Pittsburgh Press in 1988.
For 32 years, O'Neill chronicled Pittsburgh through his distinctive columns, developing a deep appreciation for what he calls "The Paris of Appalachia." His perspective on the city's unique position – straddling the Northeast, Midwest, and South – offers profound insight into Pittsburghers' character: "They have the work ethic of Midwesterners, can get in your face like Northeasterners, but they're also friendly like Southerners."
Baseball emerges as O'Neill's lifelong passion throughout the conversation. From witnessing Willie Mays' first home run as a Met to analyzing the Pirates through his "Stats Geek" column, O'Neill represents the quintessential thoughtful fan. His memories of the electric 2013 Wild Card game and appreciation for underrated Pirates like Brian Giles and Jack Wilson speak to someone who understands baseball's soul – its unpredictability and personal stories beneath the statistics.
What truly shines through is O'Neill's storytelling gift and authentic love for Pittsburgh. Whether recounting his humorous feud with former County Coroner Cyril Wecht or explaining how he fulfilled his childhood dream of living close enough to walk to baseball games, O'Neill demonstrates why his perspective resonated with readers for over three decades.
Join us for this remarkable conversation with a true Pittsburgh treasure. What strange twists of fate have shaped your life? We'd love to hear your story in the comments.
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Meeting Brian O'Neill, Esteemed Author
Speaker 1that's the sound of hold my cutter right there. That's, uh, the, the theme song, uh, the theme music of hold my cutter here at burn by rocky patel. Michael mckenry has picked out for another irishman. If you've been watching or listening to a recent podcast, you might've heard the other Irishman that we had on here, but this guy is special. So, michael, you went with the Emerald for Brian O'Neill, the esteemed author and longtime columnist for the Post Gazette and Pittsburgh Press. Why the Emerald? I was studying.
Speaker 2Irish history.
Speaker 1Yeah, and.
Speaker 2Dushet.
Speaker 1Dunshat Mac Brian, okay, and Dushet Dushet Mac Brian, okay.
Speaker 2Dushet, a famous king in Ireland this was his favorite, so I was like we gotta go with it.
Speaker 1We got Brian on the podcast, we've got the king, king O'Neil, and I think there's some relation there.
Speaker 3I haven't put it together.
Speaker 2I'm still working through the map, but we'll get there.
Speaker 3Don't you feel like a king here?
Speaker 1you feel like a king sitting here, don't you? Yeah?
Speaker 3you look like a king, yeah I feel, I do feel like a king.
Speaker 1I love it uh, tell us about, first of all, how long a couple years retired now I retired uh in the summer during covid, so it's been five years yeah it's a really good time to retire.
Speaker 3It was yeah, all the handwriting was on the wall. That was time to to go. So I'd written a column in Pittsburgh for 32 years and I said everything I wanted to say. It seemed like a good time to say goodbye, so I said that, Do you miss it? I don't. No, I don't. I really enjoyed it while I did it and it was a great job. It was a privilege really, but I don't miss it. I enjoy retirement.
Speaker 1I find plenty to do. Do you write on the side as a hobby?
Speaker 3A little, yeah, occasionally, but nothing, you know. I've been trying to write some fiction which is like the equivalent of those guys who put ships in bottles. You know the odds of it going anywhere are pretty slim, but it's just fun.
Speaker 2Do you know how they do that? By the way, how do they put the bottle.
Speaker 1Oh, I thought you knew, I thought you knew.
Speaker 2No, Actually I do. I figured one of you guys.
Speaker 3You guys are so smart I saw it once on a YouTube or something they lay the masks flat and they can squeeze it into the bottle I guess they don't complete the bottle and then, once the ship's in there, they bring the mask back up and then they close the bottle. It seems like it's cheating. It is cheating.
Speaker 2I didn't know that. I thought they had these little tweezers or something it could be. I just made it seems like it's cheating. It is cheating, I didn't know that absolutely.
Speaker 3I thought they had these little tweeters or something it could be. I just made it up.
Speaker 2But hey, it sounded, sounded great, it's like magic tricks.
Speaker 1Magic tricks are cheating, right. Uh, so about 32 years as a columnist for the press and the post, because it wouldn't get into the book that you wrote a few years ago, the paris of appalachia, pittsburgh in the 21st, because there's a particular chapter on the pirates and the Steelers. But we'll get into that and that's why I asked you about like writing on the side if you have any aspirations about trying to do another book. But how did you end up, brian, in Pittsburgh in the first place? Because you're not a Pittsburgher initially. What Jersey? Where are you from? Long Island actually.
Speaker 3Long Island, or initially what? Jersey? No, long Island, actually Long Island. Okay, yeah, so yeah I went. I grew up on Long Island, liked Long Island. I was a Mets fan in those days.
Speaker 1Is that standard? By the way, Brian, Is that standard?
Speaker 3Long Island guys, there were a lot of Yankees fans around too, but I that's a real fight too, isn't it?
Speaker 3Yeah, oh yeah, you can't be both. And. But I learned that's a real fight too, isn't it? Yeah, oh yeah, you can't be both. And I learned the difference between good and evil early. So I went with the Mets, so I went to Syracuse, and then I was looking for a job and a friend of mine had gotten a job in a place called Danville, virginia, which, uh, if you know the song, the night they drove Dixie down, I wrote it wrote on the Danville train.
Speaker 3So, it was the last capital of the Confederacy. It was culture shock for me, but it was a good place to learn because the city government was both incompetent and corrupt.
Speaker 2So it was funny to write about and then I, so it kept you busy, I like that yeah, I got, I recommend this now to all young journalists.
Surviving a Flash Flood Sewer Pipe
Speaker 3And then I kept you busy. Yeah, I got, I recommend this now to all young journalists. I got caught in a flash flood and got sucked through a storm drain pipe came out the other side hung on to a tree for a couple hours, like Willy Wonka.
Speaker 2Did Willy Wonka do that? That kid in the chocolate that got stuck.
Speaker 3Yeah, I came flying through this what in a flash flood september 1979? This isn't true. It's absolutely true, and uh yeah, you recommend this to kids I do, because it got me a job at a bigger paper.
Speaker 3I wrote a story. I wrote a story about it and, uh, I wound up quitting my job with the editor a month later for ethical reasons. And I was home, you know, watching the gong show and my editor ran into a guy. There was a job opening in Blacksburg, virginia, and he said, well, brian O'Neill's pretty good. And he said, well, we're looking for someone a little older. You say he's 23. He said well, he's the guy who got sucked through the sewer. Oh, really that was a good story. No way, that is wild.
Speaker 1That is unbelievable.
Speaker 2There's so many diggings going through my head right now. That is crazy Is.
Speaker 1Dune Shaq McBrien. Did he ever do that? I bet?
Speaker 2not. I don't think they had good plumbing back then.
