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U mad, bro? Readers pop off about showboating, Phil Kessel trade, Antonio Brown’s grass | TribLIVE.com
Tim Benz, Columnist

U mad, bro? Readers pop off about showboating, Phil Kessel trade, Antonio Brown’s grass

Tim Benz
Tim Benz
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AP; Tribune-Review
Derek Dietrich, Phil Kessel and coverage of Antonio Brown have Pittsburgh sports fans fired up.

“U mad, bro?” this week features Pirates fans in a snit over Derek Dietrich of the Reds, the Pirates’ failure to support Josh Bell and our coverage of Antonio Brown.

Well, our coverage of Brown’s lawn care, anyway.

On Twitter, “Corby Corb 12” chimes in with an opinion on Derek Dietrich’s home run preening against the Pirates.

That’s true. I made the same point about Chris Archer in my story Wednesday morning.

To sum it up, Dietrich’s home run strutting is over the top. No doubt.

But the provincial criticism of it has been, as well. So that’s why I decided to be critical of both.

No one on the Pirates broadcast has ever questioned whether Archer’s deceased family members felt shame after his strikeout celebrations.

Nor do I recall any family-related guilt-tripping when Andrew McCutchen would do his sashay sidestep and and cap tip across home plate at PNC Park for years.

Oh, and remember how much fun the Zoltan “Z” was?

Let’s just try to be a little balanced.

Ryan didn’t like my take on 105.9 the X that Josh Bell was worth the price of admission at PNC Park on his own, especially after a 10-2 loss to the Dodgers last Friday.

Indefensible?

Well, not really. Since the premise of the point was that Bell is good enough to watch on his own regardless of the team around him. That didn’t change after another bad loss by the team with Michael Feliz acting as the opener.

As far as the whole “Josh Bell will be gone soon enough” thing goes, yeah. Maybe. That’s if you consider 2022 soon.

And if you do, it just underscores my point anyway.

See him in Black and Gold while you can.

Twitter pal “Gordon Bombay” wasn’t wild about the idea of the NFL reviewing game-ending Hail Mary plays.

Equally shocking?

The NFL over-complicating something, even as it was attempting to simplify something else.

Stunning. I know.

“Johnny Jackson” isn’t quite on board with my approach to a potential Phil Kessel trade.

Agreed. But I’d argue that the best way of gaining speed may be to just get draft picks in return, open cap space and acquire it via free agency or cheaply in a second trade.

Otherwise, acquiring Jason Zucker — who is fast — eats up almost all of the potential cap savings in return.

The corresponding swap of Jack Johnson for Victor Rask would result in the Penguins saving all of $500,000 unless Minnesota retains some salary.

Michael sent me this email on Chris Archer after last week’s “U mad, bro?”

“Morning Tim. Do you think the Pirates brought back Archer too early. He was only a fair pitcher before his trip on the disabled list. Upon his return, he is a lousy one.”

I don’t know if they activated Archer too quickly, Michael. I doubt his struggles right now are the result of lingering injury.

I just don’t think he’s as good as they hoped he’d be.

However, I do think he should’ve done a rehab start in the minors first. And if it went as badly as his first one in the majors (six earned runs in less than four innings), maybe he would’ve stayed down there longer to work out a few kinks.

Working through the bumps of his return at the big league level isn’t working.

“Ehb” didn’t like the Trib’s story about Antonio Brown failing to cut his grass.

No one cares? Somebody must. This was the most read story of the day. Thanks for your informed feedback.

I’ll say it again because I know I’m right. When people say “I don’t care about Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell,” I know that really means “my Black and Gold feelings are hurt and I’m crying inside.”

That’s anger. Not disinterest.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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