The man Maz made a Communist

I’m friends with a man who became a Communist because of Bill Mazeroski.

It’s true. My buddy Paul and I were sitting in a Pittsburgh bar after a Pirate game about 15 years ago when we struck up a friendly conversation with another baseball fan.

And with the exception of some addle-brained Cub fans, friendly is about the only kind of conversation you can have with a fellow baseball fan.

Unlike professional football, a game played exclusively by and for mental meatheads, baseball has a charming civility about it. The lax rhythms of the game lend themselves to sunny chats.

His name is Tom Zanot. He was about 60 years old, but maintained an animated demeanor about baseball like a junior high spaz on a six Pepsi sugar high.

He talked about all the great games he’d seen, the players he’d cheered and the recollections of more than 50 years of great Pirate baseball.

That was until we asked the one question every Pirate fan asks every other Pirate fan who was conscious during the magical 1960 season.

“Where were you when Maz homered?”

ESPN voted it the most sensational home run in World Series history. His walk off dinger led the scrappy underdog Pirates to Game 7 victory over Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and the rest of the swaggering New York Yankees. 

Tom winced and said, “I don’t like to talk about that.”

But talk he did.

“You have to understand, I came of age in the 1950s,” he said. “I was raised to be respectful of the country. I was in ROTC at Penn State during the World Series. A friend of mine had tickets to Game 7. Great seats.”

His friend wanted Tom to skip marching drills and attend the game.

“‘Just blow it off,’ he said. ‘C’mon, it’s Game 7!’ But I felt it was my duty. So there I was on that beautiful Thursday afternoon.”

Right, left, right, left, right . . .

He told how he marched the whole afternoon while the rest of the baseball world fixated on what would become one of the greatest games ever played.

“Then right at 3:36 -- I remember looking at my watch -- I heard these cheers erupting from all over.”

As every Pirate fan knows, that’s the precise moment Maz homered. Pittsburgh fans everywhere went crazy.

Tom went right, left, right, left, right . . .

“To have missed it left me profoundly depressed. My life changed. I’d missed out on one of the greatest moments of my generation. Really, it broke my heart.”

Not thinking clearly, Tom decided to he needed to shake things up.

“I volunteered to serve in Vietnam. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I came to hate the war and my government for conducting it. That’s when I became a Communist.”

So, we asked, you became a Communist because of Bill Mazeroski?

“I never thought about it like that, but I guess so.”

The three of us ended up becoming great friends and he remains the only Communist who’s ever bought me beer, something that factors into my visceral disdain for Bolsheviks.

He moved to Florida and we haven’t seen him in years. I thought of our old comrade yesterday as I was attending what may be the world’s greatest pseudo sporting event.

It was begun by one man, Saul Finkelstein, on Oct. 13, 1985. All alone, he went to sit at the base of the lone remaining wall of old Forbes Field. It’s a 50-foot stretch of ivy covered brick in a small, shady park on the University of Pittsburgh campus. 

With a cassette recording of the original NBC broadcast he listened to the game, commercials and all, in real time so when broadcaster Chuck Thompson calls Maz’s home run ball leaving the old park it’s precisely 3:36 p.m.

What started with one man has grown to thousands, including Maz and every surviving Pirate from the 1960 championship team.

It’s Pittsburgh’s most magical gathering. Fans picnic, drink beer and sing off-key renditions of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch. They bring mitts as if they expect haunted foul balls to start dropping out of the sky.

It’s difficult to convey the eeriness of listening to a broadcast of a game from 50 years ago and still feeling tense about the outcome.

I took it all in standing in what used to be centerfield.

Had it been 1960, I could have whispered pep talks to Pirate centerfielder Bill Virdon, Heck, I could have pantsed Mantle.

And at 3:36 when Maz’s homer leaves the park, the crowd erupts as if it was happening right before our very eyes. It’s as if the lousy, stinking Pirates of the last 18 years never happened.

