Pittsburgh Mayor Ignoring Offered Bet?

It's customary for the mayors of two championship participating cities to make a friendly wager heading into the big game in major sports. For the Super Bowl this weekend, the mayor of Glendale, Arizona, Elaine Scruggs, assumed that would be the case. She proposed a bet where the Steelers would have to plant a cactus outside Heinz Field should the Cardinals win. Presumably, the Cards would plant a Pennsylvanian tree outside their stadium.

She has yet to hear back from PIttsburgh's mayor, Luke Ravenstahl. This is especially surprising, considering Ravenstahl's previous desire to change his last name to "Steelerstahl."

The Pittsburgh mayor "has been pretty hard to get in touch with," Scruggs said. "But I'll be eternally grateful to him."

Look, obviously this has more to do with Ravenstahl having better things to do with his job than it does with his fear that he'll lose some insignificant wager. Still, he went to the trouble to file paperwork for an asinine name change a few short weeks ago. That had to have taken more time out of his busy schedule than to return a call and say he accepts the bet.

Possibly he thinks planting a dogwood tree outside the Cardinals' home stadium doesn't really do much for the Steelers? I could see that, because cacti are associated more with Arizona than any tree would be with the Steel City.

May I suggest a gigantic Heinz bottle?