Speaker 3He is the king that would have been. No, that's absolutely a true story.
Speaker 1That's incredible what was going through your brain it was scary.
Speaker 3You know it was water's no joke. No, and you find out. Like I'm from long island, there are no rivers to speak of, so I was playing. Everybody worked we're all fresh out of college in at this small newspaper, so we worked four to midnight and we usually played cards afterwards and uh, you know beers and cards. And I left the party during this electrical storm and uh, we're listening on the radio. It didn't say flash flood and he said electrical storm too. There was an electrical storm. Yeah, so I drive, I get into my vet. I was driving a vet then it was a Chevette, but I always like to say oh, that's good, A Chevette.
Speaker 1You were driving a vet.
Speaker 3That's a vet.
Speaker 1That's good, so I drive down. I have no idea. Corvette is, yeah, a Chevette. They didn't last.
Speaker 3They were like slightly above a Pacer, yeah yeah. But anyway, I drove to the bottom of the hill. I had to cross the river to get to my apartment and when I hit the light, my car started filling up with water. And when I hit the light, my car started filling up with water and I got out of the car because you know, there was things floating around the dashboard and I knew enough science that sitting in water during an electrical storm is not a good idea. So I sloshed through the water and I go back up the hill to my friend's apartment, which I had just left, and, um, I'm not making very good headway cause I'm in waist deep water. And I and I thought, and don't do this, kids.
Speaker 2You're going uphill too right I'm going uphill.
Speaker 1How old are you again?
Speaker 3I'm 23. Okay, and uh, I think if I I get on the shoulder of the road, the water won't be as deep and I can run faster. So I go to the shoulder of the road and it was true, and I'm running faster. But then it was like one of these Warner Brothers cartoons. I'm running along and when I bob up, my legs have gone into this pipe that's going under the road and I've got no leverage to get out. All the water is coming this way, pushing me. There was no way I could get out of it. And they say your life flashes before your eyes. I was 23. It wouldn't have even held my interest, but I was thinking. I honestly thought I was made a God. He was going to kill me in a sewer in Danville, virginia, and I was thinking about my poor parents because, as a Catholic in the little town I grew up in, I knew the route to the afterlife and I can picture my father at Kelly's funeral home. You know like, yeah, he died in the sewer, just keep a gun.
Speaker 3Yeah, but so anyway, I was drowning where I was, so I thought my only hope was to let go and hope it was a short pipe. So I just let go and I go, whipping through this pipe upside down, slamming my hands against the top of this pipe, wondering when it will end. And it was blessedly short, it was only a two lane road. So then I come out and I can still remember to this day, you know, 45 years later, that first breath when I got out the other side. But now I'm in a river, I'm in like the Yakagini, I'm in rapids.
Speaker 1So I, I, I don't think anybody in Pittsburgh has known this story. You never this quiet. You never wrote about this in.
Speaker 3Pittsburgh, did you? I wrote about it once or twice but people forget. But anyway, I'm hanging on to this tree and I look downstream In the river, in the river, and I look down and this river would have been like a creek the day before.
Speaker 3It was just swollen with all this storm water creek the day before. You know, it was just swollen with all this storm water. And uh, I look downstream and this it looks like this big tree has fallen and got goes all the way across. So I think to myself self, if you get to that tree, you can shimmy across and get to land. So I let myself back into the you know river and I hit this tree like really hard and I managed to climb up onto it. But then I see it doesn't go all the way across.
Speaker 3So I think at this point and it's like two in the morning, you know, I'm completely, I'm completely by myself. I was, you know, two minutes before I was at a poker table. This is nuts, yeah. So I climb as high as I can into the branches, figuring God is not going to kill me with lightning, and I look back at where I was and I watch that go underwater and I just wait for hours in this tree and then it stopped raining, the water calmed down, imed down and I got to the shore.
Speaker 3I looked downstream, my, I mean I looked down the hill and there's my car and it's just on wet pavement. I walked past where the pipe and it's just a little dribble at this point, and this would have been the culmination. Actually, there are two codas to this story. I knock on the door, it's now I don't know three in the morning and we're all journalists. So we live in sketchy parts of town because we have no money. So my friend Chris Fuller answers the door with a big knife in his hand because there had been a shooting. There had been a shooting.
Speaker 3It would have been shooting. There'd been a shooting. But I said, chris, whatever you do, don't laugh, but you'll never guess where I've just been. So I spent the night on his couch. I get it. He gets a call from the editor. They tell him what happened to me. He says get him in here and he's got to write that story. So instead of going to the Doobie Brothers concert in Greensboro, north Carolina, I write this story for the Sunday paper. It goes all over the state and I go to church on crutches because I sprained my ankle in all this.
Speaker 2I was going to say you had. Yeah, I was going to say that.
Speaker 3This is the best part of the whole story. I go to church and there's Father Duffy who's like right out of Central Casting. This is his first parish. He's from Chicago, chicago, irish, kind of a wise guy but a priest, and he liked me because when he came to Danville I wrote a story on him and it ran on the front page in the same day as the story with the Pope, you know, next to it. So he sent it to his mother, duffy did. I don't know what the Pope did with it. I'm sure the Pope was honored as well.
Speaker 3So anyway, yeah, probably, I like to think so, but I'm on my crutches and Father Duffy's, like Brian, what happened? So I say you're not going to believe it, but I got sucked through a sewer and it's in the paper today. He goes have all these people read this story? I said well, I hope so. He goes honest to God. This is what he said. He goes do me a favor During the mass if you could walk up the center aisle and throw your crutches down. It would really help my career. I've got the best line.
Speaker 1I ever heard from anybody. You were probably tempted to try and do that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Oh my gosh, yeah, true story yeah.
Speaker 1Wait, was it pitch dark too, right? Oh yeah, completely dark, all by myself.
Speaker 3It was as scary as more scary than you would want anything to be.
Speaker 2How long did it feel like it lasted, Uh?
Speaker 3you know, it couldn't have lasted very long. I mean, I wasn't having what in your brain, in my brain. It was taking forever. You know, going through that pipe was taking forever and it was probably not 10 seconds because I was going really fast. It would. It would make a great ride at Kennywood actually, if you knew that. Yeah, yeah, but it was completely. It was so. It was like you were suddenly thrust into a movie and it was like it was so surreal, it made no sense and but I survived.
Speaker 1You're lucky to survive.
Speaker 3I am very lucky, yeah, and I got you know. This is basically the Bible Belt where I survived. You're lucky to survive. I am very lucky, yeah, and I got you know. This is basically the Bible Belt where I was. So I got all these letters from folks who were telling me that the thing to do in those situations is to shout the Lord's name.
Speaker 1And I said I promise you you have no idea. Only the Lord knows.
