Hold My Cutter
Bethany Hallam's Rise: Triumph over Addiction and the Unifying Spirit of Pittsburgh Sports
Have you ever witnessed a phoenix rise from the ashes? Allegheny County Council Member Bethany Hallam's life story is the embodiment of that very transformation. From the grip of heroin addiction and the shadows of homelessness, she emerged to stand in the light of public service and advocacy. Our conversation peels back the layers of her journey, revealing the critical interplay of family support, personal choice, and the oft-overlooked privilege that navigates the murky waters of our correctional system. Bethany's tale is not just one of survival, but a testament to the human spirit's indomitable resilience.
Strap in as we navigate the intricate dynamics that define overcoming addiction, with our guest sharing the raw, unfiltered challenges she faced while incarcerated. The presence of drugs behind bars, the temptation to cheat drug tests, and the profound realization that recovery hinges on the individual's desire for change – these are the realities that Bethany lays bare. On a lighter note, we weave through the communal tapestry of sports fandom in Pittsburgh, celebrating the Pirates and the unbreakable bond with their city. Sports, as we discover, can be both a refuge and a rallying point for identity and community.
This episode is a rollercoaster of emotions, moving from the despair of addiction to the highs of fandom, from the urgency of reform to the quirks of game day traditions. We probe into the unwavering loyalty of fans, dissect the nuanced world of sports business, and even muse on how the length of a pitcher's nails might influence their game. Join us for this compelling narrative ride, where Bethany Hallam's story is a beacon of hope, and a reminder of the shared human experiences that unite us all.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!!
www.holdmycutter.com
Have you ever witnessed a phoenix rise from the ashes? Allegheny County Council Member Bethany Hallam's life story is the embodiment of that very transformation. From the grip of heroin addiction and the shadows of homelessness, she emerged to stand in the light of public service and advocacy. Our conversation peels back the layers of her journey, revealing the critical interplay of family support, personal choice, and the oft-overlooked privilege that navigates the murky waters of our correctional system. Bethany's tale is not just one of survival, but a testament to the human spirit's indomitable resilience.
Strap in as we navigate the intricate dynamics that define overcoming addiction, with our guest sharing the raw, unfiltered challenges she faced while incarcerated. The presence of drugs behind bars, the temptation to cheat drug tests, and the profound realization that recovery hinges on the individual's desire for change – these are the realities that Bethany lays bare. On a lighter note, we weave through the communal tapestry of sports fandom in Pittsburgh, celebrating the Pirates and the unbreakable bond with their city. Sports, as we discover, can be both a refuge and a rallying point for identity and community.
This episode is a rollercoaster of emotions, moving from the despair of addiction to the highs of fandom, from the urgency of reform to the quirks of game day traditions. We probe into the unwavering loyalty of fans, dissect the nuanced world of sports business, and even muse on how the length of a pitcher's nails might influence their game. Join us for this compelling narrative ride, where Bethany Hallam's story is a beacon of hope, and a reminder of the shared human experiences that unite us all.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!!
www.holdmycutter.com
This is a fun episode of Hold my Cutter. We're talking to Allegheny County Council Member Bethany Hallam. You're wondering what the heck are we doing with Bethany Hallam? First of all, she's a friend. She's a huge Pirates fan. We're going to get into that. And we're also going to talk, of course, about our featured smoke. Now, michael and I have the old standby. We love this one, michael. It's nice and mild. It and I have the old standby. We love this one, michael, it's nice and mild. It's the Rocky Patel 1999 Connecticut. Really one of the best cigars, mild, smooth. And Bethany has the I don't know if I would say dainty, but it's the Java Drew Estate. It's got a nice.
Speaker 2:vanilla taste, very nice. It's almost like a vanilla bean smell. And this is the Bone Thugs in Harmony.
Speaker 3:East 1999.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's my childhood, so this is the Bone Thugs in Harmony.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is very cool.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having that. You know, I love those nicknames.
Speaker 1:And we love the coffee that they serve here in our pirate mugs. How do you like these mugs You're not taking?
Speaker 3:it home with you, by the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought this was like a gift. These are ours. No, no gifts. You get nothing, nothing, and you like it. Bethany, now your story is amazing. For those that don't know, she's serving her second term now, allegheny County Council Member. You've gone through North Hills High School. You get injured playing lacrosse. You get really addicted eventually to heroin. You're on the streets. You go through undergrad, duquesne, and now you're working your way through life for a couple of years, stumbling all over the place, right.
Speaker 3:How did you find your way? Staying in the backseat of a car, Again, Walmart parking lots, rest stop parking lots. There was not that many places that are safe to live in a car especially in a city center.
Speaker 1:How long were you living in your car?
Speaker 3:Oh, on and off for years. I would sometimes sneak into my parents' house. I would sometimes crash on friends' couches. I would, every once in a while, have enough money to like get an apartment with whatever guy.
Speaker 1:Why didn't you just live with your parents?
Speaker 3:Oh, my parents didn't want me there. I was not a good person to be. I had games over and over and over again. My parents would replace them. I'd sell them again. I was lying. My mom had to sleep with her purse because I would take money out of her purse at night.
Speaker 3:I mean, I just wasn't myself. I was somebody that I don't even recognize today, that I spent a lot of years working, kind of through all that stuff I put them through. It's hard for them now to look at me and not think about all that stuff I put them through.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised, frankly, that they didn't say you know what we're done with her.
Speaker 3:Thankfully they did not, because I know for a fact how important was that to your recovery. I would not be here today if it wasn't for that. So, many of the ding.
Speaker 2:You said recovery. I was like yes, ding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:It's like the mic drop, but their faith in you helped you a lot.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, a lot of the people that I work with who are on the streets today have very, very, very similar stories to mine and one of the common denominators is that they don't have any family, that they still have relationships with People gave up on them, and it's hard because I also see it from the other side a lot. I've seen my parents' experience still to this day. If you call them them in the middle of the night, they think something happened really they think they like used to for years just it's a trauma.
Speaker 2:It's a trauma and it's so deep and now, like any time.
Speaker 3:I mean, there was one time a year or so ago where I fainted at dinner with them. Okay, my blood pressure dropped real low. I fainted like my lips were purple. I was laying on the floor of a restaurant down the strip district and my parents me having, you know, at that point, six years in recovery the first thing they thought was I overdosed and I was dead. It was the first thing they thought. Knowing how good I'm doing now, knowing I haven't used heroin, but would you want it?
Speaker 2:The default to that maybe protects you too in some sense, because if they did it the other way, oh, this will never happen again and god forbid, something did, because we're all human, we all make mistakes, we all fall down bad paths. I pray that never happens to anybody, but it never leaves right. Right, yeah, and for them to care that much, love you that much, I think that's remarkable and there's a good and bad to it, because, yeah, for you you want the confidence and the love that they like.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, she's good.
Speaker 2:No problem, she probably just probably blood pressure just dropped Right. Yeah, right, but why wouldn't they think that? But I do love that they stayed by your side. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we have a better relationship now than we did even before.
Speaker 2:Cause you went through it.
