It wasn’t until I read his obituary, decades after I’d moved from Pittsburgh and years after he retired, that I knew former Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette sports columnist Phil Musick lived in the small town, Harmar Township, where I grew up. When Musick died at 71 on Jan. 5, 2010, I was saddened. He was one of the major influences
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For those of us who are sports fans, I’d be willing to bet our most enduring memories occurred during our childhood, or at worst, early in adulthood. Four memories stand out for me: • In 1971, Roberto Clemente led the Pirates to the World Series championship with a fantastic performance, capped by a great game in Game 7. I’d just
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For much of the past 36 hours, I’ve had a pit at the bottom of my stomach. I slept poorly. I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the quickly increasing number of mentions I had on Twitter. It wasn’t a good thing. I did a dumb thing. I tweeted something that many people took as racist at worst or as
Read moreWhen Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill that gives her state the dubious honor of having the most stringent abortion legislation in the country, she invoked God in an attempt to argue in favor of her position that the state has the right to tell women what they can do with their bodies. “Today, I signed into law the
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The Golden Knights had a chance to win the Stanley Cup taken from them because of a penalty that the officials weren’t originally planning to call. The Sharks were down 3-0 in Game 7 of their first-round series and the Knights had it all but wrapped up when the referees made the decision to give Cody Eakin a major for
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When I was 12, I had no idea what a homeless person was. All I knew was living in a safe, warm and comfortable home with two parents who loved me. Despite having very modest means, pretty much anything my younger brother, Keith, or I wanted, we got. But if Keith or I wanted something — be it a new
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My passion for the Pittsburgh Penguins persists, even as I’ve become a diehard Vegas Golden Knights fan. I get it when you look at me oddly when I say that. I know it’s hard to root for two teams in the same league, and I frequently would mock others who admitted to such bizarre behavior. But I now find myself
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I was 19 when I had my first full-time job as a journalist. I’ll be 59 in October, and I’ve seen, heard and done a lot. I’m not sure if the 40-year anniversary has passed yet or not, but there is one thing I’m certain of: In those four decades, I have never met another sports writer quite like Dan
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Baseball season begins today. Hope springs eternal they say, except in Pittsburgh, where grumbling about owner Bob Nutting’s thriftiness has become the de rigueur social take. The Pirates will start the season with a $73 million payroll, or about $150 million or so less than the world champion Boston Red Sox. And it will go down significantly in late July
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I dropped off of Facebook on Nov. 1, in part because of security concerns, a little because I spent entirely too much time with it but largely because it was making me miserable. Imagine waking up each day and checking out the internet with the morning coffee and reading on Facebook that some other user — theoretically, a friend —
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