I've forgiven Ben Roethlisberger

“Good afternoon, Pittsburgh Steelers offices.”

Hi. Can I ask you some oddball questions?

“Sure! Go ahead.”

I’m trying to find out how many fans turned in their Ben Roethlisberger jerseys last summer when he had his personal trouble down in Georgia.

“I really don’t know.”

Well, was it dozens? Hundreds?

“I don’t know. That didn’t pertain to me.”

What happened to them?

“I don’t know. I believe they were donated. Why do you ask?”

Well, I turned mine in along with a letter to Art Rooney saying Roethlisberger had disgraced the team with his sexual assault in Georgia.

“Yes?”

And now I’d like to get the jersey back.

“You what?”

I’d like to have my Ben Roethlisberger jersey back in time for Saturday’s playoff game.

“You want it back?”

Exactly.

“Well, I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. They didn’t keep the jerseys. Thank you and goodbye.”

Will the Steelers replace the one I turned in?

“No. Goodbye.”

Of course, I knew the jersey I so sanctimoniously turned in to the Steeler headquarters last April was gone.

But I thought it would be fun to give the Steeler receptionist something to talk about when someone asked her how her day went.

Really, I’m surprised some lunatic fan hasn’t done that for real. There is no limit to excessive fan behavior and with the rival Baltimore Ravens in town things are at fever pitch here in the ‘burgh.

I don’t want his jersey back, but being a lunatic fan during playoff time I do have an announcement to make:

I forgive Ben. 

This is important because I consider myself a moral arbiter about all that’s right and good concerning the Steelers, Pittsburgh and, really, whatever else is going on in the universe.

It’s just what nosey guys like me do. It’s a pity the gig doesn’t pay squat.

But when a 20-year-old college student accused Ben of recreational rape in a club bathroom, I was outraged. Then came all the stories, ones we in Pittsburgh had heard for years, that he was just a total jerk.

He was never charged, everyone involved was drunk and no jury in the world would have convicted him, according to the country prosecutor who still gave him a good scolding.

I wrote that we needed to dump him, that Pittsburgh and the Rooney family needed to hold our players to a higher standard.

I still believe that.

And from everything I’ve heard, Ben is now living up to that standard so rarely applied in professional sports. Local reporters, many of whom are friends of mine, recently awarded him The Chief Award, named after beloved Steeler founder Art Rooney Sr.

The good-guy award goes to the player who is most cooperative with the press. For him, it’s a dramatic turnabout and an indication that his efforts to change are sincere.

I know a guy, too, who attends church with Roethlisberger. Of course, it’s difficult for anyone to seem like a jerk in a church pew, but my friend says he’s been a friendly and welcome addition to the congregation.

That’s all good.

For me, the tricky part is how would me and other forgiving fans feel if he was playing lousy.

Yes, he’s been great. We are a society that overlooks a lot of flaws if they come with a lot of wins.

I don’t think that’s entering into my thinking.

But I’m a big second chance guy. I was very happy to see Michael Vick emerge from a long prison sentence for dog fighting and to have a fantastic year.

I love to see guys like him turn their lives around. It’s why what happens to Ebenezer Scrooge will always resonate.

So Ben seems to have made the most of his second chance.

I won’t rush out and buy another Ben jersey and am relieved the receptionist at the Steeler HQ didn’t call my bluff and tell me to come on down and pick one up.

But as we’re nearing kickoff, I can feel comfortable about rooting for Ben.

I guess I’m like a lot of people in Pittsburgh.

We want our Steelers to kick ass, not prowl around in dingy bathrooms trying to snag pieces of it.

Who's the worst man in America?

I’ve tried in vain for the past week to calculate who’s the worst man in America. The competition is just too, well, stiff.

Is it Tiger Woods? Ben Roethlisberger? John Edwards? Jesse James?

It’s an engaging topic among worldly men like myself. We’re the kind of guys who understand every single motivation a man could have for cheating on his wife.

Marriages go stale. Passions cool. Temptations beckon.

So men come at the topic with a slightly more sympathetic angle than would, say, a jury composed of 12 angry married women.

But the other night five of us were discussing over beers just which of these four men is the biggest disgrace to those of us who lug around the Y chromosome.

The misbehavior of each is so operatic that we were unable to agree on a clear winner, and by winner I mean loser. For that, we’re going to need spreadsheets, categories, assigned points and about eight more pitchers of beer.

We all agreed that Roethlisberger is the biggest jerk because his misdeeds are just a few splashes of DNA-testable material short of criminal. You’d have to give a ton of points for non-consensual acts.

