Jun 5, 2020 4 min read

For the first time since Lyndon Johnson was president, the Steelers won’t be holding their training camp at Saint Vincent College.

To get an idea of how long ago that was, the “Dick Van Dyke Show” aired its final live episode that year, while an upstart series named “Star Trek” aired its first. The biggest singles in music were Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” and “We Can Work It Out,” by the Beatles.

Chuck Noll was still a relatively unknown defensive backs coach under Don Shula with the Baltimore Colts, as former Vince Lombardi assistant Bill Austin was in his first season running the Steelers.

The NFL told its teams Tuesday that they won’t be permitted to hold their training camps away from team facilities in order to cut down on travel.

Of course, the Steelers travel less when they’re at Saint Vincent College and told the league that, but the argument fell on deaf ears.

There’s also the issue of the Steelers sharing the UMPC Rooney Sports Complex with the Pitt football program. The Steelers are the only NFL that shares a facility with a college team. And Pitt’s camp will be opening around the same time as the Steelers, meaning there will be about 200 football players – 90 with the Steelers and 100 or so with Pitt – and another 100-plus support staff and coaches in the same area.

It has the potential to be a mess.

And it all could have been avoided if the league would have relented and allowed the Steelers to stay at Saint Vincent. The players could have been sequestered, as they are every year, on campus.

Instead, they’ll be in the middle of the city and perhaps going home to their families every night.

It will be interesting to see if the league makes the New Yoprk Jets and New York Giants practice at their facilities, both of which are located in COVID-19 Ground Zero in this country. Or will the league permit the Green Bay Packers to house their players at St. Norbert College, which is located about a mile from their Lambeau Field practice facility.

Can’t have those players riding bicycles back and forth from St. Norbert’s.

• The Pro Football Hall of Fame will reopen next Wednesday with some safety restrictions. Still no word about whether the Hall of Fame Game will be held later this summer.
• Just when you thought the Chris Archer trade couldn’t get any worse for the Pirates, he’s shut down for the 2020 season.

At least before the injury, Archer, who was acquired from Tampa Bay for Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow and top prospect Shane Baz, was pitching in the major leagues. Not well, mind you. But he was taking the ball every fifth day.

Now, the Pirates don’t even have that.

It makes the salary dump of Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton for Bobby Hill and a bunch of blech pale in comparison.

At least there was a reason to make that deal, albeit a pure salary dump.

This one was considered a shrewd baseball move by then-general manager Neil Huntington. Which shows why Huntington is no longer employed by the Pirates.

• If anyone wondered what would be the first professional sports team to play a game in Pittsburgh this summer, it will be the Riverhounds.

They have set a provisional starting date of July 11 for their first game.

• The Washington City Council voted 4-1 Thursday night to allow Washington Youth Baseball and TWIST to hold shortened seasons at Washington Park this summer.

Councilman Joe Manning was the dissenting vote.

Thank goodness cooler heads prevailed when it came to allowing our youth to play sports this summer. With the area having gone green Friday, it just didn’t make sense to keep things closed down.

The Chartiers-Houston School Board felt the same way. It gave the Chartiers-Houston Baseball Association the OK to play at its fields, which are located on school grounds. They were supposed to be closed until July 1 at the earliest.

Given that our governor felt it was OK to go walk in a protest last week – so much for social distancing rules – it’s only fair the kids be permitted to participate in sports. Safely.