PIRATES

Baseball just brings out the nicest people. And if our experience at PNC park doesn't prove that, you just aren't paying attention.

During batting practice, Jim got chatting with the Ray's catcher, #77 Cursi, about our trip. He seemed genuinely interested in what we thought of the various parks we had seen, and later gave Carter a ball. Robert was also tossed a ball by one of the Ray's players.

After that, during our tour of the park, we met the wonderful Michael L. in Guest Relations. After chatting with him about baseball, the park, and our trip, he generously upgraded our tickets from bleachers to 5 rows from the field!

In our travels around the park, we had the great honor of meeting Sean Gibson and Brent Stevens, the great-grandsons of two of baseball's greatest players, Josh Gibson (remember him, from our post on the Negro Leagues? Use this link to find out more about him Josh Gibson and the foundation these two have set up) and Babe Ruth (to be equal-opportunity bloggers, here is a link about him, too Babe Ruth). These two were delightful and fascinating to chat with, and both were very interested in hearing about our trip. They signed a picture for us of their great-grandfathers together, and posed for this picture. What great fortune for the Belove family to have run into them.

This is their version of a "Golden" bridge, and it can be seen both outside and inside the park. It is named for one of baseball's the the Pirate's golden players, Roberto Clemente.

This is really a beautiful park. It is set up with no real interior, with outdoor patios and walkways all around the stadium. From the field is a view of Pittsburgh's beautiful skyline. Check out these very interesting pictures by clicking on them to make them bigger.

PNC takes the pirate theme to a Disney-ish level. It is not pervasive in the park, like the Tiger theme. But it is played up during the game with animated shorts of pirates and ships between innings. The music often has a sea-shanty style, and this cute mascot is a parrot. Go figure! Between innings he and a pirate throw t-shirts and hot-dogs into the stands.

The park had a small-market, play-to-the-fans feel, much like KC did, with games and contests and activities between nearly every half-inning. But the Beloves thought the physical park was nicer here. The food in this place has yet to be rivalled. From hand-grilled Ruben sandwiches (we WISH we had taken a picture of those beauties!) to crab cakes to hot wings. Even the standard hot-dogs, french fries and pizza looked great, and had very large portions for the cost.

We give this treasure two flags up!