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Jim O’Brien: It ain’t over till it’s over

O’Brien: It ain’t over till it’s over

Pittsburgh sports author and Valley Mirror columnist Jim O’Brien

It was possible. I did not give up hope for the Penguins after they lost the first three games in their best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series with the Philadelphia Flyers.

If you have covered sports as long as I have, for more than 55 years, you have seen some strange things occur in sports. You know the history.

It was 37 years ago – on April 26, 1975 – that I witnessed one of the greatest comebacks in National Hockey League history when the New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 1-0 in the seventh game of the second round of the playoffs.

The Islanders lost the first three games of that series, but they never quit competing. The Islanders were in only their third season in the NHL and had never won a regular season game during that span against the Penguins at the Civic Arena. They were 0-for-Pittsburgh before the series got underway.

At the 14:42 mark in the third period, Eddie Westfall, the Islanders’ captain who had played for two Stanley Cup winners with the Boston Bruins, took a pass from defenseman Bert Marshall and scored on a high backhand shot past Penguins’ goalie Gary Inness.

I was covering the Islanders for The New York Post. I was still a fan of all the Pittsburgh sports teams, and continued to root for them from afar, but I was happy that the Islanders won the series. It makes sense for you to root for the team where you live.

That’s why I was pleased to read last week that Larry Fitzgerald, the former Pitt wide receiver who is the face of the Arizona Cardinals, told a Pittsburgh reporter that he’d be rooting for the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“I still root for the Pirates most of the time,” offered Fitzgerald, “but now I’m an Arizona guy.”

The 1975 New York Islanders moved on to play the Philadelphia Flyers in the next round of the playoffs. The Islanders lost the first three games of that series as well, and then, amazingly enough, came back to win the next three, forcing a seventh game again.

This time they lost the seventh game, but they remain the only team ever to be down three games to none to rally and force a seventh game twice. Five years later, the Islanders got even with the Flyers by defeating them in the final round of the Stanley Cup playoffs to win the first of four consecutive Stanley Cups.

I covered the Islanders in their first season – 1972-1973 – when they won only 12 games the entire season. I believe I was the first sportswriter in New York to refer to the team as “the Islanders.” The team had not yet announced its nickname when I suggested “Islanders” in a column in The New York Post.

I had moved from Miami to New York in 1970 and bought a home on Long Island because I knew I was going to be covering the New York Nets of the American Basketball League. I lived about five miles from the Nassau Coliseum and would cover both the Nets and the Islanders there.

I was also five miles from the only 24-hour Western Union office on Long Island and that was critical. I had to drive there late at night too many evenings to have them transmit my copy to the Manhattan office of The New York Post.

Bill Torrey was the general manager of the Islanders and was responsible for putting the team together that would eventually win four consecutive Stanley Cups. I knew him from his days as “Bowtie Billy” when he headed the Hornets’ organization in Pittsburgh.

Even after he left Pittsburgh, Torrey continued to book the Harlem Globetrotters for an annual holiday season game at the Civic Arena. The Globetrotters still come to Pittsburgh every Christmas.

I became friends with Bert Marshall who, at 31, fed the puck to Westfall for that game-winner in the seventh game in Pittsburgh. Marshall had played for the Pittsburgh Hornets in the American Hockey League. He had lived upstairs of the Pleasure Bar in Bloomfield for a brief spell when he first joined the Hornets.

I knew Spotty LeDonne, a huge fan of the Hornets, who had found Marshall and so many of the Hornets a place to stay when they first came to Pittsburgh. The players didn’t make much money in those days, and often slept in spare rooms at the homes of hockey fans. I played tennis with Marshall and several of the Penguins at a tennis club near my home on Long Island.

Gerry Hart, Bob Nystrom, Garry Howatt, Lorne Henning were some of the Penguins who liked to play tennis with us at the Baldwin (N.Y.) Tennis Club. My best friend, attorney Bill Hodges, himself a season ticket holder of the Islanders, often joined us on the courts.

The teams the Penguins play are always viewed as the enemy, and fans at the Civic Arena and now the Consol Energy Center like to boo them. They say they hate this guy and that guy.

All I can tell you is that the Islanders that beat the Penguins in that 1975 series were some of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet.