That one city, one people can from one man preserve and nurture a memory like that makes me proud to be a Pittsburgher.

Mazeroski, a rugged son of a West Virginia coal miner, made a moment immortal, something to be forever savored.

That one good man lost his soul to a corrupt belief system in the bargain seems a small sacrifice.

Moo! When wine trumps milk

I don’t know how the conversation about milk got started, but it sounded like it was being conducted in a cafeteria full of fourth graders.

“I hate milk!”

“Eww! My mommy made me drink it all the time. Never again!”

But these weren’t 9 year olds. We were old men in an old man’s bar.

Rather than little toddler cartons of milk, we were imbibing Scotch, bourbon, gin, rum and beer! Beer! Beer!

We weren’t drinking these spirits to strengthen our bones. We were drinking spirits to lift our own.

“Beer is living proof that God loves man!” is what sudsy sage Benjamin Franklin said.

You can agree with that philosophical nugget, and still be surprised, as I was, to hear my fellow inebriates expressing such visceral disdain for milk.

They talked about it the way they talk about the Taliban.

They want to see it banished from the face of the earth.

To me it was like hating Girl Scouts.

Milk, the ivory issue of the breast -- and I know these guys love breasts. We watch cooking shows most every afternoon and, guaranteed, it isn’t so we can learn how to expertly poach zucchini. Believe me, values voters wouldn’t want to want to know what’s going on in the minds of some of these guys when Giada de Laurentis starts pounding her chicken.

And please don’t mistake that example for deviant behavior. Culinary chicken pounding happens all the time in even Presbyterian kitchens.

Me, I’m perfectly at peace with milk. I feel about it the way I do the vast rainbow of my fellow man. This puts me at odds with the Montana GOP which this weekend declaring its intent to make all homosexual behavior criminal.

I don’t understand how some men and women are gay and others are not. But I know they face many situational obstacles that can, for some, lead to prolonged bouts of sadness over their lifestyles.

In that regard, they are not unlike Chicago Cub fans.

I adore bourbon, tequila, vodka, oaky cabernets and buttery chardonnays -- you name it.

Many years ago I had an unfortunate encounter with Southern Comfort and we’ve never made peace. But I don’t hate it. I simply try and avoid it because I know it’s likely to make me vomit.

Again the Cub fan analogy applies.

But there are many times when a big frosty glass of milk really hits the spot. I often have it over Lucky Charms and with other breakfast staples.

This might strike some as odd, but I love milk with pasta. I’ve had many spaghetti meals that involved beer, milk and water.

I admit it must have been awkward when the three of them got together in my stomach. It would be like a Jew, a Muslim and that Koran-burning Florida whack job getting stuck in the same elevator.

There are many studies that say milk is essential for strong bone growth.

Not surprisingly, these studies are funded and promoted by -- ta! da! -- our nation’s dairy interests!

I do know one person who is going to expire from a milk deficiency.

That would be my wife.

She’s admirably conscientious about her health and that of those around her.

But our oldest daughter absolutely detests milk and it drives Val crazy. I fear our efforts to infuse her with the daily recommended amount of calcium will backfire and that one day she’ll be like the guy three stools down.

“Yeah,” he said, “my mom used to make me drink it every day. I couldn’t stand it. Just hated it. I haven’t had a single glass of milk in 27 years since I left home. Won’t even have it my house.”

In maybe only this one regard, this flabby soon-to-be candidate for a liver transplant, is exactly like one of the most fanatically fit men in history.

He’s Jack LaLanne.

I interviewed him for a Men’s Health story about six years ago.

He turns 96 next week. Expect him to do something remarkable.

When he turned 70 in 1984, he fought strong winds and currents to swim 1.5 miles across Long Beach Bay. He did it while handcuffed and shackled.

It gets better.

He did it while towing 70 boats with 70 people on board.

Talking with him was one of the most amazing and euphoric conversations I’ve ever had. The man’s a marvel.

It was so amazing I said to him, ‘Hey, my wife’s right here. Will you mind telling her something inspirational?”

