PNC Park has looks, but not history of Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park
PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Pirates returned home Monday night after a six-game road trip. Talk about a letdown.
That is not to say there is anything wrong with PNC Park. It’s a beautiful facility with an unbelievable view and many observers rate it as the top venue in the major leagues.
But it’s not Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park, the places the Pirates visited on their six-game interleague trip last week against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
There is so much to like about Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park.
At Yankee Stadium, there are the plaques of Monument Park and the golden voice of public address announcement Bob Sheppard.
When you walk through the narrow tunnel ways that lead from the clubhouse to the dugouts, you can just imagine all the greats who took those same steps, from Ruth to Gehrig to DiMaggio to Mantle to Jackson to Jeter.
As hardscrabble as The Bronx is and as much jealousy and hate as the Yankees spawn among fans of other clubs, there is something unique about walking down the subway platform at 161st Street and seeing the big stadium that so many legends have called home.
At Fenway Park, there is The Green Monster, Pesky’s Pole and The Triangle. There is a sense of stepping back in time in a place where the first baseball game was played just days after The Titanic sank in 1912.
When you walk through the neighborhood at Fenway, you get the feeling of how much the fans love their Red Sox. Seemingly everyone wears Red Sox’ gear as they visit the outdoor concession stands or wait outside the players’ parking lot to get a glimpse of their favorite players and perhaps snare an autograph.
The locker room and tunnels at Fenway are even smaller than at Yankee Stadium. Still, you can’t help but think how Ruth and Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski and Carlton Fisk once called the place home, too.
Sadly, PNC Park has none of that history. Don Wengert, Chris Stynes, stuffed pastries racing and T-sheets being flung into the crowd by slingshot don’t conjure up the same memories as the Bambino and The Iron Horse, Teddy Ballgame and Yaz.
Of course, some of that comes with the fact PNC Park opened only four years ago. The Pirates also haven’t had a winning season since moving into PNC Park, continuing a streak of sub-.500 seasons that began in 1993.
It’s hard to carry the ghosts of Honus Wagner, Paul Waner, Ralph Kiner, Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell into a place where they never played. It is difficult to feel their presence when Forbes Field is now the University of Pittsburgh Law School and Three Rivers Stadium is a parking lot.
However, it is more than the history that sets places like Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park apart from PNC Park. There is a rabidity to the fans in New York and Boston that is lacking in Pittsburgh.
Yankees fans are loud and often obnoxious. They are a product of their environment as New York is a bustling and aggressive place that Sinatra correctly termed the “city that never sleeps.”
Red Sox fans are among the most knowledgeable in the game.
I was privileged to speak to the BoSox Booster Club last Friday and more than 400 fans packed into a ballroom at a hotel in suburban Newton, Mass. Not only did the fans know everything about the Red Sox – including the woman who wore hat shaped like Fenway Park – but many had knew about the Pirates, even though they hadn’t step foot in Boston since 1952, the year before the Braves bolted for Milwaukee then Atlanta.
Of course, it is hard to ask a Pirates’ fan to be as hardcore as those in New York and Boston. They have been beaten down by years of losing, let down by the hope that PNC Park would provide the impetus for a winning team, numbed by bobbleheads and fireworks being the franchise’s focus rather than good baseball.
It also isn’t the mindset of Western Pennsylvanians to think baseball first, not when the sportscasts and sports pages are filled with Steelers, Steelers and more Steelers along with Pitt, Penn State and more high school football coverage than just about anywhere in the country.
Things don’t figure to change any time soon.
The Steelers are coming off a 15-1 regular season with a young superstar in Ben Roethlisberger, who is transcending the sporting arena. Pitt is coming off a BCS appearance and high school football has never been bigger as evidenced by Fox Sports Net Pittsburgh starting a Thursday night game of the week this fall.
So, it’s going to be a while before Pittsburgh will ever make the transformation into a baseball town like New York or Boston.
That’s not say Pittsburgh could never become a baseball town again like it was before the Steelers ended 40 years of losing in 1970s. You get the sense there are plenty of people in the tri-state area just dying to love baseball gain.
Until the Pirates grasp that fans want a good product on the field more than good food at the concession stands, Pittsburgh will never compare to New York or Boston.
John Perrotto can be reached online at perrotto@timesnet.net.