It's October, and I'm FINALLY excited about it.

It wasn't over when they won 81 and secured at least a .500 record.  It wasn't over when they won 82, guaranteeing a winning season.

It wasn't over when they took one of the wildcard slots and played in their first post-season game in 21 years.  And they just won the Wildcard play-in game.  So it's still not over.  Fitting, though, that it was 21 years.  Did anyone really think God would make #21 himself, Roberto Clemente, wait more than 21 years to even get to this point?  I sure didn't.

But I digress.

Heck, you know what?

It's just begun.

Raise it, Bucs.  Raise that Jolly Roger high and proud.  Then get over it -- quickly -- because we have a World Series to go win.

THEN it will be over.

Get ready for some #BUCTOBER!

Playoffs in Pittsburgh -- in October?!

If we were talking about the Penguins, this topic would make no sense at all, since the season starts in October,  If we meant football, it would be possible, provided it was almost Halloween and the rest of the division had managed a collective two wins by the midpoint of the football year.

But Hockey hasn't yet started, the Steelers are 0-3 (a very correctable 0-3 to be fair, but winless nonetheless), and there is one...more...team here...right?

Bears @ Steelers: A Letter to Mike Tomlin

Coach Tomlin,

I was on board with your hiring from day-one.  I trust the Rooneys and I believe you are as smart of a football mind as there has been.  That includes Vince Lombardi and Chuck Noll.  But those guys weren't stupid.  You are not either, but you are acting like it right now because of your stubbornness and your inexplicable allegiance to your OC.  Allow me to explain.

Bears @ Steelers: All Kinds of Ugly

If emotions truly were roller coasters, I spent most of this game yakking my guts out.

I was pretty well psyched about it.  Heath Miller was coming back.  Le'Veon Bell looks like he is a week away from returning.

Then they started playing.  This is the point where you are nearing the top of the hill, the clanging of the old, chain-driven lift reaching a crescendo.  It crested the hill, and immediately went into a series of convulsions, as the Bears moved the ball in chunks that never let them get to a third and long.  Ultimately, it was three to nothing.

Then it was our turn.  Seven total plays later, we had fumbled and the Bears were up 10-0.  And the awesome just kept coming. A Steeler punt, followed quickly by a 55-yard run by Matt Forte and a nearly perfect goal-line stand was just that -- nearly perfect.  Touchdown Bears.  17-0 with two minutes left.

In the first quarter.

Rebooting "Big Snack's Sweatsocks"

I have to write about Pittsburgh.  It has been more than a quarter of a century since I lived within 75 miles of the place.  But it has always been, and will always be, Home.

But Casey "Big Snack" Hampton is no longer a Steeler.  And, my goodness, his sweatsocks reeked.  So I am rebooting.

This will, henceforth, be a place where I occasionally rant, rave and brag about all Pittsburgh sports.  It's not just football anymore.  Let's face it: who would have thought that, halfway through September, the Pirates would be three wins away from at least a one-game play-in and have now long-since secured a winning season, while the Steelers are 0-2 and are scoring roughly as much per game as the Pirates average through seven innings?

It'd all Pittsburgh, all the time.  And by "all the time" I mean "every now and then."