Steelers' reign is maddening in Philadelphia

Rod Stewart is a strange dude. That might have something to do with his unequaled collection of leather pants and his willingness to wear them in public.

Even so, he's pretty perceptive, at least when it comes to Pennsylvania and its professional football franchises. Stewart sang about that, actually. Goes like this:

Some guys have all the luck.

Some guys have all the pain.

Some guys get all the breaks.

Some guys do nothing but complain.

 Some guys live in Pittsburgh and root for the Steelers. And some guys are us.

Spencer Tracy and the rest of the gang had no idea how mad (mad, mad, mad) the world really is these days. Across the state, the people of Pittsburgh ready themselves for the Steelers' third trip to the Super Bowl in the last six years. That's one more big-game appearance than the Eagles have enjoyed in the franchise's long, frustrating history.

How is that possible? How does a town that doubles as the last rest stop on your way to Ohio keep ending up in this position? How, when it comes to football, does Pittsburgh triumph where Philly fails?

In a just and less-bizarre world, Pittsburgh would resemble some postapocalyptic horror show - and not the cool one recently cast by AMC, either. More like one of those horrible (and horribly expensive) mistakes dreamed up by Kevin Costner. By rights, whenever someone mentions the town and football in the same sentence, we ought to hang our heads low and whisper something sad.

What's that? Pittsburgh, you say? . . . Those poor people.

 We should pity Pittsburgh. Instead, when football is the topic, it's the other way around. Steelers fans are blessed. They luxuriate in pigskin paradise while their cross-state kin are imprisoned in NFL purgatory. It's obscene.

Somehow, the Steelers always make the right moves. They zig where others might zag, and their fans are invariably rewarded as a result. The Steelers kept Bill Cowher around for more than a decade and won a championship. Then he left for a gig in a climate-controlled television studio and the team hired Mike Tomlin - and they won another championship. Keep the coach, change the coach - doesn't much matter in Pittsburgh. The biggest problems out there involve making more room in the trophy case and figuring out where to vacation in West Virginia. (Morgantown is lovely; they have running water and everything.)