The instant the ball made impact with Matt Szczur's bat and seared toward third base, with fellow Cubs at first and second, the Pirates' infield experienced individual flashes.
Maybe it's to be expected, in this terrible, tumultuous 2020, one in which it feels like we'll tear ourselves apart, that we'd eventually cut off civil conversation.
“We finished in last place with you. We can finish in last place without you.”
It's time to speak up. To stop being silent. No, I'm not going there again today. Sticking to sports 'n at.
It was the summer of 2017, a sweltering day at Saint Vincent College. The Steelers were out on the field, sweating up a storm in full pads.
The Steelers were making their exit, stage left into Paul Brown Stadium's visiting tunnel, late Saturday night, and the din down there was as thick as the downpour outside.
The Nation went wild at the Ben Roethlisberger viral video a week ago, the one where he was winging the ball to James Conner and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
"The most storied and treasured trophy in all of the sports." That's what Gary Bettman called the trophy he's charged with handing out each summer.
Not a whole lot bugs me on social media. And that goes double for stuff that isn't aimed directly at me.
The Canadiens, the Penguins' likely opponent in the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, aren't much without all-universe goaltender Carey Price.
This puck, this time, wasn't going to be stopped. It wasn't going to lounge idly in the blue paint for two eternal seconds before finally being swept away.
There's no agreement between Major League Baseball and the Players Association, and there never was one. Not a completed one, anyway.
Much as I'll always recall March 12 as the day this coronavirus crisis closed up civilization, I'd be remiss if I didn't equally recall May 19.
Having the good fortune to have already visited five continents, I've still not encountered any setting as invigorating, as inviting as our very own Strip District.
It's 6:32 p.m., about a half-hour to first pitch Tuesday at Turner Field, and the Pirates' bench coach is down at the far end of the visitors' dugout.
Of the 50 states that comprise our union, exactly two have come forth to declare that professional sports can resume: Arizona and, as of yesterday, Florida.
There's hope that the Pirates will retake the field at PNC Park for a de facto second spring training by mid-June.