Since it opened in 2001, the main attraction of PNC Park in Pittsburgh has been---PNC Park, voted by ESPN the best major league baseball park in America. But this year, the home team is playing exciting, winning baseball--and the park is overflowing. There was another sellout crowd on Monday to watch the Pirates come from behind to beat the Astros.
Pittsburgh is drenched in baseball history and tradition--right down to the most famous homerun-heralding line on the radio broadcast from the 50s, Bob Prince singing "And you can kiss it goodbye!" I don't know who the latest announcer is, but I caught him using this phrase. I watched the Pirates teams--at Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium--that won three world championships and were perennial division leaders in the 90s, but could never get past the league championship. When that team, with its Outfield of Dreams (Bonds, Bonilla and Van Slyke) was broken up, the Pirates went on an 18 year hiatus of losing seasons (and "losing season" doesn't mean failing to win a championship--it means losing more games than you win), and set an all-sports record for consecutive futility.
Pittsburghers are seizing the moment and filling that park with the cheers it has never known until now. On the summers I've been back and the Pirates have been in town I've seen a game, but I probably won't get back this summer. But I can kind of guess what it's like--after all, the SF Giants play in a ball park very much like PNC, and I've been there when that place was rocking. Baseball doesn't get any better. (But a fashion note. On Monday they played with red caps. Red caps? That's Phillies stuff. Ditch em, guys.)
No comments:
Post a Comment