Had the night off Tuesday. Went to see an old friend. A lonely friend. It had been far too long.
I went to see PNC Park.
Man, how I loved the place. Even before it was born. Lived exactly two blocks away as it was being built, would walk over to watch the construction pretty much daily from a perch on the northern edge of the Sixth Street Bridge — not Clemente yet — and tracked each piling that was drilled into the ground, each new bright blue beam welded to the next. And by the time that two-game exhibition series with the Mets came along in 2001, the true opening of the place, I could barely watch the baseball. I'd just gaze around, mouth agape.
I couldn't believe it was ours.
And I couldn't believe it for years to come, as a season-ticket holder who'd roam the place like a joyful nomad, experiencing one excellent perspective after another with my main man Pete Aldrich. We once spent a whole summer standing at the top level of the left-field rotunda, no seats needed.
Over the years, probably hardened by all the actual journalism involved in covering baseball, I've grown distant from the place. I'll admit that. And it hasn't been any fun. The people running the Pirates have sucked away so much joy, so much pride from the franchise as a whole, and I'm not too proud to admit that applies to this reporter, too.
But the place ... the place doesn't deserve that.
This was my thought Tuesday when a soon-to-be business partner flew into Pittsburgh to meet with us about business stuff but, still, being a passionate baseball fan, wanted to check off another ballpark from his list. He asked me if I'd mind taking in a couple innings with him, even giving a bit of a guided tour.
Funny, but I wasn't sure I still could. On the job, one enters through a specifically marked media door, shows one's media pass, eats in the media lounge, takes the media-only elevator and sits in the assigned seat in the press box high atop the stadium. Seventh-floor high. There's barely any human contact, and it's the same sight game after game after game.
Yeah, so this would be different.
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My soon-to-be business partner and I waited in a short line at the main ticket windows along General Robinson Street, and it occurred to me that I hadn't stood in line for tickets for anything ... in years, quite possibly. I didn't even know how much tickets cost anymore and, when I tried to take a guess, I missed by $10.
Man at the ticket window: "So, where yinz from? First time here?"
Soon-to-be business partner: "California. And yes, I'm visiting. I like to see as many big-league ballparks as I can."
Man at the ticket window: "Oh yeah? What's your favorite so far?"
Soon-to-be business partner: "I'd have to say San Francisco, for sure."
Man at the ticket window: "Well, get ready for that to be No. 2."
So Pittsburgh. I couldn't have been prouder, even if he hadn't dropped the 'yinz' bomb.
We walked into the left-field entrance through what the Pirates still call Legacy Square, even though the front office shamefully removed the wonderful Negro Leagues statues a few years ago, and for no apparent reason whatsoever. It's now just a blank plaza with a handful of handkerchief banners commemorating a few greats from the franchise's past.
But beyond that ...
"Wow."
The soon-to-be business partner was blown away once we reached the rotunda and could see the first inning through the magnificently exposed steel beams. And to be honest, so was I. Again, it had been a long time.
I took him to the bleachers first. Don't call them the left-field bleachers, I advised, because they're the only true bleachers we've got. Atop the section, a young usher was bantering with a young fan who'd apparently shown up alone. The usher expressed to the fan a hope that the Brewers would lose up in Cleveland on this night.
"Still watching the standings?" I asked, butting in.
"Hey, man," the usher came back with no hesitation, "there's a lot of baseball left. I've still got hope."
He paused.
"But if we can't win the division, I hope the Brewers do well. I always feel like that about a team that comes out of our division."
"Really?" I replied. "So in football, you root for the Ravens when the Steelers are out?"
"No way. Never."
"How about in hockey? Rooting for the Capitals?"
"Ha! No way! Go Vegas!"
That's this generation of Pittsburgh sports fans, I thought. Football and hockey matter. Our national pastime simply passes the time.
The usher kindly offered to wipe off a part of the bleacher, still wet from an earlier rain, so we could "spend a couple innings here if you guys want, and I won't check your tickets," but we thanked him and kept moving on.
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We walked under the bleachers and up to the ivy-covered security building that a roided-up Sammy Sosa once reached with a home run and a no-longer-roided-up Starling Marte nearly struck last week. We went a few more steps to look directly down into both bullpens. Then around the corner to the place where the familiar plume of smoke rises early in each game.
"That's Manny's Barbeque," I said, pointing to the sign above the flaming beef.
"Named for Manny Sanguillen?" the soon-to-be business partner asked.
"No," I clarified, "I mean that's actually Manny right over there, and it's his barbeque."
Manny was there. I hadn't seen him since spring training. Manny's one of those beautiful people who doesn't waste time with handshakes. He hugs. He doesn't like life. He loves it. It had been way too long since I'd gotten a hug from the one-of-a-kind catcher from the 1971 and 1979 World Series champions.
"How are you, my man?" Manny said. That never gets old. In my earliest childhood, I grew up with visions of Sangy leaping after Steve Blass' final pitch against the Orioles, with Sangy being part of the Fam-a-lee. And it floors me to this day that he'd have any idea who I am. That never happens with the current athletes. Always with the ones I remember way back when.
Manny's knee hurts. I always check with him on his knee. He's an old catcher, after all, and that's the price to pay for a lifetime in a squat position. He had a surgery recently to help him. He's walking with a cane. But he's still out there taking care of his barbecue.
Ever the gentleman, Manny asked to meet my soon-to-be business partner. He extended his hand, gripped it firmly, then gave it an extra squeeze and thanked him for coming to the ballpark.