He’s clearly the most stupid of the four. He could have been living Tiger Woods’s illicit life and no one would have cared.

So while he loses points for being a single man on the prowl, he gets a bunch for raping drunk women he should be sending home in cabs. And, remember, points here determine who is the most despicable.

I wouldn’t want any men to read this and think me and my buddies are going to buy them a beer and salute them for doing things for which they should be slugged.

The other three are married men involved with consensual adultresses.

So give Woods, Edwards and James points for being married. The marriage vow should still mean something and with our calculations it does.

But who among that trio is the worst cheater?

Tiger wins on volume, but loses points because, clearly, he felt no emotional attachment to these women who were either hookers or have undergone extensive plastic surgery to ensure they’d look like hookers.

Jesse James is an interesting contestant -- or should it be detestant?

He didn’t cheat as much as Tiger, but he gets a lot of points for cheating on America’s sweetheart with a Nazi. A Nazi!

“My wife says she feels no sympathy for Sandra,” Dave said. “She says she should have known he was a scumbag because his last wife was a porn star.”

Excellent point, but still . . . a Nazi! Plus, the news broke the night of her Oscar celebration so he gets incidental creep points for that. And if we’re giving Tiger 5 points for each women he’s cheating with, we’d have to give James 50 points for choosing to cheat with . . . a Nazi!

That brings us to John Edwards. One category is “Man with the Most to Lose.”

Edwards runs away with this one. Think of it: this could all be happening while he was president. It’s not much of a stretch.

The right despises Obama. Just imagine what Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh would be saying if our president was flying Air Force One to Charlotte to visit his mistress and their love child.

He loses points on the adultery scale because it was only one woman and he did have a caring relationship with her. But he gets huge points because he got her pregnant, blamed it on a buddy, and because his wife was battling cancer during the affair.

This is visceral with women. They just hate Edwards for that.

With most women, the rankings are Edwards, Rothlisberger, Tiger, and James.

Guys are more nuanced. We see mitigating factors.

With Edwards, we see it as a man trapped in a marriage that had broken down. We think Elizabeth should have said, “John, we had a nice run, lovely kids, etc. But I now see you’re unhappy and want to spend your life with the comely and new-agey Rielle. Go! Be free! Just please don’t bring her to my funeral. That’d be tacky.”

We can’t help it. That’s just the way we think.

So after an evening of boozy consideration, I still can’t decide who’s the worst.

For now, our only logical conclusion is this:

Not only do we men have penises, alas, sometimes we just can’t help but act like them, too.

Take this jersey & shove it

You’d think I’d have known better by now. It was just six years ago that I laid down the law about shelling out big bucks to wear the jersey of any professional athlete.

First of all, I didn’t want to wear a jersey of someone who would beat or kill his wife. You don’t see many tasteful folks wearing Buffalo Bills jerseys with no. 32 and “Simpson” on the back.

The player would have to be either a native Pittsburgher or enjoy a strong bond with his adopted city. He’d have to be visible in the community and do charity work. That’s important to me.

The guy would have to be a Hall of Fame shoo-in. The jersey needs an heirloom quality to it for it to be a smart purchase.

So I chose well, I think, when I paid $85 for a Hines Ward jersey in 2005.

But for the past month now I’ve opened up my closet, saw the big black and gold jersey with the no. 7 and thought, “How could I be such an idiot?”


See, I didn’t consider a fourth essential rule: Wait until the player is dead or too old to disgrace himself, the team or me with shameful criminal activities.

But in a weak moment last year I broke all my rules and wound up with a Ben Roethlisberger jersey.

Blame the thrill of a bargain.

Every year a lively group of friends from New York City come to Pittsburgh and we all whoop it up for a weekend centered around a Steeler game.

One of the shiftier sorts brought a trunkful of pristine jerseys of questionable origin. They were dandies, too. Double stitched, hi-gloss numbers, NFL authentication, etc. The price tags for the Roethlisbergers said $125.

He told me, hey, sweetheart, because we’re chums, he’d let me have one for $100.

“Ha!” I said. “You must think I’m an idiot. Buying one of these, I’m sure, would make me an accessory to one of your criminal activities. And I have firm rules about whose jersey I’ll wear.”

Okay, he said, how about $80?

“Look, the guy’s already got a rape charge against him in Reno and everyone in town’s heard stories about him being huge jerk.”

Sixty?

“I know, I know, he just led us to a glorious Super Bowl victory and he’ll likely retire a Steeler, but . . .”