The same can be said, of course, for Sidney Crosby and I hate to hear fans on the road booing him and questioning his courage. I didn’t care for fans booing Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe and great players like that when they skated at the Civic Arena. Only someone with a short memory would boo Jaromir Jagr.

(By the way, how come the Penguins never dumped Jagr or slammed Max Talbot into the boards in any of the six games? Maybe I missed that…)

I have covered teams in every major sport and hockey players were always among my favorites. They were down-to-earth guys and pleasant company for the most part.

The Islanders and the Nets both conducted free clinics for the kids in my neighborhood on Saturday afternoons in the cul-de-sac where I lived. It was a different era.

The Islanders weren’t even supposed to get as far as the second round of the playoffs in 1975. They started off with a best-of-three series against the rival New York Rangers who were heavily favored to win. The Islanders won the third and decisive game at Madison Square Garden in what Torrey said was “the most important victory” in the team’s three-year history.

After the Islanders lost the first three games to Pittsburgh, Coach Al Arbour benched goalie Billy Smith in favor of Glenn “Chico” Resch. Resch was a delightful guy, much easier to deal with than the somber Smith, and he said he had a lot of help from the goal posts to prevent the Penguins from scoring too many goals. For the record, Smith is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I don’t understand why fans in all sports leave the building or the ballpark early whenever their team is trailing. Are they only fans as long as their team wins the game?

I covered the New York Mets when Yogi Berra became the manager and it was Berra who is supposed to have said “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

When I talked to Eddie Johnston, the former coach and general manager of the Penguins, after the Penguins had lost the first three games to the Flyers in this year’s playoff, he said, “You gotta win four!” Johnston was still hopeful the Penguins could pull it off.

Fans in Philadelphia booed and left the building midway through the third period in the fourth game that the Penguins won by 10-3. They gave a Bronx cheer whenever one of their goalies brushed aside a slow floater in front of the net. Hey, how often are you going to see 13 goals scored in a game?

I want to see how my team is going to handle adversity. I want to see if they keep trying, or if they simply quit?

I have always said that you never know what you are going to see when you attend a sports event, or watch one on television.

You might see something you have never seen before.

This past weekend provided perfect examples of what I mean.

I saw Phil Humber, a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, face the final three batters from the Seattle Mariners to complete a perfect game on Saturday. It was the first no-hitter of this season. Humber had undergone Tommy John surgery – shoulder surgery – seven years earlier and bounced around the major leagues most of his career. He didn’t become a full-time starter until last season.

I had been watching the Yankees against the Red Sox when coverage shifted to Seattle for the bottom of the ninth inning.

The Red Sox were ahead 9-0 when coverage shifted to Seattle. When the coverage returned to Boston the Red Sox were ahead by 9-5. The Yankees scored seven runs in both the sixth and seventh innings and won the game 15-9.

I have never witnessed a baseball game in my life that turned around like this one. I never saw a game in which a team scored seven runs in each of consecutive innings. Some guys batted three times in the same inning.

It was the fifth straight loss for the Red Sox. I have never cared for Bobby Valentine, the new manager of the Red Sox, so I was glad to see his team lose. I thought the Red Sox made a big mistake when they fired Terry Francona at the end of last season.

I love to watch games when the Red Sox and Yankees are playing each other. I have a good friend, Rich Corson, who loves baseball, but he only watches National League games. I don’t understand that. It doesn’t get any better in baseball than the Yankees against the Red Sox, especially at Fenway Park.

The Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi was interviewed during the game, when his team trailed by 9-0 and he was asked how he’d feel if he was managing the team that was ahead 9-0.

He said that he knew that strange things have happened at Fenway Park, and with that Green Monster wall in short left field, runs could be scored in a hurry. He was right about that.

On Sunday I watched an NBA game featuring Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder taking on Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staple Center in Los Angeles.

The Thunder led by as many as 17 points and seemed to have the game in the bag when Bryant led a comeback. The Lakers won the game in double overtime. This was a game that was truly not over until it was over.

Now I have to find another team to root for in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and a team to root for in the NBA playoffs.

Pittsburgh sports author Jim O’Brien has a series of “Pittsburgh Proud” books available at his website www.jimobriensportsauthor.com. He can be found on Facebook.

