SPORTS-(PIRATES)
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August 18, 2004
Pittsburgh Rocks, Cleveland Sucks
Having recently returned from a long weekend in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, I have a few dumb stories,
observations and generalizations about the area. The trip started out well, as I flew into Pittsburgh
and received a free rental car upgrade. Since I was not returning to the same rental location,
they had no choice but to book me into a PT Cruiser, at no extra charge. In the past, I've always have trouble
remembering what my rental car looked like, so it was easy on the brain to end up with
something distinctive. It took me roughly 8 hours to figure out how to roll down the windows. Here's a tip:
in a PT Cruiser, the windows controls are on the center console...not each door. Believe me, this will
prevent you from looking like a dolt when you go through a toll booth.
I attended Friday night's Pirates game against the Rockies, and was
consequently amazed by downtown Pittsburgh, PNC Park, and the Pitt fans.
I came out of the Fort Pitt tunnels, and instantly got chills. I saw Heinz Field and PNC to
my left, and I knew this would be a great trip. I hadn't been to Pittsburgh since
1999 and I was impressed with how the city seemed to glisten. I parked at
Station Square, a downtown shopping complex, and took the Ferry over. The Ferry's 3 bucks each way, and
it runs $6 to park in Station Square. So
if you're travelling with a group, it may be cheaper to just park in a $20 lot closer
to the park. But the ferry is great if you're an out-of-towner, or loser tourist who flies
around visiting various ballparks. The most scenic part of a Pittsburgh river tour is cruising through the city,
so it's worth it.
The ferry hit the shore and I was floored by the city's skyline. I kept expecting somebody
to tear down the tarp and prove that it wasn't really PITTSBURGH I was looking at.
The outside of PNC was adorned with several banners of former Pirates. Dave Parker,
Manny Sanguillen, Bill Mazeroski, Kent Tekulve and others.
I walked up through the home plate entrance...and about passed out when I looked out to the field and
saw PNC's awesome backdrop. The park prefectly frames the city. Again, I couldn't
believe that this was Pitts-freakin-burgh.
I've been to several ballparks, and hands-down, PNC is the best ballpark I have stepped foot in.
Not a single square foot of the park is wasted. The yellow-ish sandstone is a great
compliment to the green field...and to top it off, the blue lights act as a third compliment.
Tertiary compliments in a ballpark?! My Color Theory instructor would've been proud.
Every notch, seat, walkway, banner or food stand is significant in someway.
They could have named the chicken stand out in left field somethig stupid like "Grill works"
or "Good eatin'".. but it's named "Chicken on the Hill"! Awesome.
Other teams have stadiums, parks, etc... but PNC is like a living Pirates museum.
Here it was, mid August, the Bucs well out of first place and playing the dishrag Rockies,
and the game seemed SPECIAL.
The Pirates had alot of pre-game crap going on. There were 3 "ceremonial pitches"
from retards or corporate executives. They also had a small ceremony for
Jason Kendall, who recently set the Pirates franchise record for most games at
catcher. The giant scoreboard in left was pretty entertaining, too. It featured a
lengthy interview from Tike Redman, a flashback to the 1979 team, and a Pirates farm report.
Right before the first pitch, a digital pirate came on, reciting
the line about "abandon hope, all ye who enter"..and "dead men tell no tales"!
They had a little digital cartoon showing a Pirates ship cannonballing ships of other NL
teams, ending with the Rockies. If you've ever been to Downtown Disney's
"Pirates of the Caribbean" interactive video game ride, you'd see the similarity.
Furthermore, the fans were
very knowledgeable and I did not see a single Rockies cap, t-shirt of jacket. That's the way
it shoud be... this was the home of the BUCS. It may seem insignificant to you,
but keep in mind that I regularly attend Rockies home games, where roughly 40% or
more of the crowd is rooting for the visiting team.
However, this was the real highlight for me: Late in the game, Tike Redman made
a spectacular catch. The fans gave him a standing ovation. The Bucs were getting beat 7-2 and the
fans still gave their center fielder a standing ovation. When Redman came up to bat the
next inning, the fans gave him another round of cheers. What the
hell? There are actually enthusiastic hometown fans in the park!
Again, this is alien to me. In the past, I've seen Larry Walker and Juan Pierre make catches
that have exceeded Redman's... but the appreciation from the fans died down after roughly 10 seconds.
There were two areas of concern, though. First, the lower seats are all fairly low. If someone over
six feet sits in front of you, your view of the field will be blocked. Also, until the eighth inning,
I went roughly 45 seconds WITHOUT a screaming hotdog, beer, lemonade, beer, promgram, beer,
ice cream, beer, or beer vendor walk past. I'm not sure, but I think you can get beer
at PNC Park fairly easy.
This was an amazing experience for me. I half-expected to see James Earl Jones walk out
of a cornfield in left, reciting "through it all, Ra,y baseball has been there." Usually,
when a game concludes I'm ready to get out of there and head home. I did not want to
leave PNC..I could have wandered around there until 4 am, just looking at stuff. I don't
care how many pennants the Bucs win in the future...never build them another stadium.
This one is perfection. Even though they lost soundly, I walked out of there proud to be a Pirates fan.
Thank you, Pittsburgh.
And then, I went to Cleveland...
