PSaMP's Halfie Birthday Extravaganza: Sportsocracy

(To commemorate the 6 month anniversary of PSaMP, I invited some of my favorite bloggers to take over PSaMP for a week. I'm calling it, PSaMP's Halfie Birthday Extravaganza. Well, its been extended to an obnoxiously long two week blogapalooza, per se. Several kickass local and national blogs agreed to share their feelings on Pittsburgh sports. Hopefully, some will also provide a Mini Pony of the Day. In my mind, it will rule. I hope you enjoy it. Monday's blog is Sportsocracy. The site, if I may, "is more than a blog, more than a website, more than a podcast…it's a way of life. It's Pittsburgh sports, uninformed opinion, love of 90s culture, and random weirdness made into an unstoppable, lumbering, sasquatch." Right on.)
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James Harrison Is One Bad Mutha.


I've always had a love/hate relationship with James Harrison. I can see his allure. He's a big, surly, undrafted free agent out of Kent State that came to camp in 2004 and made the Steelers roster as crazy Joey Porter's backup. A true walk-on in a town that loves a blue collar underdog. On the other hand, he's a career backup who just so happened to be in the right place at the right time when Porter was jettisoned before this season, and ended up with his starting job. He's probably not a whole lot more than a spot pass-rusher in reality and his heirs, namely my boy LaMarr Woodley and Lawrence Timmons, are already walking among us.

Still, he's got some of the best Steeler highlights of the past few years...

Intercepting a pass against the Chargers in 2005 and hurdling over the attempted tackle of LaDanian Tomlinson.

Attempting to kill Chad Johnson with a German suplex in a game.



And perhaps, most famously, applying the "Silverback Slam" as it's been coined, what I can only describe as a German suplex into a choke slam, to an unlucky Browns fan that picked the wrong day to run into the field of play.


On top of that badassery, the guy was carted off on a backboard in Week 2 against the Bills with a stinger, had his facemask cut off, and RETURNED TO THE SIDELINES IN THE SAME GAME. Don't get me wrong, Willis Reed he ain't. But still, I imagine the scene in the locker room as a doctor telling James he's ok, but should get out of his uniform and hit the showers (in the most heterosexual of ways), Harrison basically tearing the straps off holding him to the board, and walking back through the tunnel to the field. It probably didn't play out with that much pinache or drama, but here's hoping.

Sportsocracy