Jahine Arnold, Steelers Wide Receiver, 1996-1998

First, can you let readers know what you have been doing with yourself career-wise since your time in the NFL?

Since I retired from the NFL I have had quite the journey: Green Bay to Tampa, Tampa to Brazil. Not only the locations I have been in, but what I have had to deal with.

I left the NFL in 2000, my last team was the Green Bay Packers. Before Green Bay I spent three years in Pittsburgh with the Steelers. My post NFL career involved a few years in Arena Football, being a loan officer, mortgage broker, and part-time web designer. Leaving football after playing for more than half of my life was a difficult transition.

Continue reading “Jahine Arnold, Steelers Wide Receiver, 1996-1998”

Randy Reutershan, Steelers Wide Receiver, 1978

First, can you let readers know what you have been doing with yourself since your time with the Steelers, and how you got involved in this line of work?

Now I am employed at Home Depot and constantly involved with various events with the NFL Players Association. I am also in a group that is trying to finance the Magic Sports, Health and Resort Complex in South Jersey for kids and adults to participate in a number of sports indoors and out as well as medical care and waterpark.

You had a brief stint as a coach at Pitt under Jackie Sherill. How was that experience for you and what coaching and playing lessons did you find yourself falling back on most as a coach?

I enjoyed coaching at Pitt, on the field teaching, trying to give the players as much knowledge of the game as I got from two of the all time receivers in the game.

Continue reading “Randy Reutershan, Steelers Wide Receiver, 1978”

Jim O’Brien: Penguins Defenseless Against Flyers’ Attack

O’Brien: Penguins defenseless against Flyers’ attack

Pittsburgh sports author and Valley Mirror columnist Jim O’Brien

Eddie Johnston had just watched the Pittsburgh Penguins get pummeled by 8-4 in the third game of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was the Pens’ third consecutive loss to the Flyers in as many games. The scores were 4-3 in overtime and 8-5 in the first and second games, respectively.

The Flyers had outscored the Penguins by 20 to 12 in what often looked like a cross between deck hockey and Studio Wrestling. The Penguins scored first in every game, leading by 3-0 at the end of the first period in the opening contest on home ice, and they surrendered those leads.

“That shouldn’t happen, not in the playoffs,” Johnston said when I visited him at his home on Saturday afternoon. I also spoke to him a few minutes after Sunday night’s setback.

Johnston, who is 76, has served the Penguins as a general manager and coach, as a scout and consultant. He officially retired three years ago, but he is still on the payroll and is still available to do whatever he can to contribute to the cause. He’s been there, done that, and no one cares more about the Penguins than Eddie Johnston. He is the Penguins’ answer to the Pirates’ Chuck Tanner.

Johnston and the late manager of the Pirates were the best company and loved to talk about the game.

Eddie Johnston has got a good gig. He’s a terrific golfer – he had a 73 when he was 73 at a country club in West Virginia – and he gets to play golf from time to time with his boss, Mario Lemieux and Pierre Larouche, another ambassador for the Penguins. He’s a real trooper and he fills in where needed. He looks after the team’s Fantasy Camp.

Johnston was wide-eyed, like a deer caught in headlights after Sunday night’s game. He looked like he had been playing goalie for the Penguins the past week.

“You gotta win four!” he said, summoning the best of his fighter instincts that have served him so well most of his 76 years.

“It ain’t over till it’s over.”

By now, it may be over. This was written before Wednesday night’s fourth game in Philadelphia. Or the Penguins might be hanging onto hope to pull this series out of the deepest abyss with a very thin and straggly string.

What’s happened to the Penguins? How did this happen?

Those were the thoughts expressed by the team’s most fervent fans in the aftermath of their favorite team getting overpowered in the playoffs. A month ago, a week ago, there was talk of the Penguins overpowering the opposition with all hands on deck and delivering another Stanley Cup to our city.

Eddie Johnston is one of my favorite hockey people. He is a neighbor of mine in Upper St. Clair. He has lived about two blocks from my home the past 30 some years. It’s about a 150-yard walk from my house to his house. When I take a walk through the neighborhood I often pass his contemporary two-story home.

He and his wife Diane are down-to-earth individuals who will show up for a block party and have a good time and mix well with everyone. They’ve known good times and bad times in the NHL and with the Penguins, in particular, but they stay the course.

