Pittsburgh Pirates

PNC Park

Friday, August 1, 2003

I was pretty excited about PNC from all that I had heard. It had recently opened for the 2001 season, replacing Three Rivers Stadium (used from 1970-2000). The park sits along the Allegheny River, at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela rivers. It’s basically across the river from downtown Pittsburgh. It’s next to the football stadium (Heinz Field) and shares some parking facilities.

It was another warm and humid day as we headed to the ballpark. The ballpark was impressive from the start. Made of mostly steel and limestone, this was a retro-style park that fit into the city in which it was built. As Pittsburgh is know as a steel town, this made a lot of sense.

Kim, Kate and I strolled down the riverbank, just past the right field fence. It was a great view of downtown. And one could certainly imagine that right field homers could make it out to where we were standing. Much like PacBall Park, a deep home run would likely end up in the water.

After entering the park by a friendly ticket taker, we picked up our free-giveaway reversible Pirates bucket hat. Actually pretty cool. We headed to our $18 seats in right field. Reasonable price, for sure. My first impression was that the park felt quite small. Almost like a large spring training facility. And being only two years old, the paint on the steel felt fresh, almost like this was a bit of a rebirth for the steel industry and Pittsburgh itself. Maybe I’m getting a bit too poetic, but there was something in the air.

And what a view from the home plate area. You could look out past center/right field and see an amazing view of downtown. And also, you could see a number of the bright-yellow steel bridges which traverse the Allegheny river. It is quite a site. This was quickly becoming one of my favorite parks.

Our seats looked to the west, and we had a bit of a sun blindness issue to start, but it didn’t last too long. And besides… We had that reversible bucket hat!

Before long, we settled in for a the game. It was quite active, with 7 runs scored by the end of the 2nd inning. Pittsburgh then fell behind 7-2, but rallied back to within one run in the bottom of the 5th, with 4 runs to make it 7-6 Rockies. What a game! But over the course of the next 4 innings, the Rockies scored 4 more. Down 5 runs to start the bottom of the 9th inning, the Pittsburg crowd began to dissipate. I mean, it was 11-6 Rockies, so who could blame them, right? Wrong.

We considered leaving, but the air was cooling down and we had nothing else to do. Two outs, bottom of the 9th. Even we were gathering our things. Didn’t want to leave that bucket hat behind. But then something amazing happened. Through a miraculous series of events, the Pirates got hit after hit, scoring 6 runs, all with 2 outs to win the game! Probably the best/most exciting baseball game I’ve ever watched in person.

I like to root for the home team, and this was one time I’m glad I did. I don’t usually even care about the score that much, but this was a game for the ages… One of the most exciting games I have ever seen. And if I had to guess, only a few thousand people were left in the park to see it happen. I was one of them.

We headed for a late night snack to the Pittsburgh institution, Primanti Brothers. We ordered the famous sandwich (meat & cheese with the traditional slaw, tomato and fries between two thick slices of Italian bread – yum!) and when the clerk saw our Pirates bucket hats, he was super stoked to hear we had stayed to the end. He had just served a bunch of people where we so mad at themselves for leaving early. It really topped off the night.

Admission Ticket