No problem.

They talked for 10 minutes. Then Val set the phone down, drove straight to Pittsburgh, dove into the Allegheny River and towed with her teeth a coal barge 15 miles upriver to New Kensington.

God bless him, the man’s that positive and uplifting.

In fact, I can only recall one negative comment.

And it was about milk.

“French people live the longest and they have wine with lunch and dinner every day. Americans drink milk instead. Milk is for a suckling calf. How many creatures still use milk after they’re weaned? Just one. Man. I’d rather see people drink a glass of wine then a glass of milk any time of the day.”

So if the world’s most fit man hates milk, there’s only one thing to do.

Wine for breakfast!

Any fitness advice that involves increasing our convivial alcohol consumption is something that simply must be milked.

My 25 top tweets

This morning I posted my 250th tweet since signing up on January 8. Know what that means?

I now have more than enough to go back and rerun posts that people forgot seconds after they read them months ago.

That news will be of microscopic consequence to the 46 people who follow my tweets like this: “How do people from Wyoming, our most geographically square state, ever manage to think outside the box?” (Jan. 12).

I like to think my followers lapsed into a collective stupor when I challenged them with that profundity, but I doubt any one of them will recognize the retread.

Twitter is a splendid training ground for anyone who aspires to write for fortune cookies.

I’ve always considered it a farm team for my blog posts. Sometimes a single 140-character tweet will inspire an entire 750-word post.

That’s what happened with this one from January 18: “I have about the same interest in learning speed reading as I do in learning speed sex.”

If I haven’t forgotten it next Easter, like I did this past Easter, I plan to write something based on this little nugget: “If chickens ever start laying Cadbury eggs I'm becoming a chicken farmer.”

Whimsical, yet true! Cadbury eggs are delicious.

Admittedly, 46 followers shows what an appalling waste of time Twitter is for unknown deadbeats like me. Still, 46 is more than will fit around the bar where I refresh myself and test drive many of the lines that wind up as tweets.

Some twitizens stick to one field, say, baseball or gardening. Me, I’m all over the map.

I’ve been political: “Can we all agree that calling something ‘gubernatorial’ is demeaning to any high office that isn't contested in elementary school?” (June 2)

I’ve been biological: “Molar, bicuspid and uvula are words of mouth.” (May 18)

I’ve been historical: “Grace Slick is a direct descendant of Mayflower pilgrims and the first person to say the word "motherf****r" on live TV in 1969.” (May 2)

I’ve been topical: “Imagine, right now some woman's trying to fix her friend up saying, "He's charming! He's funny! He can dance!" And the guy is Larry King.” (May 18)

I’ve been grammatical: “People are going overboard with exclamation points! It's punctuation’s whoopee cushion!! And I don't like it!!! Not one little bit!!!!” (April 5)

I’ve been philosophical: “The only time bitch, bitch, bitch is ever any good is if you're running a dog grooming business and you need a fast buck.” (April 16)

And I’ve been wonder-ful: “I wonder if life is really like those two or three hours we all have to kill while the hotel gets our room ready for the 3 o'clock check in.” (June 23)

“1984 author George Orwell (1903-50) had two little sisters. I wonder if the gals complained that Orwell was a tyrannical big brother.” (June 20)

“I wonder if God has a spam filter to screen out some of my sillier prayers like when I'm standing over a difficult par putt.” (June 9)

“I wonder if the adult film industry is resentful that a guy named Andy Roddick isn’t a porn star.” (May 2)

It seems like every fifth tweet or so is wondering about something. I can only hope all that wondering adds up to something collectively wonderful.

I think what I’ll do in the next week or so is ruthlessly delete dozens of weaker tweets in an effort to keep the homepage as spare and honed as possible.

Afterall, brevity is the soul of twitter.