He played goalie in the big leagues for 18 seasons and was the last goalie to start every game in a season. He played most of those seasons without wearing a protective mask. “I was never too smart,” he says with a wink.

He says he has 150 to 175 stitches somewhere in that face of his as reminders of those days. You have to look close to see the scars. He pointed to his left ear and said it had be stitched when a flying puck nearly took it off his skull.

Johnston also was a boxer when he was a teenager, even going into prisons and fighting the inmates there for $5 or $10 an outing. He played pro baseball for $125 a week and fast-pitch softball in Canada in his youth.

Bobby Orr, maybe the best player in hockey history, was his best man when he got married. They were teammates on the Boston Bruins. There’s a famous photo of Orr flying through the air after scoring a goal that is displayed in the Johnston’s game room.

When I was covering an Islanders’ game back in the early ‘70s at Nassau Coliseum I was hit in the head by a flying puck as I was walking around the rink during the warm-up session. At first, I thought I had been shot by a rifle or gun. The puck struck me near my right temple. I stumbled forward and grabbed hold of a colleague to keep from falling. There was a blood stain in my hair near my temple.

I was fortunate that the Jets’ team doctor, Dr. James Nicholas, was nearby and checked me over twice during the evening. He was the same doctor who looked after Joe Namath.

I was also in a press row behind one of the goals at Madison Square Garden when a puck came off the ice and ricocheted down my aisle like a heat-seeking missile and caught me in the ankle. In short, it’s no fun to get hit with a flying puck. Johnston smiled at my war stories.

Johnston is a much better interview than either Mario Lemieux or Sidney Crosby, and certainly Evgeni Malkin.

I think those TV interviews with players between periods and the radio sound bites are a waste of time. Hockey players and coaches never say anything that’s the least bit insightful. They all say the same thing. Nothing. That’s why Eddie Johnston is a Hall of Fame hockey guy in my book.

He played several years in the minor leagues, including a stint in Johnstown. He’s played in places Sidney Crosby couldn’t find on a map. He played when you had to have a real job in the off-season just to pay the rent.

Johnston was one of the goalies when there were only six teams in the National Hockey League and each team had only one goalie. “If you got cut they stitched you up right then and there,” he recalled. “You didn’t want to not play because you were afraid of losing your job.”

Here’s the best part. Each city of the Original Six had a backup goalie – one guy — available to either team. Johnston remembers when a reserve goalie named Claude Pronovost, who played for the Montreal Canadiens junior team, came in and played goalie against the hometown Canadiens at the Montreal Forum and shut them out.

Johnston said he didn’t make a total of $50,000 for his first five years playing goalie in the NHL.

I think the Penguins’ best players have failed to come up big in the playoffs, when it counts the most. That includes Crosby, and Malkin, Fleury and Jordan Stahl.

Malkin reminds me of my two granddaughters, who will be eight and four in May, the way he has been skating in the defensive end of the ice in these games. It looks like it’s his first time on skates. Where has he been?

It also stung even more that Max Talbot and Jaromir Jagr, two former Penguins, have played such a strong role in the Flyers’ offense in this series. It would have been nice to have them on our side, which could have happened.

Johnston sits next to his old friend, Jack Riley, for games at the Consol Energy Center. Riley was the original general manager of the Penguins, and still attends every home game. Riley and Johnston compare notes on the game, and share some of their thoughts when asked by the brass.

Johnston told me he remarked to Riley that the Penguins needed another goal fast at some point in the first two games even when the home team had the lead. “After seeing as many games as we’ve seen through the years,” Johnston said, “you can sense a change in the momentum, a shift in the way things are going.

“The Flyers have skated faster, hit more often, and just outworked us in every way. They have killed us on special teams, scoring power play goals or short-handed goals. That shouldn’t happen in the playoffs.”

When people asked me what happened to the Penguins, after they lost the first two games at home after taking an early lead, I responded the way I do to most inquiries of that kind.

I say that too many fans forget there is another team on the field, or on the ice in this case.

The Flyers have fought back from adversity. They have not given up. Their youngest players are showing great resilience, great effort. The Flyers wouldn’t accept defeat. Their fans are more vocal and more hostile than our fans, but I can live with that, especially since I live in Pittsburgh. Philly fans, in all sports, are over the top. The TV announcers said the Flyers played smarter than the Penguins.