Fifty?

“C’mon! In this day of salary cap value . . .”

Forty?

“Uh . . . Sold!”

I wore it twice and will never wear it again.

Ever since the damning press conference by Georgia District Attorney Fred Bright, I have been confounded by what to do with the damn thing. Didn’t want to burn it. Couldn’t give it to an impressionable.

So after much consideration, yesterday I got in my car and drove an hour to the Steeler’s headquarters on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

I handed the jersey and a letter to Steeler president Art Rooney II to the receptionist and asked her to give them to Mr. Rooney. She smiled and said, “I’ll be sure he gets them.”

Here’s what the letter says:

Dear Mr. Rooney,

I don’t know what to do with this Ben Roethlisberger jersey. I can no longer wear it. I can’t give it to my nephews because I don’t want them thinking No. 7 is someone their uncle would want them to cheer on.

I won’t give it to charity because I don’t want someone less fortunate to think Ben’s someone they should emulate. I can’t give it to a friend because I don’t want to see him or her wearing it at the stadium where the sight of it will disgust me.

So I’m giving it to you. I’m a second generation Steeler season ticket holder. I travel a good bit and have friends all over the world. Like many avid Steeler fans, I consider myself an ambassador for the team and the city I love. I wouldn’t do anything to disgrace those proud affiliations.

Wearing this jersey in public would do that.

I trust you’ll know what to do with the jersey. I don’t want to ever see it again.

And the same goes for the son of bitch who’s worn it for the past six years at Heinz Field.”

Now I’m in the market for spiffy new Terry Bradshaw jersey.

I’ll pay big bucks for one.

Just as soon as I hear the man’s dead.

Trade Ben to Oakland

In a week when American Idol is planning to murder the Rolling Stones, Ben Roethlisberger is killing the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s a bad week for my icons.

The Stones, now 50 years without a rape charge, will endure. They survived Vanilla Ice singing “Satisfaction,” they’ll survive this.

But the Steelers need to trade Roethlisberger to the Oakland Raiders while we can still get a good draft pick. That’s where he belongs.

I’m historically more comfortable in the role of defendant than judge. But I’m so disgusted by Roethlisberger that I want him gone. He’s making Tiger Woods look like a gentleman.

My rush to judgement is contrary to what I’ve heard from many fair-minded Steeler fans I’ve seen interviewed on TV. They say, hey, he’s innocent until proven guilty. Let justice take its course. Jurisprudence, blah, blah, blah.

Many of these were the same people who about 10 years ago were saying, “Kill Kordell Stewart. He’s gay! Schenly Park! It’s true! My brother heard it from a friend whose cousin’s a cop . . .”

It was the sort of rumor genealogy that would have caused “Roots” author Alex Haley to pull his hair out by the, well, fistfuls.

Kordell, by the way, is now a married father of a 5 year old boy. Maybe he’s on some sort of gay sabbatical.

Ben, on the other hand, is a disgrace. He’s suspected of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student in a night club bathroom. Lawyers are still sorting out another sexual assault charge stemming from an unseemly 2008 hotel suite encounter with a Lake Tahoe casino employee.

The Tahoe one sounds contrived. The claimant waited a year to seek monetary damages and told conflicting stories to friends.

So far, there’s nothing dubious about the current allegation. The woman didn’t call a lawyer or hold a press conference. She went to the emergency room and called the police.

Those aren’t the actions of a money grubber. They are the actions of a victim.

And the release of the police report is when things are going to really get ugly. The only possible chivalrous revelation to emerge will be maybe that Big Ben, who was wearing a Satanic t-shirt, held the bathroom door for her.

This is all happening as a bill from the Pittsburgh Steelers for $3,244 sits in my desk drawer. It’s for four season tickets that have been in my name for 15 years and in my father’s before me for 30 before that.

It’s crazy, I know, but Steeler fans like me like to think we’re better or certainly luckier than people who root for cheaters like Bill Belichik or pompous blowhards like Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder.

When team founder Art Rooney died in 1988, he was hailed as one of the most beloved characters in sports. No one expected his son Dan would ever measure up to the old man. Instead, he’s surpassed him. He is the unrivaled conscience of a league whose “Rooney Rule” was instigated to promote minority hiring. In one of his first acts in office, President Obama appointed Rooney -- Happy St. Patrick’s Day! -- ambassador to Ireland.

Our teams have always been dominated by high-profile good guys -- Hall of Famers like Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Chuck Noll, Mel Blount and Rod Woodson.

