Sunday, June 29, 2008

Talking trash: The, uh, forthcoming Plaxico Burress book

Giant: The Road to the Super Bowl” (in bookstores July 1) is the literary equivalent of listening to Plaxico Burress speak — for 200-plus pages. In other words, Burress has nothing to say, and what he does try to say, is like, half-baked and incoherent. I feel sorry for all the English, writing and communications professors at Michigan State University (where Burress went to college), who must have shuddered when they heard that Plaxico Burress received a book deal. I feel sorry for aspiring authors everywhere, who now have to live with the fact that Plaxico — of all people! — has a book and they don’t. Most importantly, I feel for the children, all the young, impressionable minds who will have the misfortune of being exposed to this material. It’s an entire book filled with sentences like this one: “My first time taking the SAT was like 630 or 620 or something.”

Anyway, the only chapters of any real interest to Pittsburgh fans are four and five (“School Daze: Getting a Rep” and “Starting in Steeltown”), both of which reinforce my feeling that the Steelers should never have selected Burress with the eighth pick of the 2000 draft. While it’s not necessarily news to the Pittsburgh faithful, Plax does confirm that he failed to show up for his private pre-draft workout with Bill Cowher: “I was supposed to meet with [the Steelers] at two in the afternoon. But I slept through it. I got a call from Coach Cowher that afternoon and he said, ‘We missed you, what happened? I flew all the way [to Michigan] to see you work out.’ I said, ‘Coach, my bad, I’m just dead tired.’” That alone should have been enough for the Steelers to go in another direction, as it foretold his future in Pittsburgh (“I would be late to meetings all the time”; “When I lived in Pittsburgh … it was a party all the time”). He also openly discusses his “six homeboys from Virginia Beach,” the posse he supported during his first few years in Pittsburgh: (“I’ve seen them guys pull guns and shoot at people,” he says. “I’ve seen them beat guys with bats and things like that….”) With all these distractions, it’s no wonder Plax failed to live up to expectations while he played for the Steelers.

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Friday, June 27, 2008

Roethlisberger "My Wish" segment to air Sunday

ESPN will air its Akeem Havens/Ben Roethlisberger "My Wish" segment on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. Click here to read our May 30th post about the taping of the program.

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Monday, June 16, 2008

An old friend takes orbit

Legendary Steelers broadcaster Myron Copeland always thought the Steelers were out of this world. Now the same can be said of him.

The
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today the there's a little piece of sky with Copeland's name on it. Actually its a minor planet — distant asteroid 1993 MC — that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

Officially named 7835 Myroncope in honor of Cope, Dr. Eric Mamajek of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. wanted to memorialize the man whose has meant so much to so many Steelers fans.

Too small to be seen by the naked eye, 7835 Myroncope is small and distant — only 3 miles wide and as close as 88 million miles from Earth, although its elliptical orbit can take it as far away as 387 million miles.

Dr. Mamajek said that while there's no chance of Myroncope colliding with Earth, "a direct impact at Cleveland Browns Stadium can perhaps not be ruled out."

I can almost hear Myron cackling.

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Sunday, June 15, 2008

Rest stops at the Bus stop

For what it's worth, the restrooms at Jerome Bettis' Grille 36 in Pittsburgh are finalists for the "America's Best Restroom Award." Cast your vote for best restroom at bestrestroom.com.

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"Giant" by Plaxico Burress


Former Steelers' wide receiver Plaxico Burress wants the New York Giants to give him a new contract. In the meantime, he'll have to settle for the release of his new book "Giant: The Road to the Super Bowl" (Harper Collins), written with, er, by sportswriter Jason Cole. While The Steelyard hasn't yet had a chance to check out the book, one wonders what on earth the tall, mumbling one could possibly have to say about ... anything? Stay tuned. We'll try to obtain a review copy and provide a sneak peek.

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