“You have to give the Flyers credit,” said Johnston. “They have never stopped forcing the action. They keep coming.”

Pierre McGuire, one of the TV analysts, described the activity in Game 3 as “the most barbaric” he’d seen in some time.

“This game is getting out of control.”

When the cameras showed close-ups of the Penguins on the bench in the late going, McGuire observed, “That’s the thousand yard stare,” he said of the look in the eyes of the Penguins. “It says the other guys have our number.”

Personally, I think too many fans dismissed the fact that the Flyers had the Penguins’ number most of the season, and especially at the Consol Energy Center. In truth, there was no home ice advantage, not against the Flyers.

Poor Marc-Andre Fleury. He hasn’t gotten much help from his defensemen, but he’s looked like a pee wee goalie in all of his outings so far. He was left exposed too often and he failed to make the big stops that turn the tide.

A neighbor and friend of mine, Ken Codeluppi, has season tickets behind one of the goal cages at Consol Energy Center. I’ve never sat in a seat so close to a goalie. It’s at the end that Fleury defends twice each home game.

Pucks often strike the plexi-glass behind that cage and I found myself ducking a half dozen times, much to the amusement of those around me. Hey, I see a puck heading toward my face, I am going to flinch and duck. I can’t trust that plexi-glass. I guess if you sit there all the time you know you’re safe.

But you can also see from that vantage point what a difficult job it is to be a goal-keeper in the National Hockey League.

There are many times when the goalie can’t see the puck because it’s blocked from his view by the skaters, his own teammates as often as the opposition.

“I hated it when my guys went down to block a puck,” Johnston said. “Then I didn’t know where it was, or it could ricochet off them and catch me in the mush.”

You have to love a guy who talks that way.

I would never allow my child to be a goalie, in hockey, soccer or lacrosse, maybe even water polo.

I asked Johnston how he became a goalie. “I played with all my big brothers when I was a kid in Montreal,” he said, “and they just put me in there. Somebody had to mind the nets. And I guess I wasn’t too smart.”

Pittsburgh sports author and Valley Mirror columnist Jim O’Brien has written a series of “Pittsburgh Proud” books. His website is www.jimobriensportsauthor.com

Tee Martin, Steelers Quarterback, 2000-2001

First, can you let readers know about your coaching career?

I’m the wide receivers coach now here at USC. I started as a coach at Moorehouse College, coached high school for a while and then was the quarterbacks coach at New Mexico. From there I coached at the University of Kentucky before taking the USC job a couple of months ago.

I always wanted to be a coach – even as a kid. As a quarterback, I was the coach on the field so it’s a natural progression.Coaching was always what I saw as my future after playing.

Continue reading “Tee Martin, Steelers Quarterback, 2000-2001”

Bill Asbury, Steelers Running Back, 1966-1968

First, can you let readers know about the Golden Key International Honour Society and how you’ve been involved in this program?

Golden Key is a collegiate student honor society with chapters on 400 campuses world-wide. We invite to membership students in the top 15% or higher in their respective classifications equivalent to sophomore, junior, senior and graduate levels. Honorary members include presidents, deans, distinguished faculty, community and world leaders. I have been the advisor to the Penn State chapter since 1988 and Honorary member since 1983.

I currently serve as chairman of the international board of directors.

Continue reading “Bill Asbury, Steelers Running Back, 1966-1968”

Exclusive with Former Steelers Cornerback Chris Brown, 1984-1985

First, can you let me know what you’ve been doing since your time in the NFL?

Well, I’m retired now. After football I got into the commercial banking industry.

I got my degree in business at Notre Dame specializing in accounting. So making the transition to the business world really wasn’t that hard for me. My thing I always said and tried to teach to my kids was that football was something I did, not who I was. My thing was – I went to school and made it a point to get an education.

Continue reading “Exclusive with Former Steelers Cornerback Chris Brown, 1984-1985”

Bob Sherman, Steelers Cornerback, 1964-1965

First, can you let readers know what you have been doing with yourself since you NFL days and how your NFL career impacted that direction?