"I hope you like Pittsburgh."
Manny wasn't speaking to me but, in that moment, I'm not sure I've ever appreciated it more.
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Dennis DaPra takes damned good care of this place. He's not a name most folks will know, but he's the general manager of PNC Park. He's held that post since October of 2006, and he's so good at his job that, in addition to maintaining our city's jewel, he advises other people with similar posts in other cities on how to do the same for theirs.
"The place is so clean," the soon-to-be-business partner observed as we moved along the upper riverwalk, which still doubles as a walking/biking trail even when there aren't any games and, still, is simply spotless. "You'd think it was brand new."
Yeah, there's that, too. I never miss a chance to mention that to DaPra when I see him. As someone who's seen every park in the majors, plus a few that have since shut down, it never stops amazing me how much better kept this one is than all of them, including those built much more recently.
In the same spirit, it never stops amazing me how influential PNC Park has been.
When the Mets opened Citi Field in 2009, Jeff Wilpon, the team's CEO, emailed to ask if I'd like a tour upon visiting to cover the Pirates early that season. I had no idea why but, obviously, I jumped at the chance. And once he came up to the press box to begin the personal escort, which seemed to catch even the Mets' employees off-guard, it quickly became clear: He was indebted to Pittsburgh and PNC Park, and he wanted a way to share that with people here. He pointed to that blue steel bridge out beyond right-center, emblematic of our city's signature structures and our stadium's strength. He pointed to other elements, more particular in scope, and he did so with pride.
I've heard so many sentiments like that in my travels to newer parks. The exposed steel can now be seen, almost identically, in St. Louis. The angled seats to face the pitcher's mound were installed not only at newer parks but even at older ones. The embracing of the water, of course, happened in San Francisco. And the unprecedented-at-the-time seating for fans in wheelchairs is now the rule across the majors. Parts of PNC Park are spread across the continent.
I offered to the soon-to-be business partner that, for as much as Baltimore and Cleveland deserve credit for the retro-stadium movement, I'm not sure either deserves as much credit for perfecting the form as PNC.
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And yet, there are some concepts that can't be shared. There's a 21-foot wall in right field to honor Sangy's most famous teammate, and within that wall — right inside it — are spaces for wheelchairs, with a few seats dotted, to watch the game from behind a soft-mesh, barely visible fence.
"So the ball comes right at you when it's still in play ... and then it's still in play?" the soon-to-be business partner asked in an incredulous tone.
Hm. I hadn't ever thought of it like that, but yeah.
"Man, the thought, the imagination they put into this place," he added, "it's unlike any of the parks I've seen."
Nope. And that's because it's quintessential Pittsburgh.
Mayor Sophie Masloff, who conceived the idea of a stadium on this very corner back when it was still home to my favorite comic shop, a hair salon and a whole lot of nothing, wanted the paying customers to appreciate the Three Sisters Bridges and the Downtown skyline. Mayor Tom Murphy balked when the architect HOK, from Kansas City, wanted to put weird tin roofs on the two rotundas, derisively referring to them as "flying saucers." They were soon erased, and that led to more exposed steel everywhere. Which, by the way, also lowered costs at a time when the stadium's expense had caused a massive public fuss.
Local architects, designers and historians also got involved. That's why the stadium's exterior foundation is a tribute to the towering gothic stone of the Allegheny County Courthouse, our city's most breathtaking structure now and forever. Even the small, jail-sized cube windows out on General Robinson Street are patterned after those on the courthouse. That's why we have a gate built for fans arriving on riverboats. That's why we've got a Primanti's that offers only a tiny portion of their menu, because there's no act more heinous around here than needing a menu at Primanti's.
That's why there's all the strength, all the steel, all the honesty and no-BS that represents Pittsburgh in the most powerful way possible.
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Only one thing was missing from this scene, of course:
The announced paid attendance — meaning tickets sold into circulation, per Major League Baseball's guidelines, and not actual humans — was 12,879. The count of actual humans couldn't have been half that, and the quantification of the interest level of those who showed might have been an exact match for the Pirates' own productivity in that flatliner of a 5-0 loss to the Dodgers out on the field.
Trying to explain no one coming to these games anymore is no picnic to someone from outside our little corner of the universe, but I gave it a synopsis effort: Owner is a miser, team president falls right in line, GM can't draft and, when all three of them finally had the stars align for three consecutive playoffs — and the place shone as never before — they thought it would be a swell idea to follow up a 98-win season by watching their rotation get gutted.
"And Andrew McCutchen?" he asked.
Final straw, I answered. That was it. Don't ever tick off a Pittsburgher. It comes with a price.
I've got no dog in the attendance discussion. It's not my thing. But on this one night, I allowed myself to be a little down about it, if only because everything else about my soon-to-be business partner's experience — and my own — had felt so very uplifting. It's sad to see it like this. And I hope against hope that, for all the right reasons and ideally under new ownership and management, it experiences another Johnny Cueto drop, another Russell Martin bomb, another blackout, another reason to celebrate something beyond the setting itself.
That said, the evening felt ... one part guilt-ridden for how long I'd taken it for granted, and two parts curiously vindicating. I've spent years telling people across the continent that PNC Park isn't just the best baseball stadium, isn't just the best sports facility, but rather, my favorite modern structure of any kind anywhere in the world. And it's still all that and so much more.
Biased?
You know it. But deal with it. Because the recipient of this particular tour just left town with a new No. 1 on his list.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Pirates vs. Dodgers, PNC Park, June 5, 2018. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS