During an episode of ESPN’s “First Take” last week, panelist Bart Scott gave a little love to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The former Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets linebacker was asked for his favorite playoff atmosphere. And he said Steelers fans at Heinz Field (at 1:22:16 of this clip). Scott waxed nostalgic about the video board staff playing “Renegade” during key second-half defensive possessions.
“They play Styx,” Scott recalled. “Man, I’ve watched many of my quarterbacks (defecate) in their pants in the third quarter and I’m like, ‘Just punt the damn ball.’
“I watched Ryan Clark hit Willis McGahee so hard after that song came on that they both knocked each other out. I tell you what, these kids are crazy. Pittsburgh is the only place that I’ve ever been mooned by a 70-year-old grandma. Looked like a California raisin, that wrinkled butt.”
We could’ve done without the imagery, Bart. But thanks, nonetheless.
Since Scott used to play for the Ravens, it’s a tip of the cap I have to return to our friends in Purple-and-Black. Because when it comes to memorable, laughably extreme, comically truculent exchanges with intense and aggressive fans in opposing stadiums, Baltimore takes the cake for me.
As a response to Scott’s sharing of his most memorable Pittsburgh recollection, here are three of my … um … “favorite” memories of fan interactions on the road during Steelers-Ravens games.
1. We get it. OK? We get it: I went to the 1998 season opener as a fan. Steelers at Ravens. I was still working in Syracuse, N.Y. at the time. It was the first game ever in what was then “Ravens Stadium at Camden Yards.”
We were sitting behind a guy who was wearing Tony Siragusa’s No. 98. He was so big, he stretched out the jersey more than “Goose” ever did. Beer in one hand. Hot dog in the other. Double fisting all afternoon.
And he was entirely fixated on the fact that Jerome Bettis’ nickname was “The Bus.”
“C’mon, Bus! Let’s see what you can do! Bus looks out of gas! Bus has a flat tire! That Bus’s transmission is shot! Bus is stuck in neutral!”
Plus, he made this grumbly bus rumbling sound that he thought was incredibly funny. Every … Steelers … snap … for … four … quarters.
Worst of all, Bettis couldn’t get going the whole game. Just 41 yards on 23 carries. So the guy had ammo. That made it worse. He felt emboldened. Like it was him that was individually tackling Bettis from the 500 section.
Somehow the Steelers scratched out a 20-13 win in an ugly game. And the drunken Siragusa fan wobbled while standing up on his way out of the stadium.
“Hope you’re taking the bus home,” I quipped.
He didn’t think that was very funny.
I did.
2. Baltimore beauty: My first year covering the Steelers was 2001. That year I traveled with the team — the charter flight, team busses, etc.
The road game in Baltimore that year was a big one on “Sunday Night Football.” The 10-2 Steelers were visiting the 8-4 Ravens on Dec. 16. In November, the Ravens won the first game in Pittsburgh 13-10 courtesy of four missed kicks from Kris Brown. Baltimore fans in the stadium showed up with signs that read “Merry KrisMiss.”
The Steelers won 26-21. It was one of Kordell Stewart’s best games in Black and Gold, going 20-of-31 for 333 yards passing, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Plus, he ran for 55 yards.
On the way out from what was then PSINet Stadium, Ravens fans lined the road out to the highway. Pitch black. After midnight. In mid-December. Sunday night. Not the most scenic way out of the stadium as I recall. All in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Steelers’ busses so they could shout expletives, make obscene gestures and throw the occasional beer can.
Much like Elvis Grbac that day, only one or two of those tosses were on target. So it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Similar to Scott’s “California Raisin” friend, I do recall a fetching young lady in a Ravens jersey flipping a double-bird to the bus. She had one visible front tooth with a gap on either side. So I saw two middle fingers and one tooth. I refer to her as a ‘Baltimore 10.”
But she was shouting loud enough and was close enough to the bus as it slowed to turn a corner that I could hear her slur, “We’ll see you in the (expletive deleted) playoffs.”
Bless her little heart, she got that one right. The two teams did meet in the playoffs.
And the Steelers won again 27-10.
3. Cartoon crazy: The press box at M&T Bank Stadium is a little low in the seating bowl. I like covering games there. It’s a great seat.
Except for one thing.
Unless something has changed in recent years, the fans can turn around and bang on the press box glass. Every year, I sat behind the same guy, and he did so incessantly. He must’ve had season tickets in the same seats. And the Ravens media relations staff must’ve sat us in the same position. Or it was the worst run of coincidence I’ve ever had.
The guy was usually hammered by kickoff. An obnoxious, thinning-haired, ruddy-faced, potato-headed looking fellow. And he always wore the same white T-shirt.
No matter the weather, he’d find a way to have this shirt be the outer layer of his clothing. It was one of those Calvin and Hobbs cartoons you usually see in the back of a pickup truck somewhere in the sticks.
You know the one I mean. Where a urinating Calvin is wearing a Ford shirt and he is relieving himself on a Chevy logo (or vice versa) while flashing a devilish grin. Except this guy’s shirt featured Calvin wearing a Ravens jersey, and he was soaking a Steelers logo.
And every year, either this sucker put on an additional 10 pounds or the shirt shrunk a size and a half. It also got increasingly ripped and stained. Like, I could tell it was nacho-cheese-from-the-previous-season kind of stained.
Worst of all, when he pounded the glass, it was impossible to ignore because he had a wedding ring on and that made it extra loud. It really broke my concentration on the game.
Not because of the noise per se. But because all I could think of was, “Who’d marry a guy like this??!!”
Probably the lady flipping off the bus.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