Speaker 3:We went through it together. We have literally been through hell and back again. Um, when I was in Renewal Center, which is kind of like a halfway house post-incarceration program that's next to the jail they actually mandated family therapy, and so my siblings and my parents would come into Renewal Center and do family therapy with me, where we'd just talk it out. If we wouldn't have done that and we still had all those lingering resentments today, I don't know that I I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am without their support. I mean, now, I lived with them until a few years ago. They've always had my back and I'm very thankful that even my siblings I mean, I have a younger sister and a younger brother, my sister's two years younger than me, my brother's one more year younger, and remember, I put them through hell too. So we talk a lot about like parents, especially like in addiction and in situations like this.
Speaker 3:Well, a lot about like parents, especially like in addiction and in situations like this, well, the focus shifts right to you Exactly, and with my siblings it was more like they were really embarrassed. Right, they would always we were. I mean, I was in. They were in high school when I was getting high, and they would always hear stories about me being wild and doing something you know that I shouldn't have been doing, and people would always go to them like making fun of me to them, almost taking it out on them, and they went through a lot of stuff that I didn't even realize until years later, and so it had to involve them too.
Speaker 2:Shame on those people by the way?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, but you know people, a lot of people, are not able to have empathy for others unless they have been through it themselves.
Speaker 2:I live by a statement. Guys yeah, people suck, including myself, and I Best statement. Guys yeah, people suck, including myself, and I'm going to love them anyways. That's one of the things I take pride in, because everybody's going to hurt you. The person you love the most is going to hurt you the most because you care the most about them Of course.
Speaker 2:So you have to find that balance and understand hey, I'm going to give that person grace until they show me otherwise, where I know I need to walk away and they need to see what's different when I'm not there and your parents never got there. But everybody does get that and they call it rock bottom. I think that can happen at any time, any place, to anybody, depending on the circumstance of life.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that's remarkable and I love that you were out of the house. Yeah, oh, so are they. My mom more so than my dad. I think he misses me a little bit, but my mom is very, very glad that all of her kids are out of the house.
Speaker 2:You, I'm saying like doing all that you know for the siblings, you know like, oh yeah, that probably helped out a lot.
Speaker 3:And we're close enough in age that they very much knew what was going on. We had like similar friends, friend groups even, and so it was really hard for them. And again I had stolen from my brother, my sister. I was such an embarrassment to her. She was pretty shy and quiet, really well behaved, so opposite of you.
Speaker 3:The opposite of me, still to this day opposite of me, but she's brilliant and she really was the one who took the initiative, kind of like. She took on that role of the big sister. I'm the oldest, I was supposed to be the protector, I was supposed to be the responsible one and she stepped up and I think there was some resentment there for that as well, but luckily that's something that in my recovery even she has maintained. So she is still the protector of all of us and we're grateful.
Speaker 1:But what was it, though, that that got you?
Speaker 2:out. Yeah, like what was? The clip I got high was August 26th of 2016.
Speaker 3:Um it, you know, I've been in recovery seven, almost seven and a half years.
Speaker 2:Is that one time or 30 times? 30 times what you said. You would get high 30 times in a day.
Speaker 3:I did many, many bags that day. Uh, I was not planning to stop getting high that day. It was not my intention for that to be the last day that I got high. Um, if it was up to me, I would have gotten high until I died, and I didn't really care about it.
Speaker 2:Was there a light you saw? Yeah, my probation officer.
Speaker 3:Um so I was on probation. Uh, zero tolerance probation, they called it. I got drug tested every, every week.
Speaker 2:So how many times have you been in prison at this point?
Speaker 3:Jail.
Speaker 2:Jail. Sorry, I didn't, I don't know the difference.
Speaker 3:It's a very vague difference.
Speaker 3:But, County J yeah, county Jail versus State Prison, federal Prison. But I never went to State Prison, federal Prison that's. If you're doing like years, you'll go to there. So you can do a one to two, two to four. Anything more than that Month sentence or probation holds are usually done in county jails. Okay, and so that was the longest time I went to jail, august 26th. I was there for about five and a half months and it was on a probation violation. I failed a drug test, which means straight to jail, do not pass, go, do not collect $200. And you're sitting there without a date that you get out. It's not like oh, you failed a drug test, go to jail for five and a half months.
Speaker 2:So you got hit between the eyes.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and I was warned. I was definitely warned. Like your judge is very tough, you're on zero tolerance probation, because by this point, I had been arrested many, many times. I.
Speaker 2:Driving without a license for 14 years.
Speaker 3:Driving without a license, Lots of what they call prohibited acts, paraphernalia, kind of things you know needles, stamp bags, even like weed pipes.
Speaker 1:Well, what were the repercussions of all these incidents?
Speaker 3:I go to jail for a couple nights, until my dad would bail me out.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was it, and then I get probation. And then quickly go right back into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my first charge was a possession charge. I got ARD, which is like don't get in trouble for 10 years and it gets off your record. Obviously, I got in trouble within that 10 years, but I had numerous convictions all like summaries and misdemeanors until the charge that put me on probation in 2016 was I was charged with multiple felonies. I sold my prescription Suboxone to a police officer and took a plea deal to a possession charge in a driving without a license so that I wouldn't have felonies on my record. If I had felonies on my record, I couldn't serve in office today.
Speaker 3:I very likely would have been able to be a lawyer that someone paid a lot of money for.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Somebody a friend of mine at the time paid a lot of money for me to have a really good attorney.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you friend. Yeah, because that's something like you Changed my life.
Speaker 3:I call it legalese, I would have been in prison for years. I have friends in prison right now as we speak for years for way lesser offenses than what I did.
Speaker 2:And that's why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 3:I'm also a cute white girl from the suburbs. You know, family had a little bit of money, friends, family had a little bit of money, friends had money to be able to help me. Like I am the definition of what people call privilege. Like the people who say that's not a real thing, I have seen it. I've seen privilege. I've seen myself in a courtroom with worse charges than a young black man from an inner city neighborhood and I have seen how I am treated like totally different than this person, even though this is my fifth time in front of the judge.
Speaker 2:You know what erases any color, what Money and influence.
Speaker 3:I would agree that it erases a lot of color with money and influence.
Speaker 2:And that's what I just said. I get it.
Speaker 1:But get back to how you got out of it, though, and by the way when you were in prison, you couldn't do anything right Drug law.
Speaker 3:People are getting high in prison. You still do it, Especially in prison, but in jail too.
Speaker 2:I mean, we have guards getting caught almost semi-regularly Easy to do and it's criminal, Brownie. It's criminal Brownie, and you can talk to us more. But what those police officers get paid, the people that are guarding the corrections officers. The corrections officers they get paid nothing.
Speaker 3:Treated like crap, forced double overtime, working 80 hours a week. I mean, I will say that because they work so much overtime. Often they are the highest paid county employees year after year, but they are being forced to work no families.
Speaker 2:You can't have a life when you're having that job. Once again, how many hours? 80. Oh, at least, yeah, when you learn about that it's like wow. And then they're still scrapping.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:You know so this. So so back to the. Yeah, so I uh, august 26 I failed a drug test. Um, I had been cheating my drug test every single week. Wait for eight months? Uh, fake, not fake p someone else's p I'm well aware of how drug tests go.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and they watched me p. It has to leave my body. But how did you? How did you beat it? Travel shampoo bottle how did you beat it? Travel shampoo bottle? How did you?
Speaker 3:get the travel shampoo bottle in there.
Speaker 2:How did I get it inside of me?
Speaker 1:No, like how would that? That wouldn't even be possible.
