Louis Baniecki
I am going to miss talking to or texting Joey a million times each week about our Steelers, Pens and Bucs. He was my sports psychologist. We would analyze every play, every trade, etc. Whether it was something good or bad, it didn’t feel like it really happened until I talked about it with him. He would call me after every Steelers loss and ask me for something positive to take from the loss to cheer him up and I would respond with “at least it was an NFC loss and not an AFC loss” or “at least the punter had a good game” or “at least Tomlin chose to defer to receive the kickoff until the second half and he didn’t blow a timeout in the third quarter”. And regarding the Pens, I will miss him blaming every goal on Kris Letang even if he wasn’t on the ice. In fact, I will miss him blaming any problem that occurred in the world on Letang. And regarding the Bucs, we just shared our pain together about the owner over and over and over again. I will miss when Joey would call me and his name would appear on my caller ID. My wife would look at my phone and yell to me “your girlfriend is calling”. I will miss when he would actually call me with a business-related question (which only happened about once per month) and he would apologize that it wasn’t a sports-related call. I will miss when my wife would yell at us when she overheard us rooting for injuries to players on opposing teams. I’m going to miss his sense of humor because he always made me laugh. He could even cheer me up and make me laugh after a Steelers loss which is almost impossible to do (my family will attest to that). Simply stated, I am going to miss my friend…my true friend. I believe with all my heart in God and that heaven exists. I know that Joey is there. I hope to make it there someday to see and talk with my true friend once again.
