Game #81- Pittsburg Pirates

Pittsburg Pirates vs. Boston Redsox PNC Park September 19, 2014 What a great weekend! To celebrate my buddy Ricky Webber’s bachelor party, a bunch of headed to Chicago for some bar hopping and a rooftop Cubs game. But before flying to IL, Ricky, his brother Paul and I visited Pittsburg for a Pirates game. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the “Steel City”, it could either be completely run down and filthy (picture the dad’s job in Rudy or the bars in Zoolander) or brand new and pristine. From the little that we saw, the latter was more accurate. We stayed in a hotel just across the river from PNC Park and therefore got to walk across the iconic Sixth Street Bridge (can clearly be seen beyond center field, painted a bright yellow) to the stadium. Outside the walls of the park was rockin’! You can drink on the street, there were bands, bars pumping music, all in all a good time. We collected a couple Yuengling beers and headed in the gates. This stadium is beautiful. It was built in 2001 and has a great view of downtown, Allegheny River, 6th street bridge and from the outer halls you can see Hines Field. We headed to our seats and got to see a fairly exciting game. The Bucs took an early 1-0 lead in the first, got a homerun from Starling Marte, and had an amazing grab by hometown favorite Andrew McCuthen. But the play of the game was an odd one. The Sox were down 3-2 in the ninth, had men at the corners with no one out, when Will Middlebrooks cracked the ball down third and hit the diving Jemile Weeks in the leg. I didn’t know this rule but apparently if you get hit by a fair ball you are out…The Bucs closer got the last two batters and the game was over. Nothing too interesting happened at the game. We found out the crap beer in Pittsburg is called Steel City…worse than PBR. Also, Ricky learned to fly. Actually he jumped from the window sill to my bed but I got a great picture of him mid air…looks to be 10 feet of the ground. The next day we caught a flight to Chi town and crushed it…or I got crushed, what a hangover. Good times.