Speaker 2I'm knows I took it the right way, but uh, right after confession too yeah so easy to say too yeah, yeah, as you're drowning, yeah right, right, yeah, getting sucked into a pipe.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3And you know it's. It's what's really funny about that is like a lot of people know about this, you know. And so whenever it happens, like anywhere in the country and it happens more often than you think that some usually usually it's a kid, but they get caught and they come out the other side. It's happened at twice in Pittsburgh since I've been here, yeah, and and it's like a small fraternity, but everybody I go and I talk to them when I can and uh, yeah, they're all like oh, so you talked to the others who've gone through a similar experience and they, they, they're like yeah, it was really scary, but it was didn't take that long, you know so.
Speaker 3But there are other people who never come out. The other side so it's, it's. But there are other people who never come out the other side.
Speaker 1So it's, it's, it's, it's. It was, I don't know, a few years ago.
Speaker 3There was a horrible in Verona, right Washington Boulevard.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah what happened.
Speaker 3The people drowned in similar circumstances. Yeah, that's. That's like a bathtub that fills up in heavy rain, it's still not right, they cut off the traffic now when it rains hard there. But yeah, that's my story.
Speaker 1So that story then catapults you to the Rono times Right.
Speaker 2Yeah, which was I can't help it. That's kind of like a pipe dream.
Speaker 3Now, that's good. Right, that is really good.
Speaker 1It was just there. I have to say it. It was good. Thank you, I like that. You know, when things get too serious, sometimes I go for you.
Speaker 3Well done, yeah, that's very good, I never thought of that in 50 years. I'm going to use that. But yeah, I got a job at the Roanoke Times and I wound up getting a column there, and that's how I. How many years there at Roanoke Eight years and five as a columnist.
Speaker 1Were you looking to get out, or did this Pittsburgh just happen?
The Journey to Pittsburgh Journalism
Speaker 3Well, that's a funny story too, because a lot of things in my life are luck. And there was a Pittsburgh Press columnist in the late 80s I won't say his name, may he rest in peace but he got fired for plagiarism, I know, and he had written a column on the autobiography of Banna White and he had borrowed too much from this Rhode Island columnist named Mark Patinkin very good Providence columnist Anyway. So he got fired. So I'm in Roanoke and my editor gets something out of editor and publisher. You know, columnist fired for plagiarism. You know it's like, let this be a lesson to you. I pick it up and I'm like, well, you know it's like, let this be a lesson to you. I pick it up.
Speaker 2I'm like well, the lesson is, there's a job. Thank you.
Speaker 3So long story short. There's a funny story of. I could tell about that too, but uh, I wound up here and I didn't realize that was that created the opening that is firing.
Speaker 1Yeah, I got here in October 88. I didn't realize that created the opening. His firing.
Speaker 3Yeah, I got here in October of 88. Actually I didn't even know. I thought about applying. But I had a girlfriend, I had a house, I had a dog in Roanoke. I was like, yeah, maybe I won't apply. And then months went by and I got a call from the Pittsburgh Press and I'm like, wow, I didn't even have to apply. How'd they find me? And I called him and Matt Kennedy said yeah, brian, what can you tell us about Daryl Laurent of the Lynchburg News? I'm like what he goes? Did he put me down as a reference? I said. He said no, I'm just calling the columnists around him to see what they think of him. I said, well, I really like what he said. I mean, I don't see him all the time, but what I've read I liked. But then it was like one of those things from like Animal House. I got the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other.
Speaker 1Is he trying to?
Speaker 3is that guy also applying? He had applied for the job, so he's asking you about this guy, yeah that had applied for the job.
Speaker 1You don't want to talk him up.
Speaker 3Yeah, so you wiggle in. Yes, so yeah, I tried to figure out how to answer the question honestly and still get my foot in the door. So I said he's a pretty good columnist, but a real jerk. No, I said only nice things about Daryl and he was a very good columnist. But I said I'll tell you what. Were it not for me, daryl Lorant would be the best columnist in Virginia.
Speaker 1Wow what a great line. Did you drop that line?
Speaker 3Yeah, I love it, nice that's great, he said really I said, yeah, how do I apply for this job? So I said, send us some clips. And I sent some clips, I came out, got the interview and I got the job. And then that was in 88?
Speaker 188,. Yeah, and boy, you quickly adopted this city.
Speaker 3I loved it. It's just like Michael was saying. It's like love at first sight. It was a perfect. It just suited me immediately.
Speaker 2You got a mixture of probably a lot of where you were from in Long Island went down to the Bible Belt and then you get right in the middle.
Speaker 3Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's what Pittsburgh. That's some of what I talk about in the book. Pittsburgh is unique I mean, I suppose every city is in some way but there is no city like Pittsburgh, for many reasons. But one which I didn't fully grasp until after the book came out. Somebody wrote to me One which I didn't fully grasp until after the book came out. Somebody wrote to me this is like a two-minute story, but he said if you can picture a map of the United States, the lower 48 states are divided into four big groups the northeast, which Pennsylvania is in. The south, which begins at the Mason-Dixon line. The midwest, that begins, uh, you know, with ohio. And the west. There is no other metropolis in america that nearly straddles three major regions of the country. Wow, that is why pittsburghers have, think, the work ethic of Midwestern Westerners. They can get in your face like Northeasterners, but they're also friendly like Southerners. So it's those three aspects inform our culture in ways we don't even realize.
Speaker 1That's a great call. Yeah, you called it, I think know in one of your pieces, maybe part of the book. Uh, like the three bears, the third bear what is it? The third bear of cities not too big, not too small, just right, yeah, not too hard, not too soft yeah, just right just right, yeah, there's a big bad wolf in that scenario uh, cleveland, I guess I don't know, I can't remember.
Speaker 3Yeah, no, there's no wolf in that story. It's been a while. Yeah, it's just bears and goldilocks.
Speaker 2Yeah so he, so brian, was goldilocks just right, I could see that with his hair, yeah so anyway.
Speaker 1So brian now, so you do also 30 years, 32 years or so, as a columnist. Now how did you? Because you continue to be a columnist, but you know I really got, I read all your stuff that you wrote but also really was fond of the Stats Geek For those either watching or or or listening. You may not even realize it, but it was a regular column. The stats geek, which was baseball, uh, statistics, but but with a twist.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was. It was actually before Michael got to the pirates. But uh, in 2003, I read the book money ball and uh, and I thought and I was a longtime baseball fan but they were talking about things that I'd never fully grasped before. And I looked at our sports page at the time and we weren't talking about those things. So I went to the sports editor and I said, how about if once a week, I was the only sports writer in the country who never talked to an athlete who just wrote a column based on what I saw and the statistics? And I and I think I could write a pretty good column just on those two things? And so I did, and I talked about like the A's at the time.
