Let The Memories Flow

When the Pittsburgh Pirates end their 30-year stay at Three Rivers Stadium on Sunday, the closing ceremonies will include digging up home plate and moving it across the parking lot to the new PNC Park. Other than the memories of some great teams and players, there isn’t much else worth saving from this dinosaur of the 1970s’ all-purpose stadium architecture.

But I still remember the excitement on July 16, 1970, when the Pirates, garbed in their new state-of-the-art double-knit, buttonless uniforms, abandoned the aging Forbes Field for the towering immensity of Three Rivers Stadium.

At the time, few were sentimental about leaving Forbes, the first steel and concrete stadium and the team’s home since 1909. In those days, new was good. Bigger was better. Artificial surfaces were cool. And even if those goofy new Pirate uniforms brought plenty of laughs--though they were mild compared with the garish black-and-gold combinations to follow--the city was impressed with this coliseum-like edifice.

At the first game my father and I attended at the new stadium, we sat in the nose-bleed section. It was like watching a game from a blimp. A popup to second base looked like a round-tripper until it began its descent. We bought better seats in future visits (at prices much higher than Forbes had offered) and became acclimated to the less-than-intimate environs. But what really made the fans love Three Rivers--other than its lack of steel beams blocking sight lines--was that the tenants were winning.

Despite the miracle World Series victory in 1960, Forbes Field became synonymous with Pirate teams that inevitably came up short. The dazzling play of Roberto Clemente, the awesome power of Willie Stargell or the spectacular glove work of Bill Mazeroski couldn’t overcome mediocre pitching in the 1960s. But when the Pirates moved into Three Rivers after the 1970 All-Star break, they were a team on the rise. New blood like Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen, Dave Cash, Bob Robertson and Richie Hebner had come into their own while veterans Clemente and Stargell were still at the top of their game and their beloved manager, Danny Murtaugh, had come out of retirement to helm the team. While the pitching was still cobbled together year to year, it boasted a couple of anchors in Steve Blass and Dock Ellis.

In the 1970s, the Pirates never finished lower than third, winning six division titles and two World Series. Among the great games at Three Rivers during that era include a 2-1 victory over San Francisco in Game 3 of the 1971 National League championship series in which Bob Johnson (lifetime record: 28-34) outdueled Hall of Famer Juan Marichal; Blass’ three-hitter in Game 3 of the 1971 World Series against Baltimore; Bruce Kison pitching six innings of one-hit relief in Game 4 of that series, the first night World Series game; finally defeating the Reds in an NLCS, with a Bert Blyleven complete game victory in the 1979 Game 3; and, down three games to one to Baltimore, winning Game 5 of the 1979 World Series behind four innings of superb relief by Blyleven and three RBI by shortstop Tim Foli.

The memorable 1979 season, during which co-MVP Stargell seemed to hit a home run every time “The Family” needed one, felt like the start of another great run of competitive seasons. Instead, it was the end. Like the disco era they reflected, the Pirates collapsed amid drug scandals.

As the team sank in the standings and attendance dwindled, the future of the franchise was in trouble. A National League team since 1887 (only Chicago and Philadelphia have represented the league longer), the city of Honus Wagner, the Waner Brothers, Pie Traynor, Ralph Kiner, Clemente and Stargell came close to losing the team in the mid-’80s.

Two moves saved the team for a few years. After an unsettling period in which the Galbreath family, longtime owners of the team, were looking to sell and there were rumors of prospective buyers moving the team to northern Virginia or Denver, the city itself, along with a group of private investors, purchased the Pirates in 1985.

Later that winter, Jim Leyland was hired to replace fired manager Chuck Tanner. Though the team remained one of the “have nots” of baseball, Leyland built a contender, winning three straight division titles in 1990-1992. But they never got to the Series, a frustration culminating when Francisco Cabrera slapped in the game-winner for Atlanta in the 1992 NLCS. Those teams were quickly gutted by free agency, as Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Doug Drabek and John Smiley left for paydays Pittsburgh couldn’t afford.

By 1994, as the city served as host to baseball’s All-Star Game, the team was reportedly losing $1 million a month and desperately seeking a private owner. For more than a year, negotiations with prospective buyers kept the city on edge as one of the leading contender’s plans included turning the Pirates into the Washington Senators. By the end of the 1995 season, the team was literally days from packing it up and moving south--obituaries for the Pittsburgh Pirates were being written--when Kevin McClatchy, a 33-year-old newspaper heir from Sacramento, found enough deep-pocket investors to buy the club and keep it in Pittsburgh.

But the tentative hold the city had over the Pirates remained: Part of the McClatchy agreement was that a new ballpark had to be built within five years. After voters rejected a sales tax increase for a stadium, the county tax board agreed to help fund a redevelopment plan that included new playing fields for the Pirates and the Steelers, a project that is primarily financed by the teams and state money. That final OK came just two years ago.

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I was a baseball-obsessed 14-year-old when Three Rivers Stadium opened and for the next 10 years it was a sports heaven. In addition to the exciting Pirate teams of the ‘70s, the Steelers won four Super Bowls, with the stadium serving as host to 10 NFL playoff games during the decade. It was the centerpiece of the “City of Champions” and an electric place to be throughout baseball and football seasons. Better to keep my memories pure, I left the area near the end of the 1980 football season.

To gauge the pulse of the city, I called Lanny Frattere, radio and TV voice of the Pirates since 1980. Few have spent more time at Three Rivers Stadium than Frattere, who began as the No. 2 guy to Milo Hamilton in 1976 after beloved Pirate announcer Bob Prince was abruptly fired by the team.

“The place is dear to my heart,” Frattere said. “. . . This is where I first got the chance to announce in the major leagues, something I’d dreamt about since I was 12 years old.”

He pinpointed the 30-year problem of attracting fans to the stadium. “When Three Rivers was originally planned, part of the plan was to build up the neighborhood, the North Side, around it, but that wasn’t served very well. Now we get a second chance.”

Frattere believes the city feels the same way he does: “The dominant feeling--and as an announcer I’m reluctant to express what fans are thinking--is an excitement because with this move we help guarantee the future of baseball in the city.”

That’s really what the final days of Three Rivers Stadium represent to Pittsburgh and Pirate fans everywhere: an end to a tumultuous 15 years, with the opening of PNC Park assuring that another generation, at least, will enjoy baseball in Pittsburgh.

Attending my last game at Three Rivers on a vacation trip last summer, I was surprised how well-maintained the stadium looked. Festooned with banners and looking like a cleaned-up Roman Colosseum, it was brighter and more inviting than I remembered. But inside, the excitement was gone, as a small crowd watched a baseball game on a football field, with players running across a synthetic surface not fit for human competition, surrounded by too many empty plastic seats.

With the Pirates suffering through one of their most disappointing seasons and Manager Gene Lamont all but fired, the Sunday finale can’t come too soon. And even with a beautiful new revenue-producing ballpark, this team will always face an uphill battle to compete with the Yankees and Braves of the world. Yet if PNC Park can come close to matching the atmosphere that makes attending a game at Wrigley Field or Camden Yards an event, maybe baseball has a real future in Pittsburgh.