Here are 25 of my favorites:


“People who refuse straws do not suck.” (January 18)

“I'd like to see each World Cup match end in a nil-nil tie and then witness Nelson Mandela draw the winner's name out of a hat.” (June 12)


“How can champion water skiers practice? Dry runs for them are impossible.” (June 3)

“Larry King at 76 interviewing Mick Jagger at 67 makes Mick seem 35 and Larry seem 98.” (May 18)


“Only solution to Gulf crisis is to teach fish to eat and enjoy crude oil. Can't be harder than teaching 4 yr old to do same w/ vegetables.” (May 18)


“It's a mystery why anyone would opt for Oreos over Double Stuffed Oreos. It'd be like choosing to watch a skit featuring The Two Stooges.” (May 16)


“I think this gulf catastrophe would be working out differently if Jed Clampett was still involved in the oil industry.” (May 5)


“We could eliminate both obesity and starvation in one fell swoop if everyone, everywhere would agree to eat just two meals a day.” (May 3)

“After latest 17-3 drubbing, ESPN says "the Milwaukee Brewers own the Pirates." It's gotta be better than being owned by Bob Nutting.” (April 27)


“Chefs with rashes are the best at cooking from scratch.” (April 20)


“Time bomb makes no sense. It should be timed bomb. A time bomb might have its advantages and could delay aging.” (April 14)


“Should know better but when I'm alone in a room with what is described as a magic marker, I still try and use it to turn chairs into gold.” (March 29)


“Just started reading Grisham's ‘Innocent Man.’ So far, it's nothing at all like Billy Joel's "Innocent Man." (March 25)


“In ‘Wizard of Oz,’ the role of ‘Toto’ was played by a dog named "Toto." Coincidence or just really expert casting? (March 24)

“Just learned Ernie Borgnine is 92. Know what that means? Pretty soon we're going to need an Ernie Borgten.” (March 11)


“If I were a heroic crime fighter, I'd love to have Super Vision. But as a regular guy, I hate any supervision. Can't stand it.” (March 6)


“The tragedy at SeaWorld is bound to give killer whales a really bad name.” (February 25)


“Angry enough about forecast of heavy new snows to consider storming the Weather Channel, but realize that would be redundant.” (February 24)


“One day soon cell phones will be used to cure the cancers they cause.” (February 17)


“People say 'the mind boggles' like it's a rarity. Most minds do more boggling than they do thinking.” (February 17)


“If someone who feasts on human flesh is a cannibal, should some who eats just a wee bit be called a cannibbler?” (February 4)


“Stuck listening to Radio Disney. Nobody should be allowed to make any music until they're mature enough to have to shave something.” (January 30)


“I'm thinking of getting a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex for my left wrist.” (January 26)

“I like to think eager and optimistic agents in crime labs pass the time singing, ‘Some Day My Prints Will Come!’ (January 26)


“During all my typing commotion, my left thumb never even hits the space bar. When it comes to typing, my left thumb never lifts a finger.” (January 25)


“A single splash of water killed the Wicked Witch of the West. Logical conclusion: Not only was she evil, she also reeked.” (January 23)

Heaven for Haitians

I hope for the sake of fairness heaven is better for Haitians than it is for guys like me. And by “guys like me” I mean those of us who happen by chance to reside in places free of strife, famine, poverty or redundant natural disaster.

Poor, godforsaken Haiti’s batting 1,000 with that diabolical quartet.

Why some parts of the world are so cursed with enduring misery while others are so blessed with healthy abundance is a confounding mystery.

When guys like me have a bad day, it usually involves one our favorite professional sports teams losing a game and in which we had nothing but contrived emotional stakes.

Guys like me have a bad day when work’s not going well, traffic is a mess, and the forecast -- brrrr! -- calls for unseasonably cold temperatures.

A good day for guys like me usually involves a frolic with the family and maybe a round of free golf with friends at a club so posh that showing up to work there would probably strike many Haitians as heavenly.

Guaranteed, many Haitians would sell his or her soul to trade their $10 a week jobs for one day toting golf bags for $50 tips at one of our posh country clubs.