Speaker 3I mean, like the thing about Moneyball, it's all about finding what's undervalued, and at the time it was on base percentage. There are other things that you know fielding, catcher, framing that might be undervalued. So you got to find those things if you want to succeed. But they were doing things in Oakland that like we don't steal, we don't bunt. So I started watching those games with that in mind and I remember a game where Jack Wilson it was the perfect opportunity for him to lay down a bunt, and he didn't do it.
Speaker 3It was first and second and nobody out. Instead he like waited out a walk. He got a walk which moved the runners over anyway, and then there were like a couple of sacrifice flies and I realized if he had bunted they wouldn't have scored any runs, you know, and so that was a case that showed me well, the A's were on to something. So I looked at that. I did that for about three or four years and then it was taken up too much. I had to do my other column too, so I went back to that.
Speaker 2It took a lot of time.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was fun, though you know I would do it yeah it was a lot of fun and I remember one time I did talk to an athlete. I mean, my eyes were telling me that Jack Wilson was a terrific shortstop.
Speaker 2Second best all time in Pirate history, defensively Behind Honus Wagner. Yeah, no, that's what I was seeing. I looked it up recently behind Honus Wagner.
Speaker 3Yeah, no, that's what I was seeing Just looked it up recently.
Speaker 1I love Jack Wilson, but this is where the debate comes Like. How in the world does anybody know where Jack Wilson compares to?
Speaker 3Honus Wagner. Well, here's what I was. Completely agree, I understand it's a defensive, yeah, but well, they say Mazeroski, who was obviously a great defensive second baseman. The stats show that too. I mean, like when you say, well, I don't know how they get that, but then you see that, like, the best center fielders are Willie Mays and Andrew Jones and stuff like that.
Speaker 1I don't know if they're very Kevin Kiermaier.
Speaker 3If the stats back up what you think you see, then it's something. So the Pirates weren't good in the early 2000s, but I was watching Jack Wilson begin double plays that shouldn't have even been one out.
Speaker 3all of a sudden two outs. And so I'm talking to my friends and it's like that's just because the Pirates pitchers put so many men on base. I'm like that's not the only reason. So I went to Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus and they showed Baseball Prospectus had a stat about how many double plays you get when there is a double play opportunity and that also showed that the pirates were very high and uh, the league once or twice with him and yes, yes, and I would vary a second baseman he was always.
Speaker 3So I went to baseball reference and I said can you show me the list of, uh, of shortstops, the most double plays made in their first thousand games in the major leagues, whatever, whatever, wherever Wilson was at that point I asked for, and Wilson was right up there near the top with, like you know, rizzuto and names you know, know. So this was the one time I wanted to talk to an athlete, so I go in with this list to jack wilson at a clubhouse before a game and he's like. It was the only time I ever met him, but he was such, he's like a big kid, you know and um and so you know it was.
Speaker 3You know'm coming out of nowhere, but he was nice to me and I said I just wanted to show you this thing. And I show him the list and he sees it, and he had no idea that he was up there with all these guys. So he goes. That is so cool, Isn't that great? And Freddy Sanchez comes walking by and he goes what are you guys talking about? And Wilson goes, double plays and how we rock Sounds just like him, yeah.
Speaker 1He'd say the same thing today, yeah.
Speaker 3But he I was glad those stats came out later about Wilson being at the very top defensively all time, because he really was a terrific player on a bad team and they never get their due Like Jason Kendall was a terrific hitter, a catcher who steals bases like a bear riding a bicycle, you know, but the teams weren't good, so I don't think he got the credit he deserved either, but anyway, well, that's what I love about you know, regardless of the team, the woes of the team collectively.
Speaker 1People ask about how you can be excited about the team. The woes of the team collectively. People ask about how you can be excited about the team I'm excited about the players over the years. Yeah, because everyone has an individual story. Every individual game is a story, that's it and the book is the season, and you turn the page Exactly.
Speaker 1Each chapter is different and you never know what's going to happen. It's a great book to read as a baseball fan, but just over the years you talk about players that don't get their due. Someone recently said and I'll ask both you guys see if I can find this my brother and I have this buddy who's a big baseball fan in New York. He's a big, huge Mets fan.
Speaker 2You know what I love about what you said about the book Brownie.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Baseball Fandom and The Stats Geek
Speaker 2Like you, being a columnist and always trying to find that story is, no book is written until the games are played. Yeah, yeah, and too often we assume you being a Mets fan. I mean they signed Soto, right? $700 million, right. Crazy amount of money. Whatever it was, gratitude if it is, that doesn't mean anything. Still got to play the games.
Speaker 2They still got to play the game, and the true beauty in baseball is there's a great chance that they're going to lose at least a couple games to teams that are paying their team $35 to $100 million yeah, and they have one of the highest payrolls in baseball. That's the cool part about baseball you can't buy a championship.
Speaker 3Right, I was talking with Michael before we went on about a fond memory I have from. I had to look it up it was 2012. I'm doing the dishes listening to a Pirates game it's humbling.
Speaker 3Yeah, and they're playing the Reds, it's 4-4. And uh, it's, they're. They're playing the reds. It's four to four, and this is 2012. The pirates are just starting to get good and people are starting to think it's like june. The pirates have a winning record in june, which was pretty rare. And uh, they're playing their division rivals in cincinnati and it's four to four. And a ninth and aroldis chapman, a a young Raldus Chapman, comes in and I looked it up, he hadn't given up a run yet it was June and he'd struck out, I think, literally half the batters he'd faced. So you know, people in the stands and great American ballpark are probably going up to use the men's room and nothing's going to happen in a knife. Look at these guys at the bottom of the Pirates lineup Clint Barmas doubles and then Michael McHenry comes up. According to what I read, you tried to bunt. Maybe it went foul or something.
Speaker 2I think he almost hit me in the face.
Speaker 3Oh really.
Speaker 1Yeah, and then?
Speaker 2they pulled it back. They're like nah, probably tough to bunt.
Speaker 1And the broadcast was this McHenry's trying to bunt Bob. What is this all about? Why would you bunt McHenry?
Speaker 3here in this situation 4-4.
Speaker 1It's crazy, I'll get so rolled as Chapman. As Chapman, he almost got killed.
Speaker 2What's this manager thinking? He threw it right at my face. I'll never forget. I was like bunt, bunt, oh death.
Speaker 3Right, I can't imagine. I mean that would be scarier than getting sucked through a sewer pipe.
Speaker 2They took off. They were like swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.
Speaker 1Scarier than getting sucked through by a sewer pipe. No, no chance but close.
Speaker 3Close yeah, close, close yeah.
Speaker 1He's condemned to five Struck by lightning.
Speaker 3That was just a Chapman 102 at your face is no fun, but anyway it went one and two and then, as I'm doing the dishes, mike McHenry doubles. The Pirates go ahead, and I can still remember that. You know it's just like, because you know it's baseball. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. Nobody in Cincinnati thought it was going to happen that way, and Clint Barmas and Mike McHenry beat Aroldis Chapman when he was unbeatable. So that's why we watch the games.