I worked at Merrill Lynch for thirty-three years retiring in 2000. I rose through the management ranks and my last position was Sr. Vice President and Co-National Sales Director of the Private Client Group ( branch office system ). I retired to Santa Fe, NM. I see my five grandchildren often and have been involved in many non-profit boards. I play golf frequently and last year I qualified for U.S. Senior Amateur Golf Championship at 69 years of age ( second oldest qualifier ).

Continue reading “Bob Sherman, Steelers Cornerback, 1964-1965”

Dick Haley, Steelers Cornerback, 1961-1964, Steelers Director of Player Personnel, 1971-1990

You were drafted by Redskins in 1959 – how did you end up in Pittsburgh in 1961 and were you happy about move?

When I was nine or ten I got rheumatic fever – that can cause scar tissue on the heart and valves sometimes. I was in the Army reserves in DC after I was drafted but they turned me down due to the scar tissue I had that caused a heart murmur.

I was ok in high school and at Pitt – I had no issues there and played both ways in college. I always wanted to play offense in the NFL but the Redskins had me play defense at the time until their doctors said I should stop playing and they put me on the expansion list. Minnesota picked me up and I talked to Coach Van Brocklin about playing offense. I got to play some early, but then they put me on waivers. I guess I wasn’t doing was well as I thought.

Continue reading “Dick Haley, Steelers Cornerback, 1961-1964, Steelers Director of Player Personnel, 1971-1990”

Jim O’Brien: “Getting Warmed Up for Pirates’ Opener”

Jim O’Brien: “Getting Warmed Up for Pirates’ Opener”:

Pittsburgh sports author and Valley Mirror columnist Jim O’Brien

I have been doing a lot of traveling lately. Over the past six weeks I have spent a week in Los Angeles, a week in New York and a week in Phoenix. Sometimes you have to leave Pittsburgh to appreciate Pittsburgh, and you have to have comparisons to know its strengths and its weaknesses.

I spent eight days in Phoenix late last month with my buddy Alex Pociask, who flew in from Chicago, and we stayed in Sun City West at the home of his sister, Mary Alice, and her husband Gerry Rowley.

Phoenix is a nice place to be in the winter, even though the weather was actually better in Pittsburgh that particular week. Poor planning on my part, I guess. It was the first time I have been in Arizona for Cactus League action. I have been in Florida for Grapefruit League play, but that was long ago, so this was a refresher course on spring baseball activity.

It’s much more of a big deal than it was when I was starting out as a sportswriter back in 1969 at The Miami News.

The ballparks are bigger and brighter and it cost four times as much to see a game. Our tickets in Arizona last month ranged from $20 to $25, but we had seats in the shade behind home plate and by first base, and, for a pale Irishman, seats in the shade these days are priceless.

We saw three Cactus League games over a six-day stretch. We saw the LA Dodgers against the Texas Rangers at Camelback Park in Glendale. There were some good plays in the field, but the highlight of the day was watching former Dodgers’ manager Tommy LaSorda dozing off in the dugout. His chin hit his chest more than the Dodgers, now owned by basketball great Magic Johnson among other investors on the West Coast.

We also got to see Rangers’ owner Nolan Ryan, a Hall of Fame pitcher whom I first met when he was a young wild-throwing pitcher on the New York Mets in 1970 and 1971 (he was 18-25) over those two years when I was working for The New York Post.

The next day we saw the Rangers again, as the visiting team against the Arizona Diamondbacks, at Surprise Complex. The following week we saw the Los Angeles Angels play the Kansas City Royals back at Camelback Park.

I wanted to see Albert Pujols in an Angels’ uniform. Pujols might be the most productive player in baseball right now, and I hated to see him abandon the St. Louis Cardinals in favor of the Angels, no matter how much money the Angels were throwing his way. How much is enough?

He looked comfortable in the bright red uniform of the Angels – not much difference there – but he didn’t have a great day in the sun. He struck out looking on his first at-bat, and then went 0-for-4. He did hit a solid line drive to left field, but it went foul. He’s still No. 5 and the number still looks small on his broad back. He still looks like he believes he’s going to hit the ball – and hit it hard – every time he gets set in the batter’s box.

Two teams share most of the ballpark complexes in Arizona. The state has done a great deal to attract major league teams to the area.

I swear the only stretches of green grass I saw in Phoenix were at the ballparks and at the golf courses of retirement communities such as all the Sun City developments by Del Webb.

