DUBLIN — Irish woman Isla Byrne is “hopelessly smitten” with “strapping, exotic, and in every way confounding” Doug Smolinski, 36, of Munhall, who is visiting the Irish capital for this Sunday’s Steelers game against the Vikings, sources trying not to make a face as the traveler adds french fries to a piece of soda bread report.
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BRIGHTON HEIGHTS — Local boozing veteran Dave Wisnewski “looked better than ever” during his alcohol binge for the first week of the NFL season despite not drinking for the entirety of the preseason, amazed sources still finding crushed beer cans he stowed away reported Sunday night.
“You hear all the stories about how these older guys can’t hack it,” said Wisnewski’s neighbor Sam Hutchinson, 28. “Everybody says they’ve got too much going on between the back spams, the elbow they hyperextended playing horseshoes, the dialysis—the whole shebang. Then my buddy Dave comes in here and puts up 15 beers and eight shots of Fireball in six hours like he hasn’t missed a beat.”
“Turning the clock back, this guy,” added Hutchinson.
General managers in the local bar circuit expressed uncertainty when Wisnewski, entering his 25th season of football-adjacent alcohol consumption, agreed to a modest deal to drink nothing but Michelob Ultra late this off-season.
“You see these long-time stalwarts try to ride out a few couple years of glory,” said evening shift manager Isiah Ward. “Then the grueling off-season interventions are just too much so they retire to coffee shops and go to bed at 8 p.m. You can imagine my shock, then, when Dave rolls in at 10 after fours weeks off and throws up a statline of five Coors Light aluminums, two packs of cigarettes, and six dart games in an hour, all while tidily throwing up in an unoccupied lot instead of ours. Even his mistakes show signs of veteran leadership.”
Despite the prevailing sense of surprise, some evaluators had pegged Wisnewski for a huge comeback.
“Was last season a glamorous display of beer-soaked excellence? No,” said analyst Peter Walker. “But Wisnewski still wasn’t a chump: he averaged 8.4 beers a game while only pissing himself 0.46 times for every three sidecars of Old Grandad he ordered. If he had lined up beside even competent bar mates via the PBF (Pro Boozehound Focus) metrics, he almost certainly would’ve performed near career-level rates. One guy can only do so much.”
Even with an exemplary Week 1 performance, Wisnewski insisted he would “get right back to the Xs and Os,” as soon as he figured out where he had accidentally had the Uber driver drop off him.
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OK, when I answered the prayer from that 12-year-old in Brighton Heights, I figured this would just be another routine job. You know the drill: boost a leftie behind the plate here, scatter a seeing-eye single around the outfield there, and bam! They’re in the playoffs and we’re suddenly and inexplicably forbidden from continuing to help them cheat. However, that whole strategy winds up in the shitter when Bob Nutting is involved. Seriously, how the fuck am I supposed to do this?
How can we possibly help a team win when their entire business model is centered around lining the pockets of one man? There’s only so much we can do for an organization with one of the lowest payrolls in the league. These guys aren’t playing for free, and guess what happens when they show any promise? Does the name Gerrit Cole sound familiar? What, you think we weren’t involved with those three feeble playoff appearances last decade? That’s the best we can do here, and trust me, we’re not getting anywhere close to that in the Year of Our Lord 2025. Not if the ownership isn’t willing to part with enough cash to get halfway decent bats into the lineup.
So yeah, enjoy Paul Skenes while you still have him. We’ve been cheesing that fastball all season, but do you think a team that’ll almost certainly refuse to pay him what he’s worth will keep him once he’s arbitration eligible? We’re angels who serve an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient god, but we’re not fucking magicians. We can’t even help Tommy Pham with a throw to home plate without him making jack-off gestures and threatening to punch us in the face.
Man, that kid really needs to do some research before he prays to us, or ask for something a bit more tenable, like a stronger offensive line for the Steelers or for Sidney Crosby to magically revert back to the age of 21. Hell, having us force Bob Nutting into retirement would do more than any number of Cruz missiles we’re assigned to send into the right field stands, but what do I know? I’m just a loyal soldier of the firmament who does what he’s told. It’s not for me to ask questions, so I’ll just shut my mouth and turn this 10-1 loss to the White Sox into a 10-4 loss. You’re welcome, kid.
