It’s August in Western Pennsylvania and it is actually difficult to think about anything but baseball.

That hasn’t happened since Bubby Brister was a starting quarterback. In a football town, the Steelers are playing second fiddle this summer.

But the march of time is unyielding and before you or I know it, the NFL season will kick off whether the Pittsburgh Pirates are in a playoff race or not.

Most years, sports fans in this area are knee deep in grid news by now. We know what is happening with the fifth-string running back on the Steelers’ depth chart.

This year, not so much.

There are other intriguing storylines from around the league as preseason games are mere days away:

• Big Ben’s Little Shoulder Problem.

Ben Roethlisberger said he has a “little rotator cuff tear.” That sounds ominous to me. If Big Ben’s injury isn’t so little, the Steelers could be in trouble.

Then again, football injuries always sound worse than they are. Minor groin surgery sure does sound major, but players rarely miss much time.

• Mike Wallace’s holdout.

Roethlisberger may have a slight tear in his shoulder, but Wallace has a severly strained contract right now that will likely keep him out much longer than any ol’ arm injury to Roethlisberger.

Wallace is grousing over his $2.45 million restricted free agent tender offer from the Steelers. He wants Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson money.

(Pause while you laugh).

Wallace hasn’t proven himself year after year like Fitzgerald and Johnson have. If Wallace can put together a string of seasons like the one he turned in last year, then the Steelers will pay him. One indelible fact about the Steelers’ organization is they do not throw money around without knowing what they are getting.

• Roger Goodell’s fractured relationship with the players.

No one likes Goodell. Fans don’t. Players don’t. Even some owners don’t.

But it’s not Goodell’s fault. The players gave him all this power.

A little more than a year ago, there was this thing called the lockout and players and owners were negotiating an end to it. One of the stipulations the players wanted was a checks-and-balances system on the power of Goodell.

The players, though, caved in and took a bigger piece of the money pie instead of sticking to their guns and making sure Goodell wasn’t the judge, jury and executioner.

Now they are complaining about it. Sorry. You don’t get to whine about a system you signed on for because you got to fill your pockets with a little more cabbage.

Is it fair? No. Goodell does have way too much power. He can hand down disciplines on his whim, and when players appeal the punishments, Goodell hears the appeal.

But the players are stuck with it for the next 10 years.

• Old faces in new places.

Peyton Manning just looks weird in the blue and orange of the Broncos. Tim Tebow looks equally odd in the green of the Jets. Of course, Tebow looks odd any time he cocks his left arm back to throw a wobbly forward pass. Watching these two quarterbacks, particularly early in the season, should be interesting.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.