Speaker 1So here's the text from this guy, this player, former Pirate, career average 291, a 902 OPS, 51 war more than Kiner or Rice, 137 OPS plus higher than Griffey. More homers and RBIs than Hack Wilson 35 plus homers, 90 plus RBIs, 90 plus walks. Four times in his career. Never struck out more than 80 times. Did not receive one Hall of Fame vote off the ballot immediately. Who?
Speaker 3am I? I have an idea who that is, but did he play in the last 30 years?
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 3Brian Giles.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2I saw his numbers recently too. It's crazy how good he was.
Speaker 1Yeah, he's the best left fielder at PNC Park I've seen.
Speaker 3Well, I saw Bonds. Well, I'm talking about Pirate.
Speaker 1Jason Bay was really good too.
Speaker 2Did you see his comparison to Soto at the same age. Yes, same amount of bounce. Excuse me, not the same age.
Speaker 3He was better in a lot of ways. I wrote a column, a Statske column that was very controversial because people don't want to hear that I said Brian Giles is putting up Hall of Fame numbers here, and they're like what are you talking about, brian Giles?
Speaker 1I'm like look, yes, just watch him play, though, for me, Brian O'Neal Watch him play, that's right. I saw him play every day. He was incredible.
Speaker 3It's the argument I have about Brian.
Speaker 1It's the argument. I want to get off the beaten track here, but it's the argument about Brian Reynolds and the statistics saying he's not a great left fielder. I don't care, I watch every game. He's a really good left fielder, really good. I wouldn't take him out of left field, all right, anyway. So it was easy.
Speaker 2You go to the super-duper new metrics and stuff. It could just be bad positioning you know that's true, yeah. It's sometimes simpler than we want to make it, but yeah, he was a gold glove finalist in center field two years ago.
Speaker 3Yeah, you know. Speaking of things, since Billy Wagner just made the Hall of Fame and you brought up Brian Giles, I was at that game in 2001.
Speaker 1The Grand Slam, yes, when the Pirates went into Another. You're talking about unpredictable, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 3The Pirates were down by six runs, I think I think six or seven.
Speaker 1It was the greatest comeback in history. At that point, I think.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I think With two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth for a team to walk off. We just beat that comeback like a year ago.
Speaker 1With two outs, nobody on.
Speaker 2Two outs.
Speaker 1nobody on that's when the comeback started, we just beat it with seven runs.
Speaker 2Okay, I remember going back and seeing that game. I was like oh my gosh, because the names they had to beat was different.
Speaker 3Yeah, this friend of mine owned a restaurant on 6th Street at the time and he was listening to the game on the radio. And when Brian Giles hit the home run, he ran up onto 6th Street and saw all these Pirates fans walking down the street. And he's like you idiots, you left, you missed the greatest comeback in history. And they're like what are you talking about? They lost? No, they didn't.
Speaker 1Listen to the fireworks. Another great lesson you morons, morons, believe it early that's listen to the fireworks you morons, morons.
Speaker 3That's a great way to get people into your restaurant, michael I don't care, they're crazy.
Speaker 2You guys got to watch Billy Wagner pitch that guy was special, he just didn't hit him and the fact that Giles clipped him is really impressive.
Speaker 3That was like. It was one of those times and I've had a few of these experiences where everybody in the park is waiting for this one thing to happen. And it happened. Yeah, you know, I was at Willie Mays' first game as a Met. Same thing, wow, we're just waiting, we're all there. He's back in New York. Everybody wants a home run. It's the fifth inning of a tie game, fifth or sixth? He hits it into the bullpen.
Speaker 1He hit a home run his first game back.
Speaker 3His first game as a man Hits it into the bullpen. It's like what you dream of. Yes, it was this moment of silence, because nobody could believe it.
Speaker 1It's so unbelievable.
Speaker 3And then it erupted this full house on a Saturday, just went berserk because everything that they had hoped for had just come true.
Speaker 1Wow, isn't that something else?
Speaker 2Baseball's great yeah.
Speaker 1Baseball's great. That is great, you were at that game.
Speaker 3I was at that game. Was that opening day that year? No, it was like May. He got traded.
Speaker 2May for Mays.
Speaker 3Yeah, May for Mays. Yeah, he got traded during the season.
Speaker 1I didn't know it was during the season, yeah.
Speaker 3And yeah, it was fantastic. I was also at the game where Pete Rose mugged Bud Harrelson in the 1973 playoffs.
Speaker 1Oh really yeah.
Speaker 3And everybody wanted Pete Rose dead.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 3And people were chanting things that I can't repeat here, and finally the Mets were going to forfeit this playoff game and they were way ahead and Willie Mays, yogi Berra, tom seaver and russie stob walked out the left field, where the trouble was, where I happen to be sitting, and uh, they said you know, stop it. And then, like everybody, hey, willie said to sit down yeah oh my gosh yeah, so yeah, that's.
Speaker 3I mean that's baseball, as you were saying. I mean it's like you never know what you're going to get and you know that's what makes it great.
The Paris of Appalachia Book
Speaker 1So one of those two moments you just mentioned. If I asked you the greatest moment of your baseball fandom, either that you attended or watched.
Speaker 3I would say the wild card game. Here Were you there, I was there. Yeah, that was unbelievable. I mean, that was everything you wanted in a baseball game. And when Cueto dropped the ball, and then Russ, Martin hit the home run.
Speaker 1The next pitch.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was ridiculous. I mean, it was so fun. You couldn't write a storybook like that, yeah and it was a blackout because of McCutcheon's request, you know.
Speaker 2I heard Cutch speaking about that the other day. We were sitting there talking. He was talking to some of the young guys. It looked like the bridge was moving when they were walking across. Yeah, I went out early, I was hurt and I'd just gotten off my crutches, so I was out watching and because the way they were flowing through the bridge. It really did look like when it's a bridge was going like this I don't think it was really doing that. Wow, obviously, but like from our perspective, if we could find video and you watch it.
Speaker 2They're so in flow as they're walking. It looked like it was moving like a snake it was wild. It's tremendous I had never heard him talk about it like that, because most of the time you just hear his account, but he was talking about it almost like a fan in the moment instead of a player.
Speaker 1Yeah, he is a fan. He was still caught up, yeah.
Speaker 2But yeah, think about that, Thinking about that whole bridge moving the sea of humanity.
Speaker 1That day, hours before the game Hours, I remember going up to the top at PN's where we hang out sometimes, you and I, well before this is three hours before the game and looking down at the corner there of General Robinson and Federal Street where the Clemente Bridge meets at the corner there, and just all a sea of black everywhere on the streets waving Jolly Rogers, wanting to get in that ballpark.
Speaker 1And then when they opened the gates two hours before game time, it was like, as Milo Hamilton used to say, somebody threw honey on an anthill. I mean it was wild. I mean the place filled up like that. But two hours before the game, yeah. Incredible.
