The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh is a novelization by the American writer Richard Woodley based upon the screenplay by Jaison Starkes and Edmond Stevens of the 1979 sports–fantasy comedy film The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.
It tells the story of a professional basketball team, the Pittsburgh Pythons, whose losing streak and lack of talent has made them a laughingstock. Some players want to be traded, except for the star player Moses Guthrie, who is the highest paid player and is disliked by his teammates.
The team's ballboy and waterboy, Tyrone Millman, is inspired to use astrology to change the team's luck. With an astrologer named Mona Mondieu they come up with the perfect concept: a team composed of players who were born under the astrological sign of Pisces (matching the star sign of Moses Guthrie), thus the 'birth' of "The Pittsburgh Pisces!", now a powerhouse to reckon with on the path to the league championship.
Despite the tie-in between them, the novel had a different storyline from that of the movie, since some of the scenes were cut from the film, but the novel did follow the original screenplay that featured those deleted scenes. Among the differences, in the film, the Pisces were seen winning every game, but the novel mentions the team losing only two games. Another involved a group of guys in a wheelchair causing havoc at one game (that scene was shown during the film's preview trailer but was scrapped and reshot).
Famous quotes containing the words fish, saved and/or pittsburgh:
“Of all nature’s animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian, inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Let north and south—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The largest business in American handled by a woman is the Money Order Department of the Pittsburgh Post-office; Mary Steel has it in charge.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)