That would, I imagine, be heaven to them. Honest, if they ever have time to dream in Haiti, a safe menial job at lush places like Oakmont Country Club would seem like heaven.

We’re all seeing what a bad day for guys in Haiti is like.

It’s hell.

That’s why I hope, out of fairness, that Haiti heaven is better than the heaven for guys like me. They were so historically screwed just by being born that they’re due a real eternal break.

Many of us have been moved to tears by the poignant stories of people who left places like this to help people in places like that.

Just yesterday, altruistic angels named Jamie and Al McMutrie, sisters from Pittsburgh who’d been running a Haitian orphanage, made national news by shepherding 54 young Haitians to our hometown. Once settled here many of them will now grow up and some of them will become guys like me.

They’ll become Steeler fans. They’ll enjoy riding our scenic little inclines with loved ones they haven’t even met yet. They’ll make friends and duck out of work early to giggle at the Happy Hour.

I’m confident this will happen because, really, there are guys like me all over the place. We’re not out to rule the world. We just don’t want to get run over by it. We like to laugh and joke, sit in the shade when it’s hot and near the fire when it’s cold.

I marvel at the faith that inspires people to leave comfortable lives here and go to Haiti to devote their lives to caring for people for whom life is a daily struggle.

And God bless the people who are lining up to take these sad orphans into their homes and give them a chance to grow up to be guys like me.

I’d offer to do it but guys like me figure we already do our share. I gave $50 to UNICEF last week and went to bed convinced that I’d done my part and that there was nothing more I could do to help anyone.

When you think about it, it’s a wonder guys like me have the audacity to even speculate if a heaven he may never deserve to see will be superior to anyone else’s.

G-20 Pittsburgh recap

I wish at least some of the world’s most powerful leaders had stopped by my house for breakfast during their historic visit to Pittsburgh. I’d labored over a delicacy that, I swear, can’t be found anywhere else on earth.

I spent about a total of three hours sifting through two big barn boxes of Lucky Charms to separate all the loathsome toasted frosted oats from the succulent marshmallows.

It was tedious and blasted a huge hole in the productive part of my week, but the result was one full box of just the good stuff (and two bags of flavorless toasted oats I’ll probably wind up tossing). Friday was our daughter Josie’s 9th birthday and I wanted to surprise her with a box of nothing but magically delicious charms. She loved it.

I did it because I want her to feel special and because it makes me feel like I’m being a good dad, even as I acknowledge I’m a terrible provider, disciplinarian, and useless when it comes to helping out with things like third grade math homework.

I’m wagering she’ll remember the charmed breakfast and think, gee, dad was a great man.

I’m serious. That’s the way I think.

Pity my poor wife.

Other thoughts:

• Today’s protesters are a bitter disappointment to those of us who watch the news hoping to enjoy some coherent anarchy. After three days of nearly non-stop reports about their actions and demands, I’m still unsure what the hell they were protesting.

If you can’t wrap your mission around a tuneful march (“Hell, no, we won’t go!” or “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids didja kill today!”) you might as well just stay home and tap out pointless tweets about your petty furies.

I’m a happily married heterosexual, but if a flamboyantly dressed column of poodle walkers marched past my house shouting, “We’re here! We’re queer! Out of the closets and into the street!” I’d turn off the football game and get in line because it’s just such a snappy slogan.

• Of course, the Andy Warhol Museum made a big splash for hosting Michelle Obama and the rest of the spouses. Pittsburgh likes to show off the museum because they think the connection to a guy who left the city about 40 years before he died and never returned somehow makes us a kind of hip that surprises visitors.

It does not. What makes us hip are bars like the Rosa Villa that used to be right across the street. Before it closed in 2006, the Rosa Villa was a notorious mob hangout decorated with black and white pictures of bloodied boxers. Jimmy, the bartender, used to box, too, and spent his advanced years tossing haymaker insults at customers and providing a bright contrast to the hipper shades floating in and out of the museum dedicated to America’s least talented artist.

