U mad, bro? Pirates fans already spent, Steelers fans burned out

In “U mad, bro?” this week, Pirates fans already are fed up. Readers challenge my coverage of Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown. Plus my motives are brought into question for suggesting Ben Roethlisberger should give up his radio show.

A Twitter follower named “havy23” fired off this message as Kolten Wong was bouncing his triple off the Clemente Wall in the 10th inning Wednesday night, contributing to a 5-4 Cardinals comeback win over the Pirates.

Temperature of the sun < Kolten Wong ☀️ Wong is hot, hot, HOT right now and leads off the 10th inning with a triple. Tune in now on FSMW and the FOX Sports app. #TimeToFly pic.twitter.com/3fcdwtIu8C

— FOX Sports Midwest (@FSMidwest) April 4, 2019

“Amazed people still love going to the ballpark to watch this (expletive) team…”

Love?

Well, 23,954 reportedly paid for tickets last night. That may be a bit inflated, by the count and by the fact that it was “Buc Night” at the park.

Check back with me when tickets are full price and we are more than a night removed from the home opener.

To your point, though, people have to be frustrated already. In the last three games, the Pirates starters have allowed one earned run in 18 innings.

They won once.

This high-end starting rotation needs better support. We knew the fielding was going to be poor. We knew the offense was going to be weak. But that bullpen has to be better.

A reader named Pamela wasn’t happy with the content of a column I posted about Le’Veon Bell ripping the Steelers in his latest rap single.

“Thanks for the article, but can you please give us a break? They (Bell and Antonio Brown) are gone, and most of us could care less about what they say or do. As Steelers fans, we have moved on to the next season with great hopes for a victorious one.”

I appreciate your sentiment, Pamela. But you must not speak for as many Steelers fans as you think. And you must be confusing “we could care less because they are gone” for “we are bitter because they left.”

Because that story was the most widely read post on TribLIVE.com Tuesday morning.

Not just sports. The whole webpage.

By nearly double the amount of any other post that day.

Brad sent me an email regarding the story I wrote suggesting Ben Roethlisberger should ditch his radio show.

“So if Roethlisberger called you and said ‘Hey Tim, I’d like to move to WDVE instead of The Fan,’ would you say ‘Sorry Ben. You Shouldn’t Do This. I Can’t Help You?’ ”

Brad, I can’t help him. Do you think I have the kind of scratch to pay for that segment?!

Also, my guess is, I’ll likely have to wait for Ben to unblock me on Twitter before he calls.

Over the weekend, I sent a sarcastic tweet regarding all of the shade thrown at Michigan State coach Tom Izzo for screaming at freshman Aaron Henry during the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

What a heroic performance by Henry for #MichiganState. To overcome the “verbal abuse” and “physical menacing” from a guy twice his age and half his size...and to survive those scars to play this well. Truly inspirational. #Brave

— Tim Benz (@TimBenzPGH) March 29, 2019

Despite the vast amount of emotional scarring I’m sure he endured as a result of the incident, he somehow managed to cobble together enough fortitude to score 20 points for the Spartans in their Sweet 16 victory over LSU.

Chuck brought my tone into question, a bit.

You don't think he played that well BECAUSE his Coach laid into him? ?

— Chuck Templeman (K) (@ctemp153) March 30, 2019

Directly? No.

Do I think that playing well may be related to a bigger-picture result of taking coaching and criticism in the heat of the moment and learning from the experience instead of collapsing into an emotional online safe space created by wannabe do-gooders on social media?

Yeah. Maybe.

Here’s a portion of a long email from Wayne about Kevin Colbert’s recent support of Ben Roethlisberger.

“Kevin Colbert’s praise of Ben, who has never been MVP of the league, Super Bowl, and now not even his so-called team??! How in the world is JuJu your MVP on offense!!!???

If the QB is not the MVP on offense, you’re in trouble baby, as you can see!!! Not to mention Coach Tomlin is an enabler. Can you imagine if AB & Bell played for Belichick???”

Well, based on Brown’s released phone calls, we almost didn’t have to imagine. Indeed, Wayne, that would’ve been fun to discover.

As far as how the team and Super Bowl MVP votes went, isn’t that more of a commentary on those that voted than it is Roethlisberger himself?