Speaker 2:Well, apparently it is Like how is that possible? Like that's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I cheated my drug test, I brought pee, I made it look like it was me that was peeing into the cup, while my probation officer was observing me. And I mean, I had a system right. When you are getting high, you will do anything to keep getting high. You will do anything to stay out of jail.
Speaker 2:You will do anything to have money, plastic cup or actual glass.
Speaker 1:Plastic travel shampoo bottle no, no, no.
Speaker 3:I'm going to say what you peed in. Yeah, Plastic plastic.
Speaker 2:That's the sad part about where we're at. In our country it's untampered proof for baseball, ncaa and everything else, but not in the prisons.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a different. We'll get down, I know, but that's going to say no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:But the whole Ryan Braun thing was based off tampering with that. That's why I asked, because if it's plastic, the guard could do it. She could do it after the fact they break. There's so many ways to beat the system without plastic, so I think it's fun. That's why I asked. I didn't expect a shampoo bottle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Right, but like.
Speaker 2:Ryan Braun. Every game I've ever been to. There's a reason why he got booed. Yeah, absolutely yeah. So anyways, off off topic, I just was wondering again.
Speaker 1:You're there. Whatever it was took me um failed.
Speaker 3:A drug test was like I could ask for a retest because I knew that the p that I had in me was gonna fail.
Speaker 3:It definitely failed right and so, uh, somehow the p that I brought that was supposed to be negative for drugs, failed a drug test I think maybe some of my own pee dripped in it, that's the only thing I can think of Took me straight to jail and I sat there and it was the first time I was ever in there that I wasn't about to like get a bond, to get bonded out. I wasn't about to like be told oh hey, sit here for a night or two, or okay, because you knew this one was the real deal.
Speaker 3:I knew what it meant when you violated probation. I had known enough about probation and about this, as I've known enough people through it at this point and a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 3:So people talk a lot about cash bail right as being like why everybody's in jail. That's not really the truth. The overwhelming majority of the people sitting in the Allegheny County jail right now first of all, 95% of them have not been convicted of a crime. They are sitting there awaiting being convicted of a crime. Overwhelmingly, they're sitting in there on probation detainers. It's not like they're charged with murder and that's why they're being detained, because they're foreseen as a danger to society.
Speaker 3:A lot of times again, I'm on probation for stealing some food from Giant Eagle. I get caught again, Even though I would never go to jail for stealing food from giant Eagle. Now that I was on probation when I got caught. Again I'm sitting in jail at the mercy of your probation officer, the mercy of your judge. That's what people are sitting in jail for. That's what our jails are overcrowded with. That's what we're spending a hundred dollars per person per day to incarcerate people for, not dangerous people. So I went to jail knowing that that's what I was about to be, Somebody who was just going to sit and sit and sit, not waiting for a trial Because I didn't have new charges. I was just waiting for them to say you suffered long enough, you learned your lesson, Get out of jail.
Speaker 1:How quickly did you learn your lesson? Then You're in there.
Speaker 3:See, that's the thing. I don't really know when was that moment that I was, like you said, august 16th 2016.
Speaker 2:I think that's what you said, like why that date? August 26th, 26th, why that date? When did you get out?
Speaker 3:That's the date I got taken to jail. I got high on August 26th and never got high again.
Speaker 2:Where, in the middle of that five months, did you say, man, I got to clean it up?
Speaker 3:I don't really know. I think it was a progression, right, it was so for the first two months. I'm sick, right, I'm sick Ill. I mean hives all over my body because it's just filthy. You're detoxing. I'm detoxing heavy from 10 years of using opioids every single day. Right, it was something that I had never experienced. I mean, I had been to rehab before maybe 30 days or something and like mostly got high in rehab.
Speaker 1:Why didn't you want to get something again, though Got high in rehab. Why?
Speaker 2:didn't you want to get get? Did you hear that? By the way, again, though, what got high in rehab?
Speaker 3:oh, I got high in rehab was it your choice to go?
Speaker 2:no, so every, every psychologist, everybody I've ever talked to, if it's not their choice, it never works. Yeah, and that's true. That's amazing and um.
Speaker 3:I've noticed a lot when you see people who are in rehabs, where you have like half the people want to be there and half the people are court ordered to be there, it's really detrimental to the people who are not court ordered to be there, who are really trying. Because I've been to rehab a bunch of times and I never wanted to be there ever. I didn't want to stop getting high. I did not care about my family, I did not care about my friends. I did not care about my health or my wellbeing or my freedom or my life. I didn't care about that. I cared about not being sick. I cared about getting high. It wasn't even like it was fun, like at that point you're not getting having fun.
Speaker 2:And there are a certain point, if I understand and I know a lot about this because I've dealt with people, I've had really people close to me but like, and there are a point where you're just blacked out almost in the sense of like you are doing things almost subconsciously on a daily basis to do the same thing over and over and over. There's a, there's a, there's a term for it, but yeah, like you don't see anybody, because it's not that you didn't love your parents or your siblings.
Speaker 3:I love them more than anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't see anything because that is your survival and you know no other way. But how do you get out of that? How did, how did you get past that?
Speaker 3:It was really a combination. So a lot of people will say that because the last day I got high was the last day I went to jail, that I stopped getting high because of jail and then my recovery is because of the time of it. But I know many people that go to jail for years and years and years and they get out and they start using again and often they die because now their tolerance is lower than it was when they went.
Speaker 1:But you could have used in jail if you wanted to, but she did. I could have used every single day. I didn't use in jail.
Speaker 3:I used in rehab, but I was offered many, many, many, many times drugs in jail. That's the thing. But how did you say no?
Speaker 1:It's hard for me to understand what it was that this time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Especially when you're in prison. Was there? There had to be a moment deep in your soul that, like said, I can't this is it Can't do it anymore. I can't. There had to be like when you're up at night sweating.
Speaker 3:I definitely think that happened. Yeah, when you're up at night, sick.
Speaker 3:I mean, really, you're like, you know you're shitting on yourself, You're throwing up on yourself, but then they bring you the goodies and you say, no, yeah, I want to know how that happens. That's what I think, greg, you're asking too. I do not know. Nobody's ever asked me that before. I don't know. I really don't know what it was that made me turn that down, because it was very early on. I mean, even in intake I was offered drugs when they take you upstairs to the pot, now intake is the worst part of jail.
Speaker 3:That makes it even crazier. Everyone's detoxing. I mean not everyone, most people are detoxing. You're literally wrapping your arms and legs in toilet paper to stay warm because there's no blankets. There's 20 of us in a little cell smaller than this area right here and we're all going through it Toilet in the middle of the room.
Speaker 1:Do you think that helped seeing it all? I'd seen that before, though, and I got right out and I went right back to it. Yeah, but you knew you were getting out sooner though, Bethany.
Speaker 3:I do think that the one difference about this time was that I didn't know it was.
Speaker 1:You didn't see an end game unless you got clean. It could have been the next day.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:It could have been the next day. That often happens. It could have been two years, Not this time violating the probate.
Speaker 3:You knew it wasn't going to be the next day. And people do that and people get out.
Speaker 1:But you knew. You just said you knew you weren't going to get out in a couple days.