I once asked Jimmy if he’d ever set foot in the Warhol.

“Just once,” he said. “I had to tell some guy to move his f#@*ing car.”

• Had I been a more sensible sort, I never would have quit newspapering back in 1992. I’d have a stable job and routine work. That means I would have spent my weekend swamped with G-20 assignments.

I don’t have benefits, a paycheck or, heck, really much of anything to do these days, but I watched the news reporters in their coverage frenzy and am convinced I made the right decision that daily work of that sort just wasn’t for me.

I wouldn’t have wanted to have missed my daughter’s birthday party weekend to spend it dodging tear gas with smelly strangers.

• As you just read, I am critical of the protesters because of their incoherency. To be fair, I have no idea about the tangible results the leaders of the free world achieved here the last two days either. Not a clue.

• Pittsburgh’s lucky to have such a staunch supporter in President Obama. He’s clearly taken with the city and its people. He brought many of the most important people here to enjoy the city.

Next week, as they do every year, 10 of my friends from New York City are coming to Pittsburgh to watch a Steeler game and revel in the city’s bars and offbeat activities.

Guaranteed, we’re going to have more fun than anyone from the any of the G-20 delegations, all without the benefit of a cushy expense account.

• I for years have been trying to convince Pittsburghers to refer to the Warhol as the A-hol Museum.

It hasn’t caught on, but I remain hopeful it will.

• I bust with pride that Pittsburgh got to host such a high-profile international event. It’s a magnificent city with stunning views and friendly people who know how to work hard and play hard.

If you’ve never been, please come and see for yourself. And be sure to stop by for a big bowl of Lucky Charms like the kind you’ve only dreamed about.

Pittsburgh ought to be singin' in the rain

Three years from Sunday will mark the 100th birthday of beloved actor and Pittsburgh native Gene Kelly (August 23, 1912).

That gives me plenty of time to make an iconic popsicle stick statue of him “Singin’ in the Rain” and hang it from a lamp post in Pittsburgh’s landmark Market Square.

I think that kind of eyeball evidence might be what it takes to get city officials interested doing what ought to come naturally.

Ever since I returned last fall from a trip to write about golf in Wisconsin, I’ve been consumed with the idea of Pittsburgh building a Kelly statue in the heart of the city. The city is investing $5 million in a beautification project Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl says will make “Market Square an even better destination for residents, visitors and families.”

I love Pittsburgh, but sometimes I want to take its leadership and bat them over over their collective heads with a hearty loaf of Mancini’s Italian bread. A statue of Kelly singin’ in the rain from a Market Square lamp post would bring international attention to the city and not to mention tourist dollars.

Yet, I can’t get any of the magazines to let me write a story about it and my fledgling efforts to convince opinion makers have been met with shrugs. I might have to resort to writing a letter to the editor, a stinging surrender by someone who still likes to pretend he’s professional.

I wish I had the eloquence to convince city leaders that the Kelly statue would earn Pittsburgh accolades and loot.

If I can’t, maybe The Fonz can.

David Fantle of Visit Milwaukee told me that the statue of Milwaukee “native” Arthur Fonzerelli of “Happy Days” fame the city erected in 2007 has been an wholesome godsend to downtown tourism.

“It cost us $90,000 in donated sponsorships to build and has in just two years earned us more than $9.5 million in worldwide media value,” Fantle says.

Today, a steady stream of visitors to central Milwaukee stop by the downtown river plaza to ape it up with the “Bronze Fonz.”

Now -- ehhh! -- we all love Fonzie. But Gene Kelly is one of America’s most sparkling icons.

And for me it’s all because of that joyful dance he made famous in the 1952 movie.

The American Film Institute in 2007 ranked “Singin’ in the Rain” as the fifth greatest American movie of all time. These experts in cinematic glories ranked it ahead of “Gone With The Wind” (6), and “The Wizard of Oz,” (10).