Speaker 3I've seen a lot of good things, I've been to a lot of games, but that that's right at the top.
Speaker 1It goes back to. Well. Didn't even ask you how you became such a baseball fan originally.
Speaker 3You said you were a cover of politics, right, but what was it? I mean I was. I was a. You know, when I was a kid, baseball was. My father was a big baseball fan. He'd been a yankees fan until 1945 and they traded his favorite pitcher, hank barrowi, to the cubs and he dropped no that's how you became a mets fan, so he dropped the hatred there they call that.
Speaker 3I'm irish, so I can say that they call this irish alzheimer's. You forget everything but your grudges. So he's like. He's like. He's like the yankees are dead to me. So he became he became a new york giants fan. So so when I was a little kid, I remember asking you know, I was starting to collect baseball cards who's the best baseball player? Dad willie mays is the best baseball boy. So I would you know, learn from him. And uh and my I played little league, not well. I peaked at 12. Uh, the. Uh, the car plays wine and liquor blazers won the pennant. Uh, I was pretty good.
Speaker 2The what, the what, everywhere, the wine and liquor blazers 12 years old I was 12 years old. Well, new York.
Speaker 3New York's, not Pennsylvania, so the, the, the liquor stores were private, so there were the Rowan realty, rockets and et cetera, like the little businesses in town.
Speaker 2Sponsored sponsored, not every day, with the name on the back though.
Speaker 3Yeah, the call place wine and liquor blazers.
Speaker 2You guys see that these bears it's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely yeah same thing. No game right here, boys.
Speaker 3By the way, here's a crazy bit of trivia. The catcher on the Carl Place Wine and Liquor Blazers in the movie the Natural, joe Masso, is the catcher in the Natural. Come on, yeah, he got into acting and he had this bit part in the natural. So I could always say that the catcher on my little league team was the catcher in the natural.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh how cool is that joe maso. Yeah, did you stay in touch with him by chance? No, and how did you know? When did you find out that your teammate was in the natural?
Speaker 2I think, feel like he's right.
Speaker 3Somebody told me and I looked it up. You can look it up on check me in imdbcom.
Speaker 3Joe Maso. His credit is additional night. I don't think he had a line in the movie, but he was the catcher. But the memory I have as a kid, the reason I live where I live, where I can walk to the Pirates games, when I was in the third grade I'd never been to a game before and my brother won tickets on this kid's show, the Chuck McCann show. He won for some reason three tickets to a Yankees game against the Kansas City Athletics. So my father good father that he was takes us to the Yankees game.
Speaker 3And you know I'm nine years old, I'm totally in awe. You know we're in the Bronx. You know we rode the subway looking up at everything and we're outside and I remember these teenagers talking to each other. You know I'm trying to take everything in and one kid, I'm listening to conversations and this guy says to the other guy you want to go to the game and the other guy says who's pitching? And I'm like that was imprinted on my brain. It's like imagine living close enough to a baseball stadium that you could decide that day whether you wanted to walk to the game. So in 1990, when this townhouse on the north side came open and everybody who grew up in Pittsburgh and I mean everybody was telling me not to buy on the north side. I was like, are you kidding that?
Speaker 1was the time.
Speaker 3This house is not expensive and I can walk to see Bonds of Benin Van Sluyken.
Speaker 2Yeah, you had street cred. You went through a pipe and almost got stabbed.
Speaker 3That's right, that's true, yeah so it turned out to be the best move I ever made. I could not afford to live in that neighborhood. Now I I do live in that neighborhood still, but I couldn't afford to buy in that neighborhood because the prices have gone through the roof.
Speaker 2But at the time. So it was also a great investment.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, it's the best investment I ever made. I zigged when people were telling me to zag.
Speaker 1How many games do you think you went to in the early 90s, the Bonds years? Did you go again as a fan, not for work, I always went as a fan.
Speaker 3I've rarely sat in the press box. Uh, I'd say 20 or 30 games a year, that's great yeah yeah, and what you saw.
Speaker 2Willie mays now talk about barry bonds. How good was barry bonds? Both you guys got some of that, because for me growing up he was he was one of my favorites he was great.
Speaker 3Here's the thing about, I think, people. Because he was, you know, he was arrogant and uh, uh, you know there were people who would say to me uh, so he's, you know what is that?
Speaker 230 homers 30 steals. What is it?
Speaker 1you know, that's just a deal.
Speaker 3Those are pretty important skills, but, uh, but the thing I remember most about bonds, just on a day-to-day basis, watching him every day, like you were talking about watching Brian Reynolds when the ball was hit into the corner he would get to it fast, turn and throw and I don't know how many doubles he kept. Singles which did not, you know, doesn't wind up as a stat anywhere, except maybe in these new stats. They show that, but that always impressed me that he covered that ground. It was, I mean, the. The pirates essentially had two center fielders, you know vance, like and bonds. Uh, so that's what that might be. The thing I remember most about bonds, you know, on a day-to-day basis, there are so he did the job.
Speaker 2Yeah, as arrogant as he was, he always did the job. That, yeah, as arrogant as he was, he always did the job.
Speaker 3That's what I loved about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like somebody said and I never realized this before Clemente would have been the center fielder if the Yankees didn't have, if the Pirates didn't have, Verdon. You know, same here, the Pirates had Van Slyke, so Bonds was in left field and he stayed in left field. But he might have been a very good center fielder. I mean, he had all the tools.
Speaker 1Turns out to be one of the greatest left fielders, maybe of all time right. How about the book the Paris of Appalachia and why you wrote it?
Speaker 2and what is it about Appalachia? Because I grew up in Tennessee, right in the middle of Smoky Mountains. Where does Appalachia end? Because I didn't even put that in my brain, that Pittsburgh's in Appalachia.
Speaker 3Yeah, one of the reasons I made that title is I wanted Pittsburgh to realize that all these hills weren't on loan from Morgantown that we were actually, you know, Swirl. Hill.
Speaker 2Summer Hill, troy Hill, pleasant Hills. There's a reason for all this. There's a lot of hills, there's a lot of things going on.
Speaker 3So Winkley Heights, whatever, so what I'd heard the original title of the book was going to be. I love Pittsburgh like a brother, and my brother drives me nuts.
Speaker 1That one too, that's good. I thought that was good, that sounds like a sequel, right.
Speaker 3But I wrote after I wrote the book, the publisher said no, that's not your title. Your title is on page 13. When you talk about this the Paris of Appalachia, which I had heard as like a put down of Pittsburgh Like yeah, it's the Paris of Appalachia. Why would that be a put down? Well, it's like the best beach in Iowa, the smartest guy in prison, you know it's like Somebody's got to have that award.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3I couldn't figure. I also thought that shouldn't be a put down. Paris is nice. I've been to Paris. They don't know how to pronounce Versailles, but it's nice. Yeah, that's their problem. And Appalachia is beautiful. It just has a bad rap. It's beautiful, it is beautiful, beautiful, it's beautiful, it's absolutely beautiful. And it goes on. I mean, the Appalachian Trail goes from Georgia to Maine.