Speaker 3:I knew that I was screwed. I knew that I had no idea when I was going to get out. And that again was the first time that I ever didn't know and I think the uncertainty of it all was kind of terrified.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right and so, but, like, despite all that, despite the trauma that comes along with that, I didn't want to get high. It was more the opposite to me. It was like, oh, this sucks, but again, I had been to jail before and it did not have that same impact to me. I had been in jail with people who just just not just the removal from my situation, which I had never done for that extended period of a time before, um, but the stuff that I saw in there, the experiences that I experienced, like, if anything, it was almost like I want to get high to not feel this, to not think about it.
Speaker 1:That's what's so confusing but it's, I think a lot of it is the support right, I had people calling me every single day oh, you still have people interested in you Like that I could call putting money on my books every single day People who were interested in me.
Speaker 3:I had friends who would like come from out of town to visit me while I was in jail, who hadn't talked to me for years because I was stealing from them and I was lying to them, and I was, you know, hated me for a long time because of what I did to her.
Speaker 3:Come into a jail my prim proper sister, you know, coming into jail. Like being told she couldn't wear what she was wearing because she didn't know she wasn't allowed to show her shoulders and didn't know she wasn't allowed to wear like a solid red, because that's what color the incarcerated people wear. Like having to go through that for me. Um, that's, that's the answer I think that's the big thing and that's the reason.
Speaker 3:You know, when we talk about recovery and like addiction and stuff, I don't work a 12 step program, right? Yeah, I don't hide that. I don't work a 12 step narcotics, anonymous alcoholics, anonymous program. I tried it, been to hundreds and hundreds of meetings. It's just not for me but a lot of people it's. It works for them. It's order. Because it's that order, because it's that support network that a lot of people do not have. Naturally, that's a really good point. You know my mentor, who now serves on county council with me, which is so ironic. But my mentor, I met him when I was on house arrest, bartending at a local bar restaurant.
Speaker 2:So an addict on house arrest bartending.
Speaker 3:Addict on house arrest, bartending, strung out, actively using heroin every day, using heroin like in the bathroom at my job, and he and his buddies were just like cheap and would come in for $2 Tuesdays, right, and he would talk to me like a human being. And that was all he did was talk to me like a human being. Meanwhile I have sores all over my face. I'm 110 pounds, soaking wet. I mean I do not look like I am well, I have a very visible ankle bracelet on and he treated me really well. So that guy who didn't really know or at least verbalize what I was going through at the time when I was in jail, he would write me letters every other day about just gossip, you know like what's going on in the community, so that it was like not even having much to say, just like showing me that like I care about you and I'm thinking about you.
Speaker 3:And like I want you to feel that somebody's there for you and having that kind of stuff all these people, including your sister and others and friends, you're going.
Speaker 1:You have to be thinking yourself. You know what. It's time not to let them down anymore.
Speaker 3:They're showing me support.
Speaker 2:I think that's a major part of it, but the fact that they kept seeing her as bethany yeah, not beth, because you were probably probably Beth to them a lot in those moments.
Speaker 3:Yeah, blackout Beth, especially for a long time.
Speaker 2:We talk about that all the time. Politicals thoughts aside, whatever you believe, if you look at somebody and you see them as a human being and you allow them to speak, you let them work through whatever they're going through, it always means something, always. I think that's what if you didn't, didn't have an answer, you just answered. The question that we've been asking is it was the support, it was the love that you did not deserve I did not that you got, that opened up your eyes and maybe distracted you, maybe put you in a path that you saw a little piece of light that you kept walking towards, because you know, I always say the greatest light comes from the darkest moments and I was a dark brown.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're a dark place, but where are you going to see light? You're in prison. Everybody's, everybody's dark, but these people keep bringing in. It's like light, light, Everybody's dark but these people keep bringing in.
Speaker 3:It's like light, light, light. That's what I always say. I didn't deserve I think that's very important.
Speaker 2:It's a good Samaritan story in the Bible, which I love, that the preacher walks by all the people that should have stopped to help someone walk by, but the good Samaritan stops and that's the representation that we should have on a daily basis. I love the person, loves him. It doesn't matter if you believe in it. Whatever, you do the best you can. If they really harm you, you try to forgive and move forward in your own way. But the fact you had that many people, you had a village.
Speaker 3:I had a village that so many people don't have and that's why I try to be that village for the people that I work with today because I realize that that's what's missing.
Speaker 3:Like I can't fathom today. Like if something bad happened to me today I have a million places that I could go, a million people who would help me, and so many people don't, and so many people don't have a single person they can call, a single place that they can go. You know, it's devastating to me and it's because we, as this society, are so. You know, we're fighting over things that don't matter, instead of realizing how much more you know we all have in common and, if we support each other, how much better we all are Right. Like I have a lot of folks that work, you know, not just with people in the jail, but also with folks who are unhoused on the streets, who are living in shelters, and they always tell me how it's not even just that we give them food, we give them supplies, we give them coats, we give them cigarettes. It's not even that, it's the fact that we talk to them.
Speaker 2:Like I will say I think you can take all the other things away by by supporting them, mentoring them look them in the eyes and talk to them it, you don't even need the other stuff.
Speaker 3:The other stuff is you do need the other stuff. I'm saying in a sense, get out of it.
Speaker 2:I'm saying maybe that's where you find the bond, maybe whatever, of asking for anything back and that and you kind of help them find their responsibility, help them find their ownership, help them find their identity. I think that's remarkable. I have a huge passion with all this stuff because it's not just in drugs right, it's everywhere, it's social media, it's pornography.
Speaker 2:People have addictions to everything. It's those things get overlooked all the time, all the time. And I've seen so many kids. I've worked with a kid that was cutting himself, had no clue because of what was going on in his household, yeah, and he had no idea. And it's sad I mean it really is, because it's that same blackout.
Speaker 3:And so many people do not feel comfortable talking about those things because it's so stigmatized. I mean, I remember all the times I went to rehab, all the time I went to jail, my mom especially.
Speaker 2:Stigmatize and politicize.
Speaker 3:And politicize absolutely All the times I went to jail, right, this was like early, like, let's say, 2006, 2007, to like maybe 2012, 2013. All right, and my mom, who was so close to their siblings, would tell my aunts that I was like at sleepaway camp, or you know that I was like away, like on vacation of some sort, I would never say I was in jail. I would never say I was in rehab Because they were embarrassed.
Speaker 3:Because they were embarrassed and it's so stigmatized. I have friends who have died right. That's the hardest part about being in recovery is what it means, but that didn't change you. Oh, it changed me.
Speaker 3:But I'm saying that didn't make you clean no, no, no think about that, though, like it was kind of like, while I was using it was a lot of like uh, this is what happens that can happen what we kind of knew happened when we knew that was it right. Oh always, I always knew that was the end right. You just never like think it's gonna happen. It's just kind of like if it does right. But then since I've been in recovery, I think I actually have lost more friends since I've been in recovery than when I was using.
Speaker 2:I bet it's because you notice.
Speaker 3:And it's because, especially because I notice, and that's really hard because I feel like I got out and I left them behind. I didn't like kind of drag them along with me and let them experience this. You know, I have some friends who also got out and are able to experience all the awesome things. One of my best friends just had a kid, you know, last week. That's wild. I have friends buying houses and getting jobs and getting married and doing all these things, you know, getting this big promotion at work, finishing school things that none of us ever, ever, ever, ever, ever thought that we would be able to do. And I think about the people who aren't here anymore, who never get to do that, who never like. How many people I know who I've revived them personally of an overdose and now they're having their third kid. Or I know I've seen them, like you know, begging for drugs on the side of the road and then now they just like finished law school and it's like to see things like that and to think of the people who don't get to do that.