Only “Citizen Kane,” “The Godfather,” “Casablanca” and “Raging Bull” ranked (in order) better than the great Kelly vehicle.

Not a man or woman alive can’t relate at some level to that euphoric dance. Released nearly two years before the birth of Howard Stern, that dance is an upraised middle finger to anyone who finds themselves caught without an umbrella in the crapstorm of life.

Check it out. The sequence is 4:36 seconds of pure magic.

It’s particularly relevant to a city like Pittsburgh, a perpetual underdog of a metropolis despite consistent top rankings in numerous “most livable city” listings.

Once dubbed “Hell with the lid off” because of its smoke-belching crush of fiery factories, Pittsburgh today is as green and fresh as a salad bar. The mills, gone thirty years, have been replaced by high-tech upstarts, downtown universities and riverside fitness trails. Skies once choked with smoke, today crackle with free citywide WiFi.

It’s a city you can still put your arms around. Downtown is geographically incarcerated by the waters of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers. The only direction downtown can sprawl is straight up.

Leaders from all over the world are about to discover its charms as they come to town for the G-20 summit September 24-25.
Guaranteed, many of the leaders of the industrialized world learned what America is all about by watching movies like “Singin’ in the Rain.”

I hope somebody in the city picks up the baton and runs with it. Three years is plenty of time to raise awareness, funds and construct a statue that will give Pittsburgh a joyful jolt of publicity and a euphoric new image that will resonate around the world.

I’d do it myself, but I’ve got a full plate. I need to go out and rent “Singin’ in the Rain.”

I don’t want to rain on my own expertise, but I’ve never seen the flick.

I hear it’s pretty good.

I hate the Chicago Cubs

It was two months ago when my 7-year-old daughter asked me if there were any teams I hated. And I could sense that she didn’t mean it in that gee-I-hope-those-guys-lose sort of hatred.

She meant it in the way that liberals hate George Bush, that conservatives hate Hillary Clinton and that she hates her cruel and tyrannical second grade gym teacher.

It was a good question. I grew up nurturing vicious hatreds for at various times, the New York Mets, the Dallas Cowboys, The Oakland Raiders and any professional team with an Ohio zip code.

I gave it some thought and looked deep in my heart.

The answer was no.

There was no team I so despised that I rooted for them and their fans to not only lose their games by humiliating margins, but for them all to develop things like leprosy and large pervasive boogers that smelled really, really bad.

Sure, I’m passionately Pittsburgh and want our teams to win ‘em all. It’s great for the city I love and only enhances an image that’s still under-appreciated. But the last two times Pittsburgh teams have competed for the respective championships -- Steelers in 2006 and the Penguins in June -- I was unable to muster any fan-imosity toward their opponents (Seattle and Detroit).

I felt marginally proud of myself that I was no longer one of those frothing idiots who goes on-line and calls talk shows hosted by addle-minded cementheads who do nothing but foment irrational anxieties over simple games.

I was setting a good example for my kids. They could look at me and understand what perspective and wisdom I bring to the sporting world. And that, by extension, their Daddy was one of the good guys.

Not anymore.

I now hate the Chicago Cubs. I want them to suffer soul-crushing defeats from now through eternity. I want them to feel sharp pains in places Monica-gate prosecutor Ken Starr used to call their distinguishing characteristics. I want them to work with and be constantly surrounded at airports by mean-spirited, petty guys like me who’ll do nothing but remind them their sorry franchise hasn’t won in 100 years . . . and counting.

It all happened last night after my buddy brought me with him to the Pirates game at PNC Park. We’ve seen hundreds of games together all over the country. We both know the game and all the etiquette that goes with it.

Right now the Cubs have the best record in baseball and their best chance in years to shuck the burden of being one of the losingest and most luckless franchises in sports.

The Pirates? They stink. They’re one of the worst teams in baseball and have been for 16 years. But this city and this team enjoy one of the longest and proudest sports histories in all America. In my lifetime, I’ve lustily cheered 10 world champions in baseball, hockey and football, an unparalleled record for a small-market city and better than Chicago’s if you toss out Michael Jordan and professional basketball, which I do because I don’t consider basketball a sport.