I wasn't expecting Cleveland to be scenic...but I wasn't expecting it to be a complete
shit hole, either. I was booked into a
shady gangsta hotel out by the airport. Days Inn is usually a quality establishment and
worth 40 bucks a night. But this joint had worn carpets, cracked ceilings, bedsheets that didn't
fit the bed..plus lots of gangstas, prostitutes, derelicts and drug dealers. All in the comfort
of wood panelling and shag carpet! I thought maybe I simply had bad luck with Expedia...but
every hotel I passed looked similar. Apparently, one of the hotel's
custodians is allowed to live in room 237. He blasts his booty-thumping bass
23 hours a day (takes an hour off from 2am to 3am to smack his bitch and do a few lines).
Alot of college-aged hippies are seen wandering around. There's also a
nightclub in the lounge, and about 3 or 4 strip clubs within walking distance.
I've stayed at some true dives in my times... but at least they maintained or attempted
some semblance of
dignity (the shithole Travelodge in downtown San Diego comes to mind). I kept waking up
every 30 minutes to see if my car was still in the lot.
But anyways...they should renovate Jacobs Field. Build a new airport beyond right
field and add a few hotels behind homeplate. Jacobs is okay.
But aside from it, there's no other reason to visit Cleveland. Build the airport
and hotels adjacent to the park and Cleveland's tourism will increase immediately. The current airport
is a complete pig-sty and about 20 years behind the rest of the civilized world.
Cleveland, itself, is sort of an elevated city. The entire downtown section seems
to be on stilts or elevated above the Cuyahoga. I parked in the Tower City
complex for 6 bucks. I wasted some time at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame
(of which the rant can be found HERE) and took the undergound tunnel
to Jacobs Field. I bumped into a scalper in the tunnel and was able to get
a decent ticket on the third base side for 7 bucks below face value. For a sell-out
and fireworks, that's a good deal. The Indians hosted the Twins,
and were only 2 1/2 games behind them.
Jacobs Field is like Coors Field's sibling. Both field share common characteristics.
Coors has the elevated wall in right field, Jacobs has it in left field. Coors has a
restaurant in right, Jacobs has it in left. Both have two rows
of luxury boxes, although Coors opted for partially open-air boxes. The highest seats in
the outfield and above home plate are roughly the same distance in both places. There's
even two angled girders along the press boxes that could be inter-changeable.
I could have sworn
that Jacobs had a hand-operated scoreboard in left, but it's been replaced
by a digital television screen. The screen cycles through out-of-town scores, 4 at a time, which can
be annoying. For instance, if you want to see how the Pirates are doing, you have to
wait a few minutes. The scoreboard is tied into the smaller screens in rightfield, first and third.
When a player is introduced, his face is displayed on all 4 screens at once. It actually
looks better than it sounds.
Some of the novelties are pretty damn cheap. A program was only $1!. At that price, I was expecting
a photocopy of the lineup and a bunch of ads. It was full-fledged publication: articles, player profiles,
color pictures...all that shit. Indians polo-shirts were only 20 bucks. Those things usually check in
around the 60-75 dollar range.
Fans were into it. Right before the anthem, Coco Crisp, Omar Vizquel,
Ben Broussard and other all came over to sign autographs along
the third base line. The ushers allowed everybody to go down. Bascially, if
you wanted to walk down, you'd get your autograph.
The tribe got up early on a homerun by Travis Haffner and never looked back.
At the games' conclusion, "Rock n' Roll All Night" by KISS was the
post-game "yay we won" music. (Frank--if you're reading, I thought "hey, Frankie
would dig this!"). They also ran a decent fireworks show for post-game fun.
It took a full hour to get back on the highway. I ended up following the Cuyahoga for awhile, before
shooting back up to the Field. I passed a burned out, decrepit warehouse and
thought "man, that needs to be condemned". When I passed the front of the building, I
saw a fresh "Office Space: For Sale or Lease" sign on it! Cleveland also leads the entire
WORLD in telephone poles and fast foods joints per square mile. No wonder Cleveland
fans are so into their Browns, Indians and Cavs...there's nothing else of interest there.
Again, Jacobs Field is okay.... but Cleveland Sucks! It would take some powerful booty
to ever get me back to Cleveland.
I also zipped down to Canton and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If you MUST stay around Cleveland,
I recommend Canton or Akron. Each is a relatively short drive to downtown Cleveland. Plus,
Akron has the minor-league Aeros ballpark, for you diehards. Along those lines, just north of
Cleveland are the Lake County Captains. If both teams had been in town, I would have dropped in.
For Pittsburgh accomadations, I recommend anything out by the airport.
There's alot of new development on that side and I was exceptionally pleased with the
Microtel Suites I stayed in. The girl at the front desk was kinda' cute and had a nice rack.
If you go to Pittsburgh over the next year, make sure to heed the road closings.
The road from the airport to downtown, along with the Fort Pitt tunnels were
closed at various times.
If you must
venture further out, I recommend the old standby, south of Pittsburgh: the Scottish Inn on Route 51
and I-70...complete with mafia hideout windows.
This was a simple four-day Dumb Jock Vacation for me. It wasn't too much. I didn't feel
burned out or bored at all. I doubt many travel agencies are selling packages to
Western Pennsylvania and Northern Ohio, but for a quick diversion or secondary vacation
it's fine. If you have any suggestions or similar experiences, you can always...
Comment about this article. Hit the ES Board, or
Contact My Ass!
I'll probably be adding a few pictures of the trip, over on the ES-Board.
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