People forget that Del Webb was once one of the owners of the New York Yankees.

I did miss the green, green grass of home. Stone chips filling the yard just don’t do it for me even if it eliminates having to mow the lawn.

I didn’t realize when I made my plans for the trip to Phoenix that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament would have some regional games there, or I would have included that in my itinerary as well.

I did watch the games on television and I was glad that the tournament came off so well in Pittsburgh, and the site of the basketball action on the floor at Consol Energy Center was a familiar one, and a point of pride to a Pittsburgher.

I met people from Pittsburgh and McKeesport and Beaver Falls and South Fayette when I was in Phoenix. I think they went there to get away from it all. “Too many negative people in my family,” moaned the man from McKeesport during happy hour at Sun City Festival, a brand-new community that is really in a remote location.

While there, we also toured the University of Phoenix Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals. I have only toured one other stadium, Heinz Field just before it opened, and let me say there is no comparison. The Cardinals, who were always thought to operate on the cheap side, really did it right.

Their stadium is definitely an all-purpose domed stadium. It’s the one where the football field slides on a tray in and outside the stadium so that real grass can get natural sunlight and thrive in the desert surroundings. The stadium can seat between 64,500 and 72,000 fans. A gun show was to open the day after our visit. It would be a great stadium to have in Pittsburgh.

The view of downtown Pittsburgh and the surrounding hills, green hills that is, would be the one aspect that is better at Heinz Field.

Former Pitt star receiver Larry Fitzgerald is the face of the Cardinals and his likeness can be seen everywhere one goes in Phoenix. That, too, was a point of pride for a visiting Pitt man.

Even before I traveled to Arizona, I kept thinking that the Cardinals and their stadium and Larry Fitzgerald would make it the perfect place for Peyton Manning to play when he was checking out his options.

Manning has thrived while playing in a domed stadium where conditions are always perfect, and Danny Marino can tell him there’s something to be said for practicing and pitching passes in a warm weather city like the one he enjoyed in Miami.

I also thought that Manning would be in good hands with head coach Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm, who were part of the Steelers’ coaching brain-trust under Bill Cowher.

In addition, it was my opinion that the Cardinals would be wise to add Hines Ward to their receiving corps. They took a big hit in that respect two years ago when they lost Joachim Bolden and Steve Breaston (the former Woodland Hills and Michigan grad) to free agency. I thought Ward would be the perfect complement to Fitzgerald. They know each other well and respect each other’s talents.

I have a different view from most of the media in this town, or anywhere else for that matter, about Hines Ward. I believe he can still be a valuable component for a championship team in the National Football League. I think he’d be great again with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

He’s certainly a safer bet than adding Randy Moss to the mix. I think Harbaugh made a big mistake picking up Moss, who sat out last season and was a distraction for other clubs before that. Moss could ruin what Jim Harbaugh established in his first highly successful season with the San Francisco 49ers.

The media keeps pointing to the fact that Ward’s production went down last season. That’s true, but it happened because he wasn’t on the field as much as he had been in previous seasons.

For some reason, the Steelers’ coaching staff soured on Ward last season. They had three gifted speedsters at wide receiver in Mike Wallace – he’d be the first to tell you how great he is – and Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders. When Mike Tomlin was asked about Ward, he never sounded too supportive, as if he’d lost faith in him.

I don’t think the Steelers owe anything to Ward – he has had 14 mostly great years with the team – but I think they are making a bad judgment on his ability. He can still help them.

They’re all much faster than Ward and they can beat you deep and he can’t. But Ward knows how to play the game, and how to contribute in other ways – such as blocking downfield – and he knows how to get open, how to separate himself from a defensive player.

That would have come in handy down the stretch last season, and especially in the Steelers’ one-and-done playoff game, when they had a wounded quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger. Bruce Arians has Roethlisberger throwing fade passes into the corners of the end zone – the same play that won the Super Bowl against the Cardinals – after Ben had already demonstrated that he couldn’t throw the ball as accurately as he can when he’s healthy.

I don’t get it. Everyone has given up on Ward. When I was in LA and New York and Phoenix, I never saw Ward’s name appear in the national reports about who was out there and available in free agency.

