Weekend at PNC Park

Spent Saturday and Sunday at PNC Park with 75,000 or so of our closest friends watching the Pirates and Dodgers have at it.  Extra innings and a four hour plus game on Saturday, and a 90 minute rain delay prior to Sunday's game, and I want to be the first  to nominate Marilyn for Wife of the Year for sticking through it all (plus handling my scorecard while I had to leave the seat for nature calls).

The Pirates split the two games, Gerrit Cole got his second win since his recall, and Pedro Alvarez hit an absolute monster of a home run (has he ever hit a cheap one?), so it was good weekend, overall, and the Bucs head to Cincy for four games against the Reds.  They are 1/2 game behind the Reds, and three games behind the Cardinals, so this shapes up as a big series for them.

However, I am choosing not to comment on the baseball so much, but rather what we witnessed at Saturday's game. 

Saturday was one of the Pirates "Fan Jam" nights, with the band, Blues Traveler performing post game.  We had no plans for staying for the concert, but there were plenty of people who were obviously at the game solely for the concert, including a group of ten people sitting next to us in Section 127, not cheap seats, I might add).  These folks were in their late 20's or early 30's.  Three guys from the group were there at the beginning of the game, and drinking beers from the get go.  The rest of the group came in at about the sixth inning or so and were already totally trashed.  They continued to buy beers, two and three at a time, through the end of the game (and it went two extra innings, remember).  This meant that we constantly had to get up and down as they went back to the stands for more beer and to the rest rooms to discharge what they had already drunk.

It was annoying and obnoxious to say the least.  It was like being at a Steelers game, for God's sake!  And it raises some questions:

1. Beer vendors stop selling beer in the seventh inning. Why don't the concession stands stop selling as well?
2. Who has this kind of money?  Our estimate, assuming a $7 per beer price, which is probably low, was that this group spent close to $500 on beer alone that night, on top of $36 for each ticket.  And that estimate is on the low side.
3. Were they able to enjoy the concert?
4. How in the hell did they get home afterwards?

In any event, we were hoping that each of them were sick as dogs all day Sunday.

In contrast was the crowd at the game yesterday, Father's Day.  So many families with young, and I mean really young, babes in arms young, kids.  It was nice to see, but again, who has that kind of money?  Pirates tickets are not cheap, and spending it on a baby or toddler who would have no idea what was going on, and then buying them food and souvenirs?  Well, I guess it is a wholesome family day out, so long as it's not a Fan Jam Night.  I know that I went to my first Pirate game at age 7 when I "would know what was going on down there", and that was when youth bleachers seats at Forbes Field went for eighty cents.