AB1 Tour 2014 - Week 22 - Pittsburgh, PA

We made it to our Pittsburgh campground early enough on Sunday, August 24, to catch the championship game of the Little League World Series.  Japan had won the last two years and three of the last four, but they were knocked off this year by a strong Korea team for the International; title.  Korea then went on to beat Chicago, the U.S. champions, in the over-all title game.  It was so much fun to see the kids play, especially now that I had been to some games at the actual LLWS.
     

Pittsburgh, contrary to what I had always been led to believe, is a very pretty town.  Their Renaissance of the 1970’s-80’s really spiffed up the city.  And Diedre just loved their breweries and beer selections, one of the best places for that we’ve yet visited.  In most of the towns we visit, there’s a church on every corner.  With Pittsburgh, it was a BAR on every corner.  And that was fine with us.
     Monday was an “R&B Day” (rest and blog); our major expenditure of our limited energies was to watch the Emmy's.  We were glad to see two of our favorites, Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”) and Juliana Margulies (“The Good Wife”), take home the gold … statues.  We needed the rest as tomorrow would be our big “Pittsburgh” walking day.
   

 As is our usual style on game days in big cities, we went into town in the morning and parked at the Rivers Casino, just a few blocks from the baseball stadium.  We then started with the Riverwalk at the confluence of the three rivers: the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio.  During the day, we would manage to cross four of their 11 bridges over those same rivers as we wove to and fro across downtown Pittsburgh.
  I spotted our first statue on the Riverwalk near the Steelers football stadium, so I assumed it was Steeler owner Art Rooney.  Diedre disagreed, saying it looked more like “Mr. Rogers” of children’s TV fame.  And it WAS a wonderful day in the neighborhood for DK ... it was Mr. Fred Rogers.

 We then walked over to the Pirates PNC Park where we could get photos without so many other people clustering around.  We posed with the wonderful statues of the Pirates’ all-time greats: Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Bill Mazeroski.  Particularly thrilling for me was the Mazeroski statue. 

Near it, they had the wall section of the now-demolished Forbes Field with the 406’ marker over which on October 13, 1960, at 3:36 PM, with the Pirates’ game seven of the World Series with the Yankees knotted at nine-all in the bottom of the last inning and the count 1-0, Mazeroski forever entered the pantheon of greatest Pittsburgh heroes by blasting the only walk-off home run ever in the final game of any World Series going back to 1903.  I had to touch the wall to feel the mojo from a ballpark in which I had never been.
  From the ball park, we crossed bridge #1 to get to Point State Park, a beautifully restored area right at the confluence of the three big rivers.  It is also the home of the now restored pre-Revolutionary-War Fort Pitt.  This peninsula-park with the huge fountain is a wonderful place to just sit and take in the city’s beauty.  We sat there and snacked on gyros and popcorn.  The local birds enjoyed our snack also.
     Bridge #2 took us off the peninsula and over to the Duquesne Incline.  There, a restored cable car in use since 1877 took us up the wooded slopes of Mount Washington.  DK got her first use of her Medicare card, flashing it to the ticket-taker for a whopping savings of a free ride up the Incline.  I, of course, being a youngster of just 63, had to pay the full $5 fare, although TECHNICALLY somebody else wasn’t quite 65 (Diedre still has less than a month to go, but the government sent her a Medicare card anyway.)  At the top, we got an incredibly panoramic view of Pittsburgh and its three rivers. (It's the photo at the top of the blog.)
     Two bridges later, the Roberto Clemente Bridge, which looms in the background behind the ball park’s center-field fence, brought us back to PNC Park.  Earlier that day we had visited the Pirates’ team shop to get some Buccaneer booty (Yeah, I know, Pittsburgh has a nickname for their team’s nickname).  I wanted a Pirates shirt with the name “Clemente” on the back to go with my St. Louis Cardinals’ “Musial” shirt.  I like to get shirts with retired players’ names on them.  That way, they won’t go on to disgrace themselves or get traded to another team (a la Diedre’s “Sammy Sosa” jersey) and I’ll be able to always proudly wear them.  Diedre loved a black T-shirt with gold “Pirates” lettering on the front and “Clemente” on the back.  I ultimately bought that style shirt, only it was gold with black lettering.  Diedre was adamant that I bought that one only because when I would eventually spill mustard on my shirt, and I know I will, it would match.
     She had a point.
  We then wandered around the ballpark to soak in the atmosphere.  There were more statues, only inside the park this time.  “Legacy Square” honored the rich Pittsburgh history of Negro Baseball with their league’s greatest pitcher, Satchel Paige.  And then I was glad to see one of their greatest hitter, maybe the greatest hitter of all time, catcher Josh Gibson immortalized with a statue.
     During the game, I was out walking the concourse as I am wont to do (Really?! You used the word “wont”?) when I saw an older guy standing there yelling, “STELLA!”  I was sure he was doing a bad Marlon Brando “Streetcar” impression.  Turns out, he was simply hawking “Stella Artois” beer.  I was glad as otherwise, Tennessee Williams would not have been too happy about it.
   

