Road Trips 2017: Pittsburgh Pirates

PART ONE:

PNC Park

home of the 

Pittsburgh Pirates

Finally!  My first road trip of the season.

I visited Pittsburgh's PNC Park once before in 2005 for an inter-league series against the eventual World Series champion, Chicago White Sox.  I made that trip a few years before launching this blog, and so accounts and pictures went unpublished.  Twelve years later, I finally made my return trip to Steel City over the Fourth of July weekend.

Without further adieu, it's my pleasure to finally present you PNC Park, and the site of old Forbes Field.

Even if you drive and park in one of the back lots, at some point a visitor must walk across the Roberto Clemente Bridge.  After all, it's these very kind of quirks that truly distinguish one ball park experience from another.  Am I right?

Plaque on bridge

Greeting visitors on the other side is the statue immortalizing

Roberto Clemente

Further ahead, Federal Street 

is a fine pre-game gathering area.

Willie Stargell's statue neighbors Clemente's alongside the left field gates

Honus Wagner guards the home gate from atop a pedestal

Bill Mazeroski's statue is the newest edition, and can be 

found on the river front beyond PNC's right field corner

Ralph Kiner's bronze hands reside inside the park, 

tucked in a corner next to the left/center bleachers

GAME TIME

San Francisco Giants @ PIRATES

June 30 - July 2

The gate off General Robinson Street featured seven statues commemorating Pittsburgh's Negro League greats during my previous visit in 2005.  But I do not know if the statues were on loan, perhaps making a limited appearance, or if they were ever part of a permanent display at PNC Park.   All I can say is that on this trip these banners adorned the walls and marked the positions where those respective statues once stood.

EXTRA INNINGS

NEXT  STOP

PART TWO 
FORBES FIELD