Letter to the Editor, 10-15-08

Dear Editor, ‘ ‘ ‘ I am writing in response to Drew Singer’s arguments in the Oct. 14 article… Dear Editor, ‘ ‘ ‘ I am writing in response to Drew Singer’s arguments in the Oct. 14 article titled ‘Pens vs. Flyers tonight: But which city is the best ‘- Singer goes with Brotherly Love.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ Let me start by saying I assume Drew is from the Philadelphia area, and that being the case, I respect his opinion that Philly is better than Pittsburgh. However, I do not see validity in his arguments. ‘ ‘ ‘ He expands the realm of relevant sports to include horse-racing, boxing and minor-league hockey. If he wanted to wander outside the four mainstream sports of baseball, football, basketball and hockey, then why didn’t he mention the Homestead Grays, one of the most prominent Negro League Baseball teams in history, having had 12 of their players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame? Also, what about Paul Spadafora? Paul, otherwise known as the Pittsburgh Kid, was a boxer who won the IBF World Championship in 1999. ‘ ‘ ‘ While Philadelphia has a solid sports resume, it pales in comparison to the collective Pittsburgh roster. Pittsburgh has housed some of the greatest athletes ever in their respective sports. For hockey, it was Mario Lemieux. For baseball, there was Honus Wagner, Bill Mazeroski and Roberto Clemente. And for football there were and are countless names, including, but not limited to, ‘The Steel Curtain’ of Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes and Dwight White; Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Jerome Bettis and Hines Ward. ‘ ‘ ‘ And it should be noted that both Mario Lemieux and Lynn Swann loved Pittsburgh so much that after they retired, they both moved here permanently. ‘ ‘ ‘ The reason that we Pittsburghers are so disgusted with hearing about Rocky ‘mdash; and he hit that nail right on the head ‘mdash; is that he is not real! How can you be proud to show off a sports icon who is from a movie? We in Pittsburgh don’t need to have Hollywood write fictional stories of glorified, million-to-one athletes based in our town and then film movies about them to garner attention. ‘ ‘ ‘ So congratulations, Philadelphia, you have a football team that cannot win the big game, a basketball team that no one wants to play for, a few horses in the stable, a couple of retired boxers of which the most successful never existed, a hockey team that has been mediocre at best in recent memory and a baseball team with a mascot that looks like a rejected Muppet. But, hey, at least they made the playoffs. John Kennedy College of Business Administration