 The Pirates played a beautiful game in a beautiful stadium.  Their pitcher, Gerrit Cole, took a no-hitter into the 6th.  They ended up beating the St. Louis Cardinals 5-2 on Edina, Minnesota’s Ike Davis’s 3-run, pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the 8th.  It raised our home-team record to 11-4.  (Note that the next day, Davis again homered; it was also the decisive blow in a Pirates 3-2 victory over the Cards).
     On the walk back from the game to casino parking, Diedre’s Fit-Bit had us at 9.37 miles walked for the day … and counting.  Not bad for a Medicare gal.
   Recovering the next day by cutting our walking by two-thirds, we found a very nice “Rails-for-Trails” hiking path.  It was a part of “The Three Rivers Heritage Trail.”  It was calm and peaceful, and it went through a lot of little towns.  There was even a pizza and ice cream shop at our trail head.  The whole thing was 150 miles long, but trying not to be show-offs, we just did three miles.
     Rejuvenated, we attacked Thursday the 28th on the “divide and conquer” strategy.  Diedre dropped me off downtown at the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum at the Heinz History Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, while she was off to a mani-pedi appointment.  Remember that those nine-mile walking days can be hell on your feet.
      The Sports Museum was pretty good; they largely stressed Roberto Clemente’s 3,000th hit which took place on September 30, 1972, and Franco Harris’s “Immaculate Reception” which also occurred in 1972 on December 23rd.  I especially noted an Andrew Carnegie quote there at the museum:
     “To die rich is to die disgraced.”
     Hmmmm …
     Well, I must concur.  In our travels, Diedre and I are making sure we do not die disgraced.
   

 DK picked me up several hours later and we made a mad dash over to the University of Pittsburgh where the Pirates legendary ball park, Forbes Field, stood from 1909 to 1970.  It’s all gone now EXCEPT for the outfield wall.  The Pirates last world championship came there in the very exciting 1960 World Series.  Interesting note about that series: the powerhouse Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27, out hit them 91-60, and out homered them 10-4.  The Pirates only led in one important category: GAMES WON!  They took the Series four games to three.
     We then did another “divide and conquer”: while Diedre walked “The Strip District” along the Allegheny River, I continued my sports history immersion with a scheduled appointment-tour at “The Roberto Clemente Museum” which is located in old Fire Engine House #25 built in 1896.  It’s about three miles from PNC Park.
     The museum has the largest collection of Clemente memorabilia in the world.  They have the sign from the old Three Rivers Stadium wall commemorating the retirement of Clemente’s number 21.  On the huge fire department walls stands a giant mural of the Forbes Field scoreboard at the exact moment Mazeroski hit his epic home run.
     During the tour (tours are available only by appointment), the guide told us of a most mystical fact: the fire house in which the museum now stands was decommissioned on December 31, 1972 … the exact same day Clemente was killed in a plane crash while flying relief supplies to victims of the Nicaragua earthquake.  They even have a propeller from the unlucky plane.
     Then there’s the mystical visual: a giant photo on the downstairs wall is of Clemente during his rookie spring training season in Florida.  The photo is especially heart striking because, unbeknownst to the photographer, the clouds in the background seem to perfectly fit Roberto as a pair of angel’s wings.
     And yet one more eerie aspect of the building: during the Pirates-Yankees 1927 World Series when the Yankees had assembled perhaps the greatest baseball team of all time, the New Yorkers had stayed in a posh hotel in downtown Pittsburgh … well, almost all of them did.  But future Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig chose to bunk in with one of his college roommates from Columbia University.  The roommate had become a Pittsburgh fireman.  That’s right, you guessed it.  During the 1927 World Series, Lou Gehrig had slept at his buddy’s firehouse … the exact building where we now stood as part of the Roberto Clemente Museum.
     Weird, huh?
     Other things the museum has: 1) two of Roberto’s Golden Glove Awards; 2) Clemente’s 1960 and 1971 World Series rings; and 3) his Silver Bat Award, probably the most valuable item in the building.
   

 Hungry now after another long Pittsburgh day, we headed to the Carson Street area known for its Bohemian flair on the city’s south side to the much-talked-about “Fat Heads Saloon.” Our stomach pleasing goal: a “headwich” (a head-sized sandwich).  Diedre rated this place the best all-around dinner on the trip so far because of their beer selections, the monster sandwiches, and the home-made potato chips.  Her headwich, “The Head Brew Ben,” was handcrafted with smoked pulled-pork, hot pepper kraut, Swiss cheese, Head Hunter mustard, and Thousand Island dressing.  Her beer was “Fatheads Hot Juju Imperial IPA,” a supernatural beer with “a reckless use of hops creating dank aromas with high tropical fruits and citrus giving it a big, aggressive bitter flavor with grapefruit and oranges, a very sturdy malbec with a hint of alcohol.”
     Witchcraft?
     Maybe a little.
     Meanwhile, I had the “Mo Betta Beef and Chedda” headwich which had smoked beef brisket, sharp cheddar, portobello mushrooms, bacon, and chipotle mayo.
     YOW!
     My drink, a very substantial Diet-Coke, had far fewer adjectives than Diedre’s drink.
     For our last night in town, we got out of the city and made our way to a very fun, old theatre in Delmont, PA.  The Apple Hill Theatre was showing a clever comedy called “Squabbles.”  But the best part of the experience was that the theatre had been a barn for many years, only being turned into a theatre in 1956.  It had that real “let’s put on a show” feeling.
     All right, it’s on to Pittsburgh’s big rival: Cincinnati, the home of professional baseball.
     Catch you on the flip side.