Speaker 3:That is so hard. That is the hardest, heaviest part about my whole experience. It's not how mean people are to me. Like you know politics. It's not like even all the myths, like I wasted 10 years of my life getting high. You know, where could I be now if I had 10 more years towards what I'm doing now, but it's like I'm. I would have really loved to see what they could do, you know, and what their milestones were, that we'd be celebrating together, what their experiences were. That I can't even imagine. Instead, I'm looking at pictures of them. You know I'm like photo bucket from like the early 2000s, because they haven't been around since then and that's been hard.
Speaker 2:You know the baseball assistance team oh, it's that, uh, that in spring training they come in, and why it's so important for you to get that story out there. Every year, the major league club house, they bring in baseball assistance team and they bring someone that they have impacted through what we give and the power and when they brought in a family of someone that that ended up passing away and they took care of this family and you know where that money's going. You know what's happening. It changes everything.
Speaker 2:So, like their story, you bringing them to life, but being able to tell people there is hope, there is there's a chance and that's the problem I think in our society is we focus so much on the bad. We don't focus on where it could go, like this could resurrect you to a place you don't understand because, look, I did it, they did it, there's hope here. Watch, learn and grow for me, and people like you mentor those people. So that's the coolest part is don't ever shy away from it. I love that you're not, cause I've seen so many bad things with people.
Speaker 1:The vulnerability?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the vulnerability but, like the vulnerability we've talked about, that it's so important and transparent.
Speaker 1:But one thing that's that unites us all is sports.
Speaker 3:Yes, oh, we love sports.
Speaker 1:And so one of the reasons we want to talk to Bethany is her story is incredible, but the fact, of course you're a Yenzer, but you're a huge sports fan, do you remember?
Speaker 3:Especially the Pirates.
Speaker 1:My number one, of course.
Speaker 3:That's definitely why you're here the first time I met Greg Brown, I was like drooling and I was so nervous and you can understand that right and I see I walk in and Forge just sits in here. You're like he just comes through and I watched you on the TV in MPNC Park growing up, I mean it's the voice of the Pirates and he's the fourth.
Speaker 1:But look, that's what I said in between you two.
Speaker 2:He's kind of become one of like he calls a legend in this town, a Yoda of sorts, and he's become one of my Yodas and that's what's so cool. So when you say that even as a player he stood out yeah, rock stood out, walks stood out, and that wasn't normal everywhere else I play for a lot of teams, so it's funny you say that because he is a legend to me always call you the legend.
Speaker 1:Very nice, but what is your first memory of the pirates? See anything come to mind, your first game.
Speaker 3:My first game was in three river stadium. The pirates played the a's. It was probably 1990, it was probably 1997.
Speaker 1:You're the first show. My dad took me. Oh wow, yeah, your dad took you to the first game.
Speaker 2:When did Interleague come in? 96? It was right around then.
Speaker 1:Boy, it might have been 96.
Speaker 2:95 or 96, I'm pretty sure, maybe 95.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was probably eight, nine years old and I had never been to a sporting event like that before Really. Yeah, it was not just my first Pirates game.
Speaker 2:It was my first ever sporting, yeah, so nobody in my family was really big into sports, you know.
Speaker 3:And so, like my dad, played sports growing up was a really good athlete.
Speaker 1:Was he from around here, by the way?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he my parents are both from the North side, which is you know where I live now, and, um, yeah, and so it was like it was just me and my dad. You know, I had two younger siblings daddy's girl, daddy's girl, yeah, I'm like the firstborn. We are very, very close.
Speaker 3:Uh, I am unfortunately a lot like my dad and a lot like his mom and um, yeah, I just remember I'd never been around even that many people before and it just changed my whole perspective on everything and from then I was hooked and it was always the Pirates first. And when I was young, I mean, you could go to Pirate games for like free. You know, that was like, I mean even truly when I was young, when I was in like undergrad or in even high school, you can even go to Steelers games for almost free you know, back before the Stiller's started winning.
Speaker 2:Superbowl.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they kind of suck but uh, but um, yeah, the Pirates have kind of always sucked most of my life, and so but you fell in love with them. I couldn't help it.
Speaker 3:It was, like you know, rooting for the underdog and a team that was like I saw. It was like my, my city, my team, and I love baseball and I grew up watching the game on TV and listening to it on the radio and so over the years I have tried to kind of figure out my mix of that, but that was how I was first introduced to it.
Speaker 1:See, I love that, bethany, because I've said this for a long time Fort, you agree with this. I don't understand, I can't comprehend someone giving up on his or her team based on the win-loss record oh never. You love the team regardless. So I hear people say stuff about the Pirates and go. Well, that makes no sense.
Speaker 3:Well, you know most of my conscious life, the Pirates have been a losing team.
Speaker 3:Most of his career I was going to say most of your career, but I always say this so like I don't know, and especially when you live in a city like Pittsburgh, where the Penguins again, if you're my age which you're around the same age as me, but when you're my age you're mostly conscious I don't want to say adult life, but teenager enough has been. The Pens have been winning Stanley Cups, the Steelers have been winning Super Bowls and I've never seen a Pirates.
Speaker 2:I have a hat. I almost wore it today.
Speaker 1:It says City of champions, right, I understand that.
Speaker 2:But the.
Speaker 1:Pirates and the Steelers won the championship.
Speaker 2:But that never changed. We're still the Steel City. That's what I love about the city.
Speaker 1:I don't believe that you support the team based. You shouldn't. That's just my opinion. Based on wins and losses.
Speaker 3:Was that the Quato game 2013?
Speaker 1:2013 was the Play-Doh game.
Speaker 3:That was the first year that in my memory that I remember a good Pirates team.
Speaker 2:We were good in 12. We just fell off. Let's go. I'm not saying, I mean, I'm just saying no, no, I get it, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3:Anyways, I liked when you played. But, I mean.
Speaker 1:Well, he helped lead the way. Yeah, that's what I mean, but that's what really matters.
Speaker 3:But that's the first year, like the first season, that I remember being like thinking this could be our year, right? I remember that was the first time that I really was like, oh, this is different this year and it was a different experience, right. And then, when it happened, what was that? 2014? And we get to the wild card 2013, 2014, 2015. Yeah, and so, when it happened and remember, remember I missed a lot of pirates baseball due to heroin right.
Speaker 1:So I always have to like give that's like x those years, yeah I like.
Speaker 3:But that was kind of my peak years too, and it was like having something to look forward to that I had loved since I was a kid was kind of that. One thing that really tied it in for me was I still have this, I still have the pirates. You know, I still um.
Speaker 1:Jason kendall was always my number I was just gonna ask you that, was he your?
Speaker 2:favorite he's somebody I can't wait to meet.
Speaker 3:I've never met him I've never met him either, no kidding, oh, we're gonna have that.
Speaker 2:I use the one pirate I knew as a kid too, that was my like number one um my, but I was also a big ichiro suzuki fan, which is weird and I think it was because the on my video game that was who I always was. I was always the Mariners, yeah, and you played for the.
Speaker 3:Mariners.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that was like another one of my big players growing up, even though non-Pirates.