Pittsburgh Sports Culture and Memories
Speaker 2You know there's a lot of…. When you think about Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh, you don't think about Appalachia, you don't.
Speaker 3You think about West Virginia, western Kentucky, tennessee, western Kentucky, tennessee. But one of the reasons I was glad we wound up calling it, that is Appalachia, is a lot more nuanced and complex than these. You know it's the image in the American mind is just white poverty, and it's so much more than that.
Speaker 2Our entire history is written in Appalachia, for the most part right?
Speaker 3Yeah, so much has happened here and so much important stuff has happened here, so I wanted and the cover art was perfect for the title as it turned out, and the cover art was perfect for the title as it turned out I already had the cover art the guy named Ron Donahue, in Lawrenceville, who goes out every day in Pittsburgh and paints you know what he sees Well, every nice day in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1So you know 20, 30 times a year.
Speaker 3But he's a brilliant painter, has books of his own, of his own paintings, so I had that in mind as the cover. So when they said it should be the Paris of Appalachia, I thought, yeah, that would work better. How about?
Speaker 1the chapter. The pirates and the stealers and the penguins are included in it.
Speaker 3I guess it's just all about yeah, yeah, I knew I was writing a book about Pittsburgh. I had to. I had to include sports.
Speaker 2So that's what's blowing me away here is the love for sports. Yeah, and it's, it's, it's different, it's really different.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I don't even know how to explain it to people.
Speaker 3Yeah, if you. You know if the pirates, uh, do you know, get back into the playoffs? You know the people turned out, the people turn out here. You know this is an ideal place for a baseball park for a lot of reasons. Pittsburgh is within 250 miles of 42 million Americans, which is why, you see, when the Phillies are in town, the Mets are in town, cubs, cardinals, all these out-of-town jerseys people are coming because it's easy. It's relatively easy to get to, it's an inexpensive ticket. It's a beautiful ballpark that feeds some incredible percentage of the fans in pnc park are from out of state like it's. I think it's more than 40 percent. Uh, some of those are ohio, west virginia. You know pirates fans, but, uh, when the pirates are good, like they were in 2013, 14 and 15, the attendance was higher for the pirates than for the population of the seven county metro area. There were more people buying tickets than live in the seven counties around pnc park.
Speaker 3so the fans are there. If you give them the product that they want to see and as soon as they see it, if you give them any glimmer of hope, they come. So yeah, I do hope you know in these Skeens years that they recognize that and build around, you know, a generational talent.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's an opportunity there like we haven't seen in our lifetime.
Speaker 3This is like when I was a kid, when I was 13, and the Mets finally got to 500 in 1969. In like June and Tom Seaver goes. What are you all talking about? 500 we're? We want to win it all, yeah, right. But the Mets recognized they had Seaver, they had Kuzmin, they had Nolan Ryan who wasn't really Nolan Ryan yet, uh, but they had Cleon Jones who was playing like Roberto Clemente. That year they had a team that could compete a lot like the Pirates, with Jones and Skeens. So they went out and got Don Clendenin to play first and they wound up going to the World Series, winning the World Series, and Don Clendenin was the MVP of the World Series. If you see what you have and the Pirates have it in the pitching. This is not anything that anybody doesn't know. If the Pirates get to the playoffs with these pitchers, they can compete with anyone.
Speaker 2Last, year we were considered one of the most terrifying teams if we made the playoffs. Yeah, Because of the pitching. I know the bullpen collapsed at the end, but even so, those guys could have hit stride. If they hit stride it's trouble, that's right. You think about how LA won last year. They didn't win because they're starting pitching. They won because of the bullpen Right. Nobody talked about LA's bullpen until they were almost exposed.
Speaker 3And it all turned on at the right time and there's a bunch of guys that want to take the ball. Knowing these guys, they want the ball and that's a difference maker. And the dodgers also won because of good fundamental baseball 100 that the yankees just failed at, just like basic stuff that's usually what wins playoffs games, I think you know, pitching a good defense no doubt, um brian, you write the book.
Speaker 1You make pittsburgh your home. Um, you wrote for like 32 years columns. You did the stats geek. Was there, uh, someone in your life, either in pittsburgh or as you grew up, aside from your father, who who, uh, maybe mentored you? Someone you idolized, perhaps even writing wise-wise, somebody you looked up to?
Speaker 3Yeah, when I was in college, in my house we didn't get the New York Times, we got the New York Daily News and Newsday, which is the Long Island newspaper.
Speaker 1Is there a reason why not the Times? Just curious, my father was the only Irish Republican. And my mother was not going to be dropped off at my house.
Speaker 3And my mother was an unreconstructed Roosevelt.
Speaker 1There's that grudge. There's that grudge, yeah.
Speaker 3There's a Roosevelt Democrat. Yeah, my father got drafted at age 30 before Pearl Harbor, before Pearl Harbor in the peacetime draft, and he blamed Roosevelt and never voted for another Democrat again. But he was there when they took Berlin at 35. Oh my gosh, wow, where was I? So, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 3So in my house we didn't get the Times. We got the New York Daily News and Newsday and at the time the New York Daily News had these two columnists which remain the best one to punch in the history of newspaper columns wrote. Each of them wrote three days a week and they didn't do it. These weren't thumb sucking columns you know about. You know national politics. They were hitting the streets, walking upstairs in Harlem, you know, going to the docks, doing where. Wherever the story was, they were looking for it. So I idolize those guys and, uh, and I, I, I wouldn't, you know, put myself anywhere near them, but that's what I aspired to, to do it the right way to talk to people, to get out of the office, to not just sit at your desk and make phone calls mind in Pittsburgh press or Post Gazette that you're most proud of that or maybe got the.
Speaker 1I think I read something that you said or maybe you're quoting someone that a good column is. One is back in the day when we had the newspapers and when people would cut out editorials, yeah, and put them on the refrigerator right, that's what, in fact, when I wrote, when I submitted my columns for the job in Pittsburgh I said I found the letter recently.
Speaker 3I kept a copy I said that a columnist should be judged not by how many awards he wins but by how many refrigerator doors his column winds up on. That's great, well said. So yeah, I mean there's something. There's one column I probably can't. I don't know what I can say on this.
Speaker 1You can say anything, whatever you want. You're having some coffee and a stogie.
Speaker 3This is about the late Cyril Wecht, the coroner. He didn't like me If Cyril Wecht the coroner? Oh yeah, he didn't like me.
Speaker 1If Cyril didn't like you, there was no getting around.