Article by Steve Packosky (spackosky@gmail.com)
SPRING HILL – Local elementary school janitor Herb Grobowski reportedly used seven miles of orange traffic cones to block off a student’s vomit puddle which itself measured approximately one foot in circumference, confused sources report.
“I worked for PennDOT for twenty years before coming here, so I feel like a lot of the skills I gained were directly applicable to this job,” Grobowski said. “The second I saw that I needed to clean up the small patch of floor in the hallway just outside the art classroom, I automatically referred to my training and blocked off the space necessary for me to sprinkle on some sawdust before putting the mop to it. I’m eternally grateful to the training I received at PennDOT for helping me get my work done so quickly and efficiently.”
Fourth grade teacher Eileen Chung reacted to Grobowski’s methods with equal parts surprise and frustration.
“I really don’t understand why this much barren space needs to be reserved for such a small area of work,” Chung complained. “I tried to walk my class to the cafeteria, and instead we’ve had to squeeze into single file while snaking back and forth through seemingly unending corridors of those cones. Where was he even keeping them, anyway? There must be thousands of them. At any rate, we don’t have time in our day for a two-hour walk to get lunch. This is just not a feasible situation.”
Principal Geraldine Leed weighed in on the ordeal.
“I’m going to have to sit down and have a chat with Herb about his approach to his work,” Leed sighed. “I’ve heard nothing but complaints from the staff since he took over our custodial duties. Apparently one line of kids made it through all seven miles of cones, only to see him idly texting on his phone next to the vomit puddle. At the very least, I’m thinking about instituting a training program for new janitors so they don’t end up using methods learned from their prior vocations. We might put up with this approach on the turnpike, but we have to draw the line here.”
At press time, Grobowski was put on administrative leave after offering to keep the cones up for three months before addressing the vomit puddle.
(Article by Steve Packosky)
PITTSBURGH — Facing “insurmountable financial hardship,” a local Catholic parish altered today’s Easter homily to focus on less traditional canon of Jesus’s resurrection in favor of emphasizing how he “absolutely raked in the big bucks from the comfort his of grave” by using FanDuel.com, according to sources praying for pointers on today’s slate of MLB games.
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FINEVIEW — A Mason Rudolph jersey received as a joke gift at a 2019 holiday party now qualifies as North Side resident Dave Grimm’s “absolutely most prized” belonging, according to sources whispering kind words to the piece of apparel for the last hour.
Continue readingBRIGHTON HEIGHTS — Entering tonight’s first preseason binge, local Steelers fan Dave Wisnewski remains confident he can duplicate the incredible alcohol-related stat line he produced last season, the 34-year-old reported today.
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You navigate to your kitchen in a hoodie, only to find you’re quickly overcome with warmth. Sweat runs down your face, and you realize your affect reeks of an unidentified malaise. You were fine but a few a minutes ago, so it’s time to ask, are the fatal clutches of some phantom fever, heretofore unknown to humanity, lurking above you or is just, like, 84 or so degrees again for the first time your seasonally compromised memory can manage to recall?
As of press time, you decided the ailment might be identified as Buccos fever, which historically wanes within several weeks or, medical sources have noted, until Bryan Reynolds gets traded.
NORTH SHORE — Following a “torturous series of delays,” BetRivers has announced the official over-under for shirtless guys CBS will show on tonight’s Steelers-Raiders broadcast, according to sources considering a parlay with the number of fans dressed like Santa featured by the network.
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NORTH SIDE — A group of Pitt alumni heavily clad in official Pitt merchandise has briefly paused their exchange of Pitt stories at a tailgate for the Pitt-West Virginia game to express their collective thanks that they didn’t peak in high school “like some obsessed, homesick loser,” parking lot sources continue to loudly confirm.
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