Speaker 1:That's all right. He's a great player. Yeah, is there a moment that stands out at a game, something that happened, you just remember?
Speaker 3:Oh, we talked about it before we went on air. Well, let's Anything. In the whole entire my history of remembering Pirates baseball, I remember Jug Ho Gong when he was wheeled out in his wheelchair for the blackout game. Was it Wild Card Game?
Speaker 1:That was 14, right 14.
Speaker 3:And he gets wheeled out in his wheelchair and the whole stadium is wearing the blackout shirts. And yeah, his whole team's, you know like with him and people are going wild, yeah and yeah. That is like definitely my most memorable.
Speaker 1:That is cool.
Speaker 2:Moment of and yeah, that is like definitely my most memorable, that is cool moment of the night it's wild my most memorable moment's not my, it's not yours, not my, not my home run when I got to walk out and the same thing happened in 13 tears are going on my eyes because I just started walking that day was 12 when you got hurt.
Speaker 1:13 you got hurt and you came back in 13 too. Oh so he gets hurt, I get hurt late in the season ending tours, yeah, and when I went, out.
Speaker 2:I just started walking that week. They were scared I was gonna run with adrenaline. I walked out so it was really slow and I dapped everybody all the way down the line and they kept going and kept going and tears were running down my eyes like crazy. And it wasn't. I was already in love with the city, but that was the moment is like this is home. Yeah, this is another home.
Speaker 2:And clemente says something I think is great this is my other home and that's what I felt. And all of a sudden I'm living here. So like similar moment, because what that meant to me in the world, I don't know what it meant to jung ho, but for me it all this stuff I was doing that nobody will ever know about they, they will never see. I'll never talk about it behind the scenes. It came to light there, so much for me, and I was like I felt more than I'd ever felt of, like I want to be better, I want to stay in this. And then when the call came it's one of the reasons I came back- Well, it's so cool because Pittsburgh, I think, at times gets a bad rap.
Speaker 1:Pittsburgh I keep saying this, bethany and Michael Pittsburgh is as good a baseball town as any in the country.
Speaker 1:It should be so appealing and Pittsburgh's a winner's town. Sure, just like every city. I spent five years in Buffalo. I did Buffalo Bills football games. I promise you they are as passionate about their Buffalo Bills as they are about the Steelers. But when they win the same thing, when the Steelers win the Penguins. I'm old enough to remember before Lemieux BL, before Lemieux came, I could go to a Penguin game at the old Mellon Arena, sit at center ice with two empty seats on either side, one for my coat, winter coat, one for the beer in my hand, and I had it all to myself. Right center ice there was nobody there. Nobody played hockey around here. Then Lemieux arrives and it changes everything. They start winning behind him and his story, and then he hands the baton off to Sidney Crosby and so winning cures all ills.
Speaker 3:We don't have franchise players like that for the, and I was about to say that Andrew McCutcheon is not a franchise player. Andrew McCutcheon left for five years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a franchise player.
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't know if I think that you can leave.
Speaker 1:He didn't leave on his own accord.
Speaker 3:I don't think that that matters.
Speaker 2:I think that's what she's stating. It's like wow, we don't have a Mario.
Speaker 3:Lemieux, we don't have a Cindy Crosby. You can't. I love Andrew McCut. I think it's awesome that he came back, but I don't think you can say it's a good thing, like Lemieux's a Derek Jeter, oh, I do it's not Ben Roethlisberger.
Speaker 2:Ben Roethlisberger, they never left.
Speaker 1:But neither could. He didn't leave on his own accord. He was traded Right, right, right, and then, when he had a chance, but that's what she's saying.
Speaker 3:It's like do we want this guy, well, to have the face?
Speaker 1:and I do think him coming back. I think that he is a great face.
Speaker 3:Continuously, yeah, and you can't blame him, for you can't blame him for leaving because, again, well, he didn't leave on his own, but also he would have never left, ps right.
Speaker 2:So that's right. But like bednar's, the guy I say now is like he. He's the next guy from here. The roots are deep.
Speaker 3:I used to be so pissed at Neil Walker for that. I was like how could you leave?
Speaker 2:us Once again, not on his own, he didn't necessarily want to leave. Yeah, not on his own authority.
Speaker 3:Well, I think he was happy afterwards.
Speaker 2:But that's the difference of football.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I see that I have a big disagreement with people on that too. By the way, the franchise, but that is so rare in sports.
Speaker 3:Now, but it is, it is, it is. I completely agree. You're comparing to franchise players such as Marlon. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying but he brought it up again, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying that it is rare. You're right about Crosby. You're right about Lemieux and Roethlisberger. But instances, and we had, doesn't yarmir yager left? Yeah, uh, I asked people about the steelers. They talk about they, oh they, they don't stay, they leave all the time. Who was the featured running back of the steelers three years ago, six years ago, ten years ago?
Speaker 2:it always changed different receivers always leaving linemen, and you know what changes everything. Your favorite thing winning winning, of course, and if we were winning and investment in the team. No, no, no, I disagree.
Speaker 3:I think that we trade players for cash. That's not true, though that's factually not true.
Speaker 1:That is factually not true.
Speaker 3:We trade players for cash, and we do not invest in us and our team and we don't make it a big market, but just so you know, because you're a politician, you like you speak the truth. Yes.
Speaker 1:You're a big truth teller.
Speaker 3:We don't trade players for cash.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not.
Speaker 3:Cash in a 2026 draft pick.
Speaker 2:No, we can't do that in baseball.
Speaker 1:No, no, no.
Speaker 2:International pool money.
Speaker 1:maybe there's definitely a budget that is placed on the team and every team in baseball has a. The ownership puts a budget on every team. But not a cap. There's no cap, correct, we need a floor.
Speaker 3:And a floor. I agree with this.
Speaker 2:There's no cap until there's a floor.
Speaker 3:I think you should do them both together. Why?
Speaker 2:would you penalize LA for making so much money and doing so many good things, hiring so many people? Same thing with New York. If they can handle it, they can do it. They can spend it. It's the only way you're going to have a ceiling, a floor?
Speaker 1:Yes, you have to have them both together.
Speaker 2:The only way to whatever happens. Yeah, that's what we said I think you could compromise, but it has to start from here first, because they spend so much money here. If they're willing to spend $50 to $150 million in a share of revenue to this team until there's a floor there, why would they change and why would they change?
Speaker 3:I agree. I don't disagree with that at all. But I'm asking do you think that if we had both those things that it would increase our chances of the pirates it?
Speaker 1:increases, bethany. But but it does. It's not the cure all, and and, and you can cite examples- before this year the Detroit lions. Ask a Detroit lions football fan what good the cap has done. What good the cap has done? I grew up a Chicago Bears fan. Ask me. The Bears stunk. I spent time with the Bills. The Bills until recently were terrible. The Cleveland Browns what good did that do them? You can cite examples of hockey teams the Toronto Maple Leafs what good has that cap done? I mean?
Speaker 3:But again, where did the Lions make it to this season?
Speaker 1:Where have the Bills been the past few seasons? It did finally, finally, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 3:When is it happening for us In my entire life? We have not made it to the World Series A.
Speaker 1:Detroit Lion fan has never seen the Super Bowl Never. So you're right. But it goes back to the point. You don't just abandon your team.
Speaker 3:You have hope.
Speaker 1:every year you have to have hope in 2020. Year you have to have hope.
