On Friday evening, the New York Yankees paid tribute to their late owner George Steinbrenner.  To Yankee fans, losing The Boss is an event similar to what Steeler Nation experienced when our beloved founder Art Rooney passed away.  While Steinbrenner wasn’t the first or only owner of the Bronx Bombers, he was the man responsible for making them into the symbol of excellence they are today.

I know some of you may be thinking, “Um, isn’t this a Pittsburgh Steelers blog?”

The Yankees and George Steinbrenner have a very interesting connection to the Steelers.   Steinbrenner, you see, was the second choice to buy that team.  Wanna guess who was offered them first?

The Chief.

Back in 1973, the Yankees were owned by CBS.  Believe it or not, they were in pretty lousy shape, having not won a division title in twelve years and finishing last that season.  CBS wanted out of the baseball business.  The first man they called was Art Rooney.  Their asking price for a team which would be worth $1.5 billion dollars in 2010 was the grant sum of $9 million.

The Chief turned them down.

Rooney may have been a great football man but his family has always said baseball was his first love.  He even played semi-pro minor league ball back in the 1920s for a team ironically named the Wheeling Stogies.   He hit .369 according to his statistical page on Baseball-Reference.

However, the NFL didn’t like their owners being involved in multiple leagues.  Plus, the baseball owners must approve of any ownership changes and Rooney worried his reputation as a gambler would hurt his chances.  Finally, the Chief simply didn’t have that much cash available to him.  He could have taken out loans and so forth but having lived through the Great Depression, dealing with banks was only something you did as a last resort.

So the team went instead to a Cleveland ship building magnate named George Steinbrenner.

It’s interesting to look back and think what if.  Art’s son Dan was and continues to be one of the most respected leaders in football.  Steinbrenner became the prime example of an owner using his superior cash flow to buy championships.  Meanwhile, Dan Rooney is one of the owners who championed a salary cap and revenue sharing to keep small market teams competitive.  If the Rooney family was involved in baseball, one wonders if the course of that sport would’ve more closely mirrored what happened in the NFL.  Imagine that.

Imagine a world where the Chief was the Boss.

And a world where the Pirates have the exact same payroll as the Yankees.

It is officially the worst off-season ever for a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Earlier today, a lawsuit was filed by a woman in Orlando who claims that Super Bowl XLIII MVP Santonio Holmes assaulted her at a nightclub earlier in the month.  Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.  She alleges that her and her college-age friends where hanging with him in the VIP section of the Rain nightclub when a stupid argument between her and ‘Tone ended with him throwing a glass at her face.   Not the booze in the glass, mind you, THE ENTIRE GLASS.

What an idiot.   Everybody knows you take your groupies back to the private VIP bathroom before you assault them.   Has your fearless leader taught you nothing?

Yes, much like our douchebag quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, Holmes has a long history of being a troublemaking asshole.  He has three kids from two different mothers, neither to whom he’s married.  One of the baby mamas called the cops after he choked her, slapped her, and then threw her around.   She dropped those charges most likely when Mr. Green (aka cash money) found his way into her bank account.  On the plus side, he’s also been arrested for drug possession and disorderly conduct three separate times so not all his offenses are violent.

I already know what some of the comments are going to say.  “Ack!  Another lying ho looking for money!” or something along similarly misogynistic lines.  I guess she may be lying.  Although it seems a little odd to me that of thirty-two NFL teams and all their active players, most of whom are rich and famous, why is it that the same two Steelers keep getting accused of doing things they shouldn’t be doing?

Right now, I’m absolutely embarrassed to be a Steeler fan.  And anybody who lives in Pittsburgh, grew up in Pittsburgh, or has the faintest inkling of what it means to be a true Steeler fan has to feel just as sick as I do.  Over the next month or two we’re going to see exactly what kind of people Dan Rooney and his son Art II truly are.

Dan Rooney is the Ambassador to Ireland largely because he built up a reputation of being a man of strong character who runs his organization in a responsible and classy fashion. There’s a reason he has a sterling reputation while guys like Jerry Jones or Al Davis are laughingstocks. But this team has quickly become the joke of the NFL, full of criminals and idiots that reflect directly on him, his family, and his city of birth.

Time to start earning your reputation, Dan.  The time for sitting on your hands and turning a blind eye to these goofs on your team is over.  Start getting things under control or everything the Rooney name has stood for since the late great Art Rooney was in charge will be lost forever.  As a proud Pittsburgher, I can’t tell you how tragic that would be.