Ward is a tad younger and certainly in better physical shape than Peyton Manning, less of a problem in the clubhouse than Randy Moss, and, while we’re at it, he’s younger than A.J. Burnett, the newest Pirates’ pitcher.

I think Manning is still a risk. Neck surgery is always a precarious deal. He could get re-injured real fast next fall. I don’t know why he picked Denver. I think John Elway talked him into it.

I’m not on the inside anymore in pro sports, but there are things I can recognize from being out there on the sports front for so long. I think John Elway still believes he’s the best quarterback ever to come along in the NFL, and that he will be looking over the shoulder of Manning from Day One.

I thought it was a bit odd at the conclusion of last season that Elway said that Tim Tebow would be the starting quarterback for the Broncos when they went into summer camp. I thought that decision should be made by John Fox, a former neighbor in Upper St. Clair who was an assistant coach at Pitt and with Bill Cowher’s staff on the Steelers. I thought head coaches made those decisions.

Now Tebow is gone, and I couldn’t think of a worse place for him to end up than playing for Rex Ryan and the New York Jets. When I was in New York in March I couldn’t get over how negative the newspaper reports are each day about New York ballplayers and celebrities and political figures. Who needs that? I thought Tebow would have been much better off going back to Florida and quarterbacking the Jacksonville Jaguars.

He might have been the savior for keeping the franchise in Jacksonville. I don’t care what all these experts, including ex-Steelers’ star Merril Hoge, think about Tebow not being an NFL-caliber quarterback. To me, he’s a winner and he will find a way to win. He proved that last year as a rookie in Denver. He certainly proved that when the Broncos beat the Steelers in overtime in the AFC playoff game.

Tebow and Mark Sanchez say they are great friends and Tebow said 30 different ways that he is “excited” to be with the Jets, but I think it’s a pairing that won’t work. The foul-mouthed Ryan will rub Tebow the wrong way and wear on him real soon.

Now back to A.J. Burnett, bouncing around like we have been in our travels the past two months. The New York Yankees do not get rid of a pitcher if they think he can still win. The New York Yankees buy pitchers who can win. I’ll repeat that. The Yankees don’t give away good pitchers; they buy good pitchers.

Some point out that the Yankees had too many starters, and the Pirates are paying Burnett just $13 million over two years, while the Yankees are still responsible for $14 million over the same stretch. So, he’s cheap for a starting pitcher in the major leagues these days. Don’t get sick to your stomach on that note.

The Pirates have gone down this road before – remember Matt Morris? – paying big money to pitchers who can’t win anymore.

We already know Burnett can’t bunt the ball. He’s going to have to do that in the National League where there are no designated hitters. He put himself in the hospital when he attempted to bunt a ball during the Bucs’ Bradenton stay and he’s still in the rehab process after bunting a ball into his eye socket during spring training.

I never liked the look of A.J. Burnett when he was pitching for the Yankees. Forgive me this one, but he doesn’t look like a winning pitcher. He’s got a weak chin. How’s that for an inside scouting report?

When I was in LA, I had breakfast with Bill Sharman, one of my all-time favorites as a player and coach in the National Basketball Association, and as a coach in the American Basketball League and American Basketball Association.

Sharman holds a distinction that sets him apart from the pack in Major League Baseball. He was once a member of the Dodgers’ organization – see they have a history of having Hall of Fame basketball players in their make-up or DNA – and he was called up to the Dodgers late one season.

He never got in a game, but he was in the dugout one day when an umpire tired of heckling coming from the Dodgers’ dugout and cleared the bench. So Sharman holds the distinction of being the only player to be ejected from a major league game who never played in a major league game.

I plan to be in the press box this Thursday for the Pirates’ opening game at PNC Park. I am looking forward to it. PNC Park is special – the Pirates got it right – and I enjoy being there.

A sports broadcaster friend of mine was in Bradenton for a few weeks and he tells me that Pedro Alvarez, the Pirates’ young third baseman who is supposed to be one of their saviors, appeared completely lost whether he was at bat or at third base during spring training.

See you at the ballpark.

Pittsburgh sports author and Valley Mirror columnist Jim O’Brien has a book called “Fantasy Camp: Living the Dream With Maz and the ’60 Bucs. His website is www.jimobriensportsauthor.com and he can be found on Facebook and LinkedIn.