Speaker 3:I love to also have the empty seats around me.
Speaker 1:COVID was great for that. I love COVID. When they did the few seats, I actually had a season ticket package during that season because, I loved it so much.
Speaker 3:I was catching foul balls left and right because nobody was there. It's such a blast. We were wearing masks outside like idiots.
Speaker 1:PNC Park is beautiful anytime, even when it's empty, but it's most beautiful on a summer night when it's packed.
Speaker 3:Amen, there's nothing prettier.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 3:Or dollar dog night? Well, that's true. And the fireworks Sometimes they're one of the same, the fireworks with the backdrops. I'm going to pay $75 for a ticket.
Speaker 1:Then I pay $6 for for, by the way, do you have a favorite spot at PNC Park or everywhere, yeah, 131. And tell me about that, because I should know exactly what's up.
Speaker 3:Oh, third baseline, I like third baseline, like not right behind the dugout up a little bit.
Speaker 1:So it's where the price changes at 131. Bottom level. That's where the price is Bottom level yeah, what about the second level? Above the plate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've done that before oh man, I didn't see that Well what about you, brownie, like I mean, you're obviously in the, I mean I liked them.
Speaker 1:All the views, I think, are so cool. That's the other thing too about PNC park Everywhere you always changes as the weather the spring the skyline as the sun sets at different angles. Lower bowl upper. I mean it's just, I always wanted to get married in PNC.
Speaker 3:Park.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, like Kanye, yeah Kanye.
Speaker 3:Kanye got married in PNC Park.
Speaker 2:Oh, I remember that he got engaged at To Kim right. No, at LA he rented out the stadium.
Speaker 3:No to Kim. Isn't that where he got?
Speaker 2:engaged. He rented out the stadium. I don't even know if she liked baseball. Yeah, that was like my dream. I was like he just rented out the stadium he proposed to her at a Pirates game. Oh, that'd be sweet. Get married and go on the field.
Speaker 3:I did once that they do that. What do they call it? The beer fest that they do there? The world something?
Speaker 2:They do like a beer fest, wine fest.
Speaker 3:Wine? Yeah, I think they still do it.
Speaker 1:I just don't give a shit. That's sort of the team's away or something. I like coffee.
Speaker 3:You know what I did this past year.
Speaker 1:Oh, you like this coffee. Yeah, this coffee. My coffee's empty, do you know?
Speaker 3:what Coffee, please. Do you know what I did this year? I did the golfing at PNC Park.
Speaker 2:Did you like it?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, so was I. I can't hit that far, but the goal is like that's how you it tells you when you get to each station, because they're all throughout the stadium, in all different places, like all different sections, and you're trying to hit, there's a bunch of like kidney bean shape around them and you, you get certain points. If you get it in the kidney bean and you get more points, you get in the hole. It was impossible, it was so hard and I'm like I'm not a good golfer.
Speaker 3:I just because they're so high right you're yeah, but there was also, like you, there were ones where you weren't that high. There were one where you were in the lower level, like the first floor. There were ones. Yeah, then when you were up top, the view was beautiful. Yeah, I bet, like hitting it from like the club section. Oh, it was so cool, but I had never done anything like that before.
Speaker 1:I really liked that. But you're. You say you're not a good golfer, but you probably don't golf much. Oh, politicians, I invite you to golf outings all the time, so you do go a lot.
Speaker 3:No, I don't go a lot, but I more than the regular person does, but more than your average person. I like to do scrambles where there's four of us.
Speaker 1:You know, you just take the furthest ball.
Speaker 2:It's a party, it's a team game. Yeah, you know, I just learned the other day that you can play one person Scramble. Jack Wilson told me that you hit two balls. You play your best ball.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never thought about that even your just lose two balls. Yeah, exactly that's what I mean. Yeah, so I played my third ball, then I dropped, right there, I think golfing is so much fun I think it is a fun day.
Speaker 3:It is expensive, but in scrambles it's a fundraiser right like political scramble. So you're donating. It's like 400 bucks for a foursome, 100 bucks to spend a whole day. They usually include food and drinks and you're just having fun. It's the fellowship that always exactly because good at golf and you only need one good golfer in your team, that's true, to be a fun guy, that's right. Everyone else can be jagging around. I just don't want everybody to be serious.
Speaker 2:That's when it's unfun. Oh, people know. If I'm on their team, this is not going to be serious, Like we're going to have fun.
Speaker 1:The team matters I tell people you got your 0 for 3. I said first of all I stink and gulp, I'm not really a celebrity and I got no jokes, nothing to tell.
Speaker 3:So sorry, you invited me for my good luck.
Speaker 1:Boy, no fun for you. What is your? I think we talked about this off the air too, but what is your pet peeve about? Maybe sports, or just in general about people? Do you have one pet peeve About people? You got a lot of those.
Speaker 3:I was going to say you've got to say about sports, or about the Pirates or about what?
Speaker 1:No, no, do you have a pet peeve about sports you mentioned? You don't like, apparently, going when there's a big crowd because you want to have empty seats. Yeah, I want to spread out and I want people to not be yelling annoying.
Speaker 3:Remember once I went to go see the Stillers play.
Speaker 2:Cheering at the wrong time. I've never heard that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know what I mean. Like be quiet whenever somebody's trying to focus. It's like football Whenever you're on offense, you want everybody to shut up. It's like when the Pirates are on the field pitching.
Speaker 1:I don't like.
Speaker 3:Right be quiet so they can communicate.
Speaker 1:You can go looking for a strikeout and just the din of the stadium is cool.
Speaker 3:Exactly Cheer in their walk-up, cheer after they hit. I do not like that when I know that the players are trying to communicate on the field and are trying to concentrate Again. When I went to New Orleans once, the Stillers played in what do you call that dome? The Mercedes-Benz.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is now. Yeah, the Superdome right, oh, that New Orleans Superdome.
Speaker 3:They still call that yeah and so every time the Steelers were on offense, the Saints fans would pound on the dome, and it was so loud you couldn't hear the person.
Speaker 2:You couldn't hear In domes, it's so loud.
Speaker 3:Sports fans, when they do that to themselves, when they do that to their own team. Like your own team is on offense, your own team is pitching right now. Like shut up, Shut up.
Speaker 2:The good news is Pitchcom, especially the defensive side, has changed the whole game. So what's funny? You said that. Oh, I really like it.
Speaker 1:I really like it Because our director of our TV games did some games. Tyler Graham, who directs hockey games, he what he wants baseball fans to do at PNC Park when the opposing pitcher is trying to listen for the signs you know. Yes, the play should go crazy loud.
Speaker 3:That's what I mean In PNC Park. They'd be doing it when we were pitching.
Speaker 1:But the Pirates are pitching.
Speaker 3:It should be quiet, so you can hear all this stuff, but see, that's what a baseball fan knows to do all right True.
Speaker 2:So when you see somebody there who's cheering at the opposite time, I'm gonna that's okay, that's a pet peeve, yeah that is, to reiterate how powerful. The fans are one cueto two. Yeah, if you go back to uh um trey turner, last year a guy started a movement on his podcast to stand up and support this guy stood up, he had 360, he was terrible two and a half and they made a playoff run and they got in the playoffs, almost made it to the World Series.
