During my first fall in Chicago, we used to watch Steelers games in a dark Lakeview bar called Durkin’s.
It was a bad season, the one before they drafted Ben Roethlisberger, and fans were angry. During one game, then-rookie (God, I’m old) safety Troy Polamalu kept gambling and making mistakes.
There was an angry young man sitting near us, and we could tell he was about to explode. Finally, after one Polamalu mistake too many, he yelled, “Polamalu, you fucking…” Everything stopped. We turned our heads toward him. Was he going to say what we thought he was going to say?