Every sport requires a skill. All basketball requires is freakish height. Sure, the sport attracts some good athletes, but if you or I woke up tomorrow and had a growth spurt that left us 7-foot-8 inches tall, guaranteed, some NBA team would make us instant millionaires. Why? Simply because we’re tall. So, sorry, MJ, but basketball’s not a sport.

So Pittsburgh takes a backseat to no one in sports history.

But you can’t tell that to the thousands of Cub fans who showed up at PNC Park, named by ESPN as the most beautiful ballpark in America, which means the most beautiful ballpark in the universe.

This is an important point. PNC’s so beautiful that couples regularly choose it as a place to wed. In fact, I’ve been to one of the weddings there (congratulations, Howard & Mary!) and a more elegant affair there’s never been. This wasn’t some scoreboard proposal deal either. This was a fairytale wedding that graced the fabulous club level and happened, as it does more than 30 times a year, when the home team’s away. The service is so posh and delightfully unusual it’s been featured in Modern Bride (and I, ahem, wrote the story).

Wrigley Field, on the other hand, is a beer-soaked toilet. Chicago drunks go there to vomit, urinate in their seats and delude themselves into thinking it’s something special. And they fill it whether the team wins or not. In fact, they fill it when the team has no chance at all, and that’s often been the case since Roosevelt was president. Teddy Roosevelt.

No good fan should reward their cheap ownership with full attendance. In Pittsburgh, if the team stinks, we stay home until the owners put up a winner. It’s that way in sensible cities around the country.

So as the game dwindled down to its final outs, Paul and I were about the only Pirate fans left amidst several thousand wearing Cubby blue. Had any survivors from the Alamo time-traveled to enjoy a summer evening at PNC they would have said, “Man, and we thought we were outnumbered!”

That’s when it started, all the disparaging remarks.

“Didn’t these guys used to be good? . . . Where are all the Pirate fans? . . . This is like a home game . . . The vendors outnumber the Pirate fans . . .”

There was none of the friendly banter, camaraderie or commiseration that is the hallmark of good baseball fans everywhere. Paul and I stewed.

I don’t know what set me off, I think I remember hearing the word “lame,” but I detonated.

I’ve always prided myself on being a witty guy. Like the great comic -- and Pittsburgh native -- Dennis Miller, I can usually come up with devastating and intelligent zinger that’ll disarm even the nastiest of bullies.

Where that part of me was Tuesday in the bottom of the ninth, I don’t know.

Because all I could think to shout was a two-word epithet that got Ralphie in so much trouble while he was helping his dad change the tire in “A Christmas Story.”

It was like those nature scenes where flocks of birds are startled from the trees. Every head in the place turned. The ushers came rushing up like they smelled burning babies. Later Paul assured me my singular profanity was certainly picked up by microphones and broadcast around the globe on satellite and terrestrial radio.

I instinctually did what years as a troublemaking wiseguy prepared me to do. I pointed at the Cub fan behind me.

For some reason, I didn’t get ejected. Maybe the ushers didn’t want to leave Paul all by himself. Maybe they really wanted to thank me for saying what they felt like telling all those obnoxious Cub fans themselves.

But I immediately felt very small. As we got up to leave -- final score Cubs 14, Pirates 9 -- I got into one of those endless and pointless staring contests with the guy behind me. He told me I was a coward for not having the guts to admit I’d been the culprit.

And he was right.

Now, when my daughters look to me for an example of right and wrong, I’ll just have to pretend I’m a highroad guy when deep down I know the truth.

That I’m a lowdown, gutless, impetuously immature jerk who can’t control his fragile emotions when confronted with even mild taunting. I’m no longer one of the good guys. I’m a sad loser and that’s probably all I’ll ever be. I'm a disgraceful human being.

Still beats being a Cub fan!