The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the most well respected and buttoned up organizations in professional sports. It's rare that fans are ever able to get a slight peek behind the curtain to see some of the extracurricular activities that go on in the organization, especially when it involves two of the organization's best players of all time. On a recent episode of the Footbahlin With Ben Roethlisberger podcast, former Steelers long-time backup quarterback, Charlie Batch told a story of Ben Roethlisberger and Franco Harris staying up till the late hours playing each other in ping pong after an event.
Steelers Legends Stayed Up Late Competing In Ping Pong
While Batch was on Roethlisberger's podcast, the topic of his foundation was brought up. Batch's foundation is called Best Of The Batch and it provides educational programming to kids in the Pittsburgh area, Batch started this foundation in 1999 just one year after he was drafted. This foundation has many events that it hosts throughout the calendar year, with one being a pool, poker, and ping pong event. This was the first event a young Roethlisberger ever showed up to, and he made quite the impression on the ping pong table.
"It was funny because the one year he came in to play and all of a sudden I'm sitting back and I'm like 'what's going on?', it's him and Franco [Harris], they played all night. We were cleaning up and we literally had to leave one ping pong table because he and Franco are back there playing. The event was over at 10, and it was about midnight."
Batch and Roethlisberger couldn't quite remember what year this was or how old Roethlisberger was, but there was some speculation that it was during his second year in the NFL. So the legend of Roethlisberger was still relatively small. Of course, he was the starting quarterback of the Steelers and had just gone 13-0 in the regular season as a starter and won a playoff game, but he had not won a Super Bowl yet. Still, Harris decided to spend nearly the whole night playing ping pong with Roethlisberger.
When Roethlisberger spoke about the infamous "ping pong" night, he seemed very appreciative and grateful of being able to have that time with Harris. The two grew close over his career. Roethlisberger reflected on playing ping pong with Harris and spoke about what it meant to him.
"That is one of my greatest Franco moments because I think he was surprised I was good, and I was surprised he was good and we just battled all night and it was fun though because we were just like whatever let's play all night. I'll never forget that time with Franco just having fun like that and that smile and laugh."
Harris unfortunately passed away in December of 2022 just three days before the 50th anniversary of his famous play: the "Immaculate Reception", although his legacy in Pittsburgh and in football in general will live on forever. The Steelers hosted the Las Vegas Raiders just four days after Harris passed, in a game that was going to be used to retire his jersey number in a halftime ceremony. The Steelers won the game in miraculous fashion, winning on a last-minute game-winning touchdown pass from Kenny Pickett to George Pickens.
In a ping pong matchup between the two competitive minds of Harris and Roethlisberger, who both are two of the biggest icons in Pittsburgh sports history, many fans would have killed to be a fly on the wall to hear the great conversations the two must of had. Although the ultimate winner of the ping pong matches was never said, most would likely give the edge in the battle to Harris.
More must-reads: