Tonight, Joe and I did something I've been promising people for a while. We traversed the wilds of Pittsburgh's South Hills, and took in a game too tough for the mean streets of McKeesport. Yes, we went to an ABA game.

Along the way we took the worst possible route, driving, as the directions to Penn State McKeesport indicated, through Downtown McKeesport (easily identified by the view from the first stop light, featuring County Holding Center, Family Dollar Store and check cashing), the Industrial Development Center (easily identified by its being half a block wide and heading straight into the river), and the "Cultural and Educational Center of McKeesport" (their word, not mine), consisting of a Donut Connection, a Giant Eagle grocery store, and the entrance to PSU-McKeesport, before the road leads into neighboring White Oak Township. I wish I was kidding.

We got there about 5 minutes late, and were about to purchase tickets, when a woman offered us her two spare tickets. So technically speaking we were part of a crowd of 131, with 129 paid. Yes, Joe counted. We then recieved the our first sports event wanding. Oddly, Joe's session was able to detect the dimes in his pocket, while mine was unable to detect the big mix of metal on my keychain. I suspected that this was because though they appeared to have two metal detector wands, only one of them was real.

Among the luminaries at the game were at least three former Steelers (we weren't able to identify them, so we just called one Rich Erenburg and let it go at that) who were announced by an announcer who couldn't be understood with the background music playing (our only proof they were ex-Steelers being their size and bad knees), and Lynne Hayes-Freeland, host of channel 2's weekly version of Perspectives. ABA action, it's Fan-tastic.

It's sad to say that this was not nearly the sort of laugh riot that some were expecting. Our primary fear had been that the visiting team would fail to show up. We didn't have any fear of the home team not showing up, since they had been the subject of a Tribune-Review article this morning. Given the problems the league's had from the start, the mere fact of two teams arriving established a certain level of mediocrity which we couldn't expect it to fall below. It didn't rise above it either, but hey, free for us.

And now the funny bits:
1. Hardest fall of the night: Joe and I were 90% convinced that the ref was Asa Arons, formerly known as Asa Arons-Channel-11-Troubleshooter, as he was introduced for several years. Further debate will determine whether this is a harder fall than Bob Kudzma, former Channel 2 weatherman, then part time school bus driver, then first chair in the Washington (Pa.) Symphony Orchestra.

2. About midway through the second quarter, Joe, who had been wondering why one of they guys had been given the impossible-to-signal-for-foul number of 97, while another had the number 48, parsed out the clues of a large racecar on their uniform front, and a check pattern down its sides. Yes, the Carolina team had given all their players the same numbers as top NASCAR vehicles. This was followed by me going, "Where's 24?... crap. Where's 8?... crap."

3. About midway through the third quarter, Joe noticed the fact that no two pairs of shoes out on the court were the same. I noted that the ABA was a BYOS league.

4. On our way out, I had quickly turned when I saw a table set up for display of items. I had been hoping to gather some materials for a Pittsburgh sports prize package for TRASHionals (Riverhounds, Wild Things, Nailers, Greyhounds, PitBulls), seemed like a good idea. But by the time I turned, and focused on the table, I found that this was actually a table set up to pitch PSU-McKeesport. Now I know what it costs to rent the gym.

All in all, it was a fine evening, perhaps not comedy gold, but more than comedy silver, and given the comedy value was more derived from its rarity than it's actual value to anyone, we hereby dub the Pennsylvania PitBulls comedy iridium.