EDITORIAL – Pittsburgh: Pass on the grass

It’s hard to imagine a typical Monday or Tuesday morning water cooler conversation in… It’s hard to imagine a typical Monday or Tuesday morning water cooler conversation in Pittsburgh that doesn’t have some mention of the previous night’s Steelers game. We’re a football town, and (most years), we have a pretty solid team.

But this week, talk about Monday’s game had little to do with Coach Mike Tomlin, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger or wide receiver Hines Ward. Instead, the conversations were almost exclusively about one rather emotional topic: grass.

Yep. In case you’ve been living under a rock – or any type of grass other than Heinz Field’s – the Steelers experienced quite a few setbacks on their home turf – which incidentally, isn’t turf at all – when the team faced the Miami Dolphins Monday.

The poor conditions came after the team decided to install sod over the weekend, which, combined with Monday’s rain, transformed Heinz Field into what could best be described as a swamp. While the Steelers still managed a triumphant finish, the poor field conditions thwarted some critical plays. The Steelers’ eventual 3-0 win marked as the lowest scoring victory in club history.

The grass scare set off a storm of local outrage, with many fans, sports commentators and local media outlets calling on the team to come up with a solution to the grass problem – and soon.

In response to the fallout from “grassgate,” Steelers President Art Rooney II told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that workers will do everything they can to dry the field out before Sunday’s game against Cincinnati.

While the idea of devoting front page newspaper spreads and significant portions of local news broadcasts to, well, grass, seems trivial at first, we understand the hype. The local media has to cater to what sells, and in our town, football usually does the trick. To top that, Pittsburghers have paid millions of dollars in taxes on the construction and maintenance of Heinz Field, so it’s important to keep Steelers’ officials in check in regard to the conditions on the field.

So, even though we are really only talking about grass – we can understand. Monday’s mess-up was a big deal. But we think it’s time for Pittsburgh to move on. Yes, it’s unfortunate that an untimely mixture of poor weather conditions and freshly laid sod prevented our team from managing a larger victory. But, if nothing else, this week’s fallout has inspired Rooney and the other Steelers’ officials to take action (They know better than anyone not to mess with Steelers fans en masse).

So, as a city, it’s time to take one collective deep breath – and start focusing on other issues, like this week’s peace talks in Annapolis, Dan Onorato’s decision to freeze Port Authority talks or