Speaker 3Yeah, he didn't like me because I would say things You'd question me. I would question his brilliance. Yeah, and he was brilliant. That's what everyone says. I thought he was just smart and accomplished.
Speaker 1Well, and he knew it.
Speaker 3just smart and accomplished and he knew it, but anyway. So he runs against Jim Roddy for county executive and he should have won. But this brilliant man brings in Johnny Cochran to campaign for him and Cyril already had the black vote. So all Johnny Cochran to campaign for him and Cyril already had the black vote. I mean so all Johnny Cochran, like one of the most divisive figures at the time OJ's lawyer. He brings OJ's lawyer to campaign for him, like three days before Election Day. So there were people in the around the county who didn't like that. So Jim Roddy winds up becoming county executive.
Speaker 3So this guy, just a guy, an engineer I think he was a smart guy. He writes a letter to the editor saying I'm so glad we have Jim Roddy, a gentleman, instead of Cyril Wex who is full of himself or something. It was just a letter to the editor like two sentences. So Cyril is livid. He dictates a letter to his secretary on county stationery because he was the medical examiner at the time, to the guy who wrote this letter and it was something like you know, when I'm coming back from a speech or paid big money to give testimony at a trial, what gives my heart good is to come back to Pittsburgh and see that I'm not an insignificant asshole like you, I mean, and he was like that word On county stationary.
Speaker 3On county stationary. So you know he dictated this letter and had his secretary type it. Are you?
Speaker 1sure you want me to write this Dr.
Memorable Columns and Local Characters
Speaker 3Wecht Use the A word. So the guy receives the letter, he calls me, he tells me what he got. I said that's a column, thank you. So he brings it to me and I see it's real, and I call Cyril and of course he doesn't want to talk about it. It's real and I call Cyril and of course he doesn't want to talk about it. Uh, so I write a column, uh, and it was the most well-read column I've ever written, um, and not a single person objected to the word being in the paper. Not one. Because it was so ridiculous that this guy had done this thing to this man who was just, you know, writing a relatively insignificant letter to the editor. So then Cyril's mad at me never forgave me and he would continue to write to me, which only gave me more columns. You, you know he would write me this letter and I would, you know he called me, you and the other editor, buttock, hunting, hugging members of the newsroom.
Speaker 3I'm like, and I'm like, right here's another column, thank you, I don't hug just one buttock, I hug them both, you know, and uh, and he would keep writing you would just keep writing and he said so, he was just teeing you up, just keep writing. And he said so, he was just teeing you up.
Speaker 3He was just teeing me up and it just went on and on. He said you couldn't be elected block leader. So I printed that and I wrote another column. I said how this year all I was elected block leader at the Memorial Day block party and I didn't even have to attend bar that long. So you know he was. Uh, I'm glad you had fun with it. Yeah, I had a lot of fun. But he wrote a book, uh co-wrote it. He had a ghostwriter, but uh, it's got a great title. It's not a great book, but it's got a great title the deaths and life of Cyril Wecht, that's great.
Speaker 3I go to the index to see what he said about me and of course it's not favorable. But I read those two or three pages of his vindictiveness and all right, you've got a right to say that. But he spent a lot more time going after the DA Zapala who he didn't like and Cyril has since died, a lot more time going after the DA Zapala who he didn't like and what Cyril has since died. And and the thing Cyril never realized is I liked him. I found him very entertaining. I always, when you could vote for a coroner, I always voted for him for coroner. I just didn't think he'd be a good County executive, but anyway, I got his book from the library like a year and a half ago. And, in the way, if, if nobody wants the book you've you've taken out, it is automatically renewed. So it's been automatically renewed for like a year and a half. Oh my gosh. So that's, that shows you they're not exactly flying off the shelves, well, he was.
Speaker 1He was certainly interesting. That that that I will give you. I I got along with him. I disagree with him politically but, uh, he never hold him.
Speaker 3He was very smart, he was, and he was funny, yes, uh very interesting interesting, a good conversationalist, but you know if you disagreed with anything he said you know how dare you.
Speaker 1He was taken aback by that. Who are you to disagree with me? Yeah?
Speaker 3Yeah, it's like I once wrote. You're like this is true, I just thought this was fact. You know he never met a microphone.
Speaker 1He didn't like and he like took great offense at that, which is funny because I think you know, I would have thought he would not disagree with that. No, I mean, it was fact. He loved it. Yeah, he loved the mic and anyway. So, in terms of Pittsburgh writers, guys at the Post-Gazette Press, were you close to any of them?
Speaker 3Gene Collier, I was going to ask you about Gene. Gene Collier is a great guy. Now there's a brilliant guy right. Yeah, oh yeah. He's one of the best sports writers I think I've ever read.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2What makes a great sports writer in your mind?
Speaker 3The thing I like about Collier in particular and this isn't true of all sports writers, but with Collier it's almost like he's kicking out the slats of what a sports writer should be, like he's not confined by conventions and he's trying to push the envelope all the time with uh things you maybe didn't think belonged on the sports column until you read it in g college. Like he had this one running bit every year about bear season in pennsylvania the bear, the Bears versus the humans. The humans win again and you know with the stats but really it's not fair. But he would give the play-by-play. The Bears thought they had something this year, but once again, you know.
Speaker 3Humans undefeated, Right right. So he would do things like that. That I think were great. Smizek was really good. So he would do things like that. That I think were great. Smysuk was really good. Other columnists in other arenas, like Peter Leo I liked him. He wrote a humor column for us for a long time.
Speaker 1Did he get along with Kaiden?
Speaker 3I got along with him Speaking of Surly. Yeah, he had an edge to him, but I got along with him. And certainly Smysuk had an edge to him, them uh, and certainly smizik had an edge to him, but uh, smizik, I think, drove the the sports conversation in pittsburgh as much as anyone ever has. Fair. Yeah, uh, so I, I liked you know, and he's pittsburgh born and bred, so he knew the town and ron cook.
Speaker 1I thought was great too his profiles in particular I think were, I think he often uniquely, would say write what many Pittsburghers were thinking in that language too well said. Now I kind of understand that well geez, what a treat to have you here oh, it was my pleasure.
Speaker 3This has been a lot of fun. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2This has been an absolute blast. That's about a pipe dream. Brownie that's not going to be used forever now, michael.
Speaker 1The pipe dream and the emerald for the Irishman. The king, the king.
Speaker 2Yeah, king.
Speaker 1What was the name?
Speaker 2I don't remember, I know you don't, matt Bryan.
Speaker 3That's why I asked you Matt.
Speaker 1Bryan.
Speaker 3There was a King, brian O'Neill, like 12, 15. I looked him up one time. The Vikings kicked his ass.
Speaker 2So that he's kind of like the bear. He was the bear, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1That's good. A lot of fun. Enjoyed it and make sure you like and subscribe and join us next time. Another edition of Hold my Cutter. Hold my Cutter.