Speaker 2:Once again, the power of fans is a game changer and that's why winning here or even being prepared to win in the team. They believe so wholeheartedly in the team and I think going into this year with some things that possibly could happen before spring training, there should be a lot of belief and hopefully we see that.
Speaker 3:I actually like I experience a lot. I'm a Pitt football season ticket holder, which you know.
Speaker 2:If you go to Pitt football games. They're fine. I didn't know you were a fan. Oh, yeah, yeah. So just you know.
Speaker 3:I always have Pittsburgh stuff on that's just me always I can't help myself, but so, Um but. So the students leave, right, so they started incentivizing them to stay later in the game. But like people don't show up in it or they sell their you're a season ticket holder. You sell your tickets to opposing fans. That's another pet peeve.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 3:You are a. You don't even have to be a season ticket holder, Just like you buy tickets as a Pittsburgher and you sell them to away team fans. That is also a big pet peeve of mine, especially because, like, give them to a Pittsburgh fan who's going to go and cheer for them. So a Pitt. I hate when they leave early. I feel like if you're going to the game, commit Somebody told me that some sport and you I think only Greg's old enough to remember this.
Speaker 1:Whoa whoa, he's only 42. It doesn't hurt.
Speaker 3:It's wisdom.
Speaker 1:I've earned it. I like it.
Speaker 3:Take it on. You could go in for free at a certain point in the game. Was it the Pirates or the Steelers, I think back at Three River Stadium.
Speaker 1:It was Three.
Speaker 3:River Stadium, I think the seventh inning, maybe back Now.
Speaker 1:I'm not that old, I'm not Forbes Field old, I'm Three.
Speaker 3:River Stadium old.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 3:Three River Stadium but.
Speaker 1:Three River Stadium.
Speaker 3:I think the especially at. Pnc Park when, like again, you go and it's empty. You can't expect a team to be hyped up if you're not there to hype them up. I fully agree with you about the responsibility of the fans. Like, we carry a lot of power and again you saw it with, like, the A's fans trying to keep their team in Oakland yeah and like when you see people unite like that, I mean they inevitably lost, but it's powerful and it gets attention.
Speaker 3:And you saw them like all, like saying tell the team and showing up in their like green shirts all throughout all the games. You see that that's powerful and you might always get what you want, but it at least inspires the team that, like you believe in them and you're there to support them. I can't blame players for not being hyped. If there's no fans, they're hyping up. You go into a stadium and it's like silent, it's like playing in covet all over again before they let any fans in now this.
Speaker 1:This is from bethany holland, who said her favorite thing is when there are empty seats around. Now she wants more now she wants more fans.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you want well, I don't need, she's a politician, she's a politician, whoa, whoa whoa, those two things.
Speaker 3:Just because I like to have my space to spread out does not mean that that's what's in the best she's gonna keep working.
Speaker 2:She'll be in a suite soon.
Speaker 3:No, I'm looking out for my team I I truly I have talked about it over and over again I would like take a second mortgage out of my house to go see the pirates in the world series. I would literally take out a second mortgage to go and see all the games of the world series. Hopefully they make it to all seven and then I get to see them win the seventh game like that is something that I I cannot.
Speaker 3:I can't think of anything else that would bring me more joy in my life and you know what be there to see that.
Speaker 2:And I will promise you one thing, both your fans will experience it unlike anybody else, because you've been along for the yes and thick and thin.
Speaker 1:No one will understand that feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I want to do something real quick.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want you to make a promise, when they do make the World Series, that we create a revolution in the city that he calls the World Series games.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you had me. A revolution man Deal.
Speaker 2:You deal, I'll need help. I'll need help, but that man is going to call the.
Speaker 3:World Series at PNC Park. Who else would do it?
Speaker 2:Are you kidding me? Do you see what they do? They kick out.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're talking about TV.
Speaker 2:He's going to be on TV. No, they used to do that years and years ago, but I'm telling you right now Browning they had the local guys on calling with the national guys.
Speaker 1:I think about Brownie the local announcer would spend a couple innings.
Speaker 3:Why wouldn't you, you should, it's your team, you know, Exactly.
Speaker 2:At least we'll be on radio.
Speaker 1:We'll be on radio.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you right now Anyway, revolution, you're in.
Speaker 3:I told you I prefer to listen to games on the radio.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's how I he can do one game on the tv.
Speaker 1:I will watch it on the tv and listen first, very first, very nice of you.
Speaker 2:Hey, listen again. Very political, politically correct, hey I. I want this more than I want the pirate ship greg brown first world series game at pnc park.
Speaker 3:That man's face is gonna happen when it does I know, but when we see it, very soon very soon, very soon you can't say that, what indication do you have that that's gonna happen? I want andrew mccutchen wins the world series.
Speaker 2:Hey andrew mccutchen wins the world series before he retires, that would be the coolest thing.
Speaker 3:I mean it would be the coolest thing I just, I mean, I feel the same way that I feel about, like, being a patriot. Is that like what's the quote? Like I have every right to criticize my government because I love it so?
Speaker 2:much.
Speaker 3:That's how I feel the pirates. So I don't want to say I'm never optimistic. It's not that I don't want this to happen. I'm just being very realistic that I feel like there have been so many times where I have really gotten my hopes up and I have thought this was going to be our year, and every year it's more and more likely that I should bet on a hundred losses every single year.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite lines hope is a good thing, red, maybe the best of things that's from the Shawshank Redemption.
Speaker 3:Can't you have hope?
Speaker 1:That is so good. I love it, and that's what being a fan is all about. That's what sports are. Having hope is what it's all about.
Speaker 3:Oh, I will never give up hope.
Speaker 1:Okay, and here let's toast our coffee. Will you come back again sometime?
Speaker 3:Oh, I can come back anytime. Did you like the show? I loved it, hold.
Speaker 1:My Cutter, hold my Cutter. I love the name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and the show. And the show and the coffee and the guests.
Speaker 1:Oh, stop it. And the hosts? And what about the? I got to see the lacrosse cutter.
Speaker 3:We talked about it last year.
Speaker 2:I want to's right. Hold the cutter, yeah show us what you got. Okay, Like this. You said you were going to show us yeah yeah, yeah, Maybe the fork.
Speaker 1:well, maybe the fork can show you.
Speaker 2:Tighten up those I'm just going to go Tighten up these. Yeah, tighten it up, yep, and you want to release it out front, but I'm pretty sure I'm not throwing this baseball breaker camera.
Speaker 1:No, no, don't throw it, but Brownie those things got to be illegal Hold up your hand for the camera.
Speaker 3:That's illegal.
Speaker 2:Those fingernails are illegal you know that they actually do that in baseball. What they cut your nails no they have acrylics so when they get blisters a lot of times that nail will start to fray away. I feel the exact opposite.
Speaker 3:If I PNC Park, I'm going to cut my nails out. I don't have as good of a pitch because the way it rolls off it hits my nails. I can't throw as accurately when I have acrylics on, so I would cut them down a little bit.
Speaker 2:They only do it. They have no life this way. But I'm telling you, I think Bob Walk, if he played, now he would maybe do that.
Speaker 3:We're going to have to ask him because he would be some cutting.
Speaker 2:I'm going to ask him yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, thanks again. Thanks for having me guys. Thank you, Bethany Hallam.
Speaker 3:Let's go Buccos.
Speaker 1:Let's go Bucs. Let's go Bucs and join us for the next episode of Hold my Cutter.