It started with that Pulitzer-nominated columnist Bill Johnson from Denver, the one who stirred up a mob of black and gold by referring to Pittsburgh as “butt ugly.”
It continued with ESPN Radio’s Collin Cowherd, who mixed upbeat, hip-hop Seattle Seahawks fight songs with the aging polka rifts of “We are the Picks-burg Steeeelers” as a way of asking which city was more “with it.”
A nation that has trouble finding fault with the first team to ever climb from a lowly sixth seed to the Big Dance has no trouble busting the team’s hometown knickers sideways.
I say, “Oh, enough.”
Yea, I grew up in Pittsburgh and have lived in western Pennsylvania my whole life so, yea, you’re not getting unbiased reporting here.
Yea, the stripped-out hills of Pittsburgh may not compare to the mountains of Colorado and yea, as one e-mailer to the Post-Gazette put it, our women can probably out bench press us.
But you can’t take one thing from us.
We all know how to spell k-i-e-l-b-o-s-a.
You underestimate us at your own peril.
It takes a tough breed to scratch out an existence growing up on 50 degree tilted front lawns, driving past blighted mills and bright orange slag streams working their way down the banks of the Ohio River.
Yea, we’re a shot-and-beer crowd.
Yea, we have a blue collar mentality.
Yea, we have a proud cultural heritage to show off.
What are you and your Birkenstocks going to do about it?
It takes defense to win championships, Mr. Cowherd, not fight songs.
A friend of mine used to pick her office pool by deciding which teams looked better walking away in their football pants.
That seems as good a system as comparing songs in determining who will win or lose on the field of battle.
Okay, that’s it, I’m out. Before things start to really get butt ugly.