Found In My Basement: Doyle Defeats Santorum

During the summer between my Junior and Senior years of college, I worked as an intern for Congressman Mike Doyle at one of his Western Pennsylvania offices. As a Politics major, this was a great opportunity for hands-on experience helping people at a Congressional office. Despite receiving exactly zero dollars for two months of work and dealing with several rather crazy constituents, I really enjoyed the experience. While there clearly seems to be no cooperation between the Republicans and Democrats in our Legislature today, I never got that sense at the District office. The people in Congressman Doyle’s office, and Congressman Doyle himself, truly were there to help people. I guess the politics were left to the DC staff.

Anyway, I want to stay away from the political side of the internship and focus on what may have been the most important aspect of the summer: softball and alcohol. The members of Congressman Doyle’s staff, including me, played in three softball games culminating in a battle against Senator Rick Santorum’s staff. We played the Turtle Creek Fire Department twice as practice and went out with them for food and drinks following each game. One of my athletic highlights came during these games, as I managed to get on base during nearly every plate appearance. I was (and still am) a rather small guy compared to the firemen, so they got a little frustrated always seeing me on base. I was David Eckstein before David Eckstein! Finally, we faced Senator Santorum’s staff and you can see the result here:

Yes, the picture is extremely fuzzy (this is a copy of a copy of a 15+ year-old article), but I like the caption below the picture. How did “ringer-filled” make the publication? In case you’re wondering, Senator Santorum did not participate in the game itself, so the game was simply between the two staffs. After the game, I visited Chiodo’s for my first and only time. (And it seems like I wrote about much of this several years ago.)

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Joe Chiodo 1918-2007

The owner and operator of the historic Chiodo’s Tavern in Homestead, Pennsylvania died earlier this week. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a thorough obituary, but I just wanted to share the story of my one and only visit to Chiodo’s. In the summer of 1996, after just turning 21, I interned at my Congressman’s office. When not handling phone calls from angry and/or crazy constituents, I played on the office softball team. We split two matches against the local fire department’s softball team in preparation for the big match against the Senator’s softball team. (As a complete tangent, a few of the firemen hated playing against me. Even though I was the smallest guy on the team and had no power, I consistently reached based on bloop hits, “seeing-eye” singles and errors. This is one of my proudest post-high school athletic accomplishments.) When we finally faced the Senator’s team, we were prepared and completely dominated them 17-6. (Unfortunately, it took about ten years until this Senator lost this badly again.)

This is a really long story just to write that we all went to Chiodo’s after the game. What a cool place! I avoided the “Mystery Sandwich,” but remember having good food and relatively inexpensive beer. Actually, I think the losing team paid, so that made the food and drinks even better. Chiodo’s closed over two years ago, and I never made it back after my first visit. There are/were not many bars with as much history and character as Chiodo’s.