They’ve been teams I’d be proud to root for if they played like hapless Cleveland Browns.

But they do not. They’ve won more Super Bowls than any other team and are one of the most envied franchises in all sports.

I’m hoping team president Art Rooney II, who continues to a family tradition of class and grace, will hold a press conference and say, “We’ve begun talks to trade Ben to the Oakland Raiders for draft picks we will use to compensate for the loss of one best quarterbacks in the game, someone we’d counted on to help make us winners for the next 10 years.

“We’re doing so because we’d rather lose with quality men than win with jerks. His consistent off-field recklessness convinces us this is a pattern of misbehavior a 28-year-old multimillionaire will not outgrow.

“Because there’s so much more to Steeler tradition than winning. I only wish Myron Cope were here to explain it to him in a voice so screechy that the only thing Ben will there after be able to hear will be the thunderous boos of stadiums packed with decent Steeler fans around league.

“And if talks with the Raiders fall apart, we’ll pursue a trade with the New Jersey Devils.

“Yes, I know they play hockey, not football, but as pictures posted on TMZ.com attest, Ben’s already got the uniform. And this much is becoming clear: He knows the Devil’s playbook.”

Predictions for the Super Bowl & Beyond

• I predict the Steelers will win Super Bowl XLIII by a score of XXXIII to X and that Ben Roethlisberger will be the game’s MVP. The QB believes he has something to prove after his terrible performance during the Steelers victory in Super Bowl XL. After Sunday, he’ll be considered the best in the game.

• I predict Bruce Springsteen will sing, in order, “The Promised Land,” “Working on a Dream,” “The Rising,” and “Born to Run,” and that we’ll see neither of his nipples during the performance. And that’s too bad because I’ll bet the Boss has some beauts.

• I predict cars of the future will have no reverse gear and will look like that crazy “Push-me-Pull-you” animal from the movie “Dr. Doolittle.” Drivers will pull head first into a parking space and the seats will all reverse when he or she gets in to leave. The car will have two fronts. It wastes a lot of gas and causes a lot of accidents for people to be doing any driving backwards. And going in reverse is just such a pain in the, well, rear.

• I predict within V years years we’re going to see tabloid reports of a woman who’s had breast implants inserted below her shoulders to encourage her breast-obsessed boyfriend to spend more time slow dancing with her. The love of breasts and dancing are two dominant themes in American culture and this trend will confirm it.

• I predict the Steelers will win the Super Bowl in 2010, giving them three championships for the decade and the right to be crowned team of the decade. True, the New England Patriots will have won three also, but let none of us ever forget, the Patriots cheated.

• I predict one day about six months from now, one of the sleepwalking Republicans in the U.S. Congress is going to wonder aloud if Rush Limbaugh’s back on drugs or if he and all his 176 Congressional colleagues have begun consuming too many of them.

• I predict that sometime in the second quarter of the biggest football game of the year my 8-year-old daughter will complain that we’ve seen enough football and for the good of the family we should turn off the game and watch “Mamma Mia!” for the LXVII time.

• I predict that within VI years, the pompous jackasses who run the NFL will cease using these these ridiculous Roman numerals and none of us will have to puzzle it out that Super Bowl XLIX is simply Super Bowl 49.

• I predict that, even if the Steelers win convincingly, this winter still won’t go as quickly as the one three years ago when the Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit. Winter 2005-2006 may go down in history as the greatest winter ever. First it was mild early. Then the Steelers started winning and any time that happens in your city, it cuts winter off at the knees. Then just as we were getting into the most dreadful part of the season, the part when cabin fever has everyone acting like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” Dick Cheney accidentally shot that guy down in Texas and that’s something we all enjoyed. Well, everyone but the guy he shot.

• I predict I will for the rest of my life avoid typing a sometimes pejorative word describing nomadic, scarfe-draped and bejeweled fortune tellers from Eastern Europe because of what happened this week. My last blog entry included the need for the noun that begins with and includes in order the following letters: “g - y - _ - s - i - e - s.” For some reason, the instant after I innocently typed it, my always reliable iBook froze up solid. I walked away and fretted for an hour. It revived, but some of the story disappeared and I’m convinced I was unable to recover its previous zing. I’m not superstitious, but if I ever type that word again it’ll be on a computer belonging to someone I hate.

• I predict you’re going to see a lot more of these idiotic prediction posts from me. They’re just so easy. No one remembers if you get ‘em all wrong, but if the Steelers win 33-10 or some moronic woman runs out and gets boobs on her back, I’ll have incontrovertible proof that I saw it coming.