Pirate Chat Night 2015

Pirate Chat Night 2015, I believe, can be considered nothing less than a roaring success.

First off, fifty tickets were sold, and all time record.  As we know, life gets in the way of things sometimes, so while not all fifty folks were able to attend, we did get, by my unofficial count, 45 of the original intended attendees to show up on what turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous night.

The pre-game gathering at Dominic's was an absolute blast.  It gets better each year, and I am thinking that next year we should all just meet there for lunch and hang around all afternoon until game time.  What do you all think?

We all know what then happened.  The Pirates held an 8-3 lead over the Diamondbacks before turning the game over to the most reliable back end of the bullpen in baseball, only to see the D-backs score three in the eighth, and two in the ninth, which resulted in Mark Melancon's first blown save since April.  What then followed was six agonizing extra innings, wherein Arquemedes Caminero and Joe Blanton shutout Arizona, whose bullpen was doing the same thing to the Pirates' bats until the bottom of the 15th inning when a two out triple by the unlikeliest of all Pirates, Pedro Florimon (1-for-19 before that at bat) scored Francisco Cervelli all the way from first base.  Bedlam ensued:

The real magic of the night, though, was the fact that the game went fifteen innings.  With each extra frame, PNC Park became less and less crowed, including our own Pirate Chat group.  That, however, only increased the fun.  We were able to move around within our section and talk more freely among ourselves.  My pictures of the event weren't all that great this year, but these might give you an idea as to how we all began to look as the evening went on and on and on...

By my count, twenty of us made it through all the way to the end of the fifteen innings, and I would like to shout out and recognize those that did.  So I present to you The Fifteen Inning Honor Roll:

Cara Battistella
Craig Britcher
John Coley
Donny and Max Copper
Ryan Frankhouser
Jim Haller
Len Martin
Steve McGlynn
Bill Montrose
Mike Muro
Gary Reiche and his wife
Joe and Alex Risacher
Fred Shugars
Bob Sproule
Elena and Matt Szymanowski, and Matt's buddy, Joey

If I left anyone out, I apologize.

It was terrific night out and a fun time with a lot of great folks, and the Pirates won the game.  The team now sports a record of 3-0 on Pirate Chat Nights.

See you all next year, folks!

Pirate Chat Goes to Altoona

Thanks to Pirate Chat member Tom Elling, it was "Pirate Chat Night"  (it was even recognized as such in the game program!) at People Natural Gas Park in Altoona, PA last night.  A group of twenty Pirate Chatters....

gathered on a beautiful late Spring evening.....

and watched the Pirates Double-A affiliate pound out 13 runs on 17 hits and defeat the Binghampton Mets, 13-4.

We got to see Curve pitcher Jacob Creasy boost his record to 6-0, and we saw highly touted Pirate prospect Josh Bell...

collect three hits and a bases loaded walk.  When Bell finally arrives at PNC Park in 2017 or so, I will now be able to say, in the tradition of my late grandfather, Bill Madden, "I seen that kid when he was a bush leaguer!"

As with most minor league ball games, the game itself was the least of the evening.  Last night was "Star Wars Night", as witnessed by these sights:

Star Wars Night also featured Curve players wearing special uniform shirts with Jabba the Hut on them.  Thankfully, I was unable to get a close-up photo of these, because they may well have been the ugliest shirts ever worn by a professional baseball team.

And coming up in July - "Bania Mania Night" featuring the guy who played comedian Kenny Bania on "Seinfeld".  Marilyn said that on the inside of the door of the stall she used in the ladies room, there was poster of Kenny Bania!  Think about that - Kenny Bania on the INSIDE OF A STALL DOOR IN A REST ROOM.  Creepy.

All in all, it was faun evening, marred only by the fact that what should have been a two hour trip took us three and half hours.  Thanks to our friends at PENNDOT, a small section of Route 22 being resurfaced in Murrysville,  it took us one hour to traverse about a four mile stretch of that road.  We then encountered a huge back-up getting off of I-99 in Altoona, that then took us another forty minutes to go about a mile.  We missed the top of the first inning, but all was well that ended well.  

I will close with a look at the signature view from the Curve's beautiful ball park in Altoona.

Pirate Chat Night 2014

On Tuesday evening, August 26, the Pirate Chat group from Facebook celebrated it Second Annual Night at PNC Park.  As you can see from the above photo above, we had terrific upper deck seats behind home plate, and we saw Gerrit Cole pitch a fabulous game for the Bucs, a game that the Pirates won 5-2 over the Cardinals on a bottom of the eighth inning three run blast off the bat of Ike Davis.  

Fabulous ballgame, but even more importantly, a terrific night out with a great and fun group of people.  Thirty Pirate Chatters - up from twenty-one in 2013 - attended, and we recognize the following "newcomers" of 2014:

Tom Elling and friends, Steve Brightman and his fiancee, Rob Tuchman, John Sebastian, Bill Montrose, Stephanie Liscio, Michael Fleet, Keith Bittell, Karen Golik, Ryan Frankhauser, and Ron Rulli and his friend.

To Dave Glass, Craig Britcher, and Max Copper, we're sorry that life got in the way and that you were unable to attend last night.  As we all know, "stuff" happens in life, and we hope that you will be able to make it next year.

To Len Martin, thanks for the great job on the t-shirts, as modeled by Bill Montrose and myself.....

Those who didn't buy one, were sorry that they didn't (except maybe Joe Risacher and Fred Shugars, who stayed loyal to the 2013 "throwbacks").  All I can say, Len, is that you better get started on the design for the 2015 shirt.  Demand will probably be high.

David Cicotello, of Murfreesboro, Tennesse, again wins the "He Traveled the Farthest Award", but props also go out to folks who traveled in from Philadelphia (Bill Montrose), Lock Haven (Tom Elling), Cleveland (Stephanie Liscio), and Akron (Steve Brightman).

Here are some photos that will give you an idea of the good times at both the pre-game gathering at Dominic's on Federal Street (which included a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday To You to Donny Copper), and at the game itself.

And the symbolic High Five when Mark Melancon's strike out of Daniel Descalso allowed for the Raising of the Jolly Roger.

No question about it, there WILL be a Third Annual Pirate Chat Night come 2015.  A date will be selected shortly after the schedule is announced.

Pirate Chat Night at PNC Park

Readers may recall me mentioning that I belong to a Chat Group on Facebook called Pirate Chat.  Started by friend Jim Haller in the Spring of 2012 with modest expectations, Pirate Chat has grown to over 300 members and many consider it one of the best forums to discuss our favorite team - pros and cons - for twelve months of the year.  Last night, Pirate Chat took another step in its growth and twenty members ventured out from behind the computer screens and mobile devices to PNC Park for what we hope was the First Annual Pirate Chat Night.  Len Martin contributed to the fun of the event by coming up with the idea for t-shirts to celebrate the event as well.  

It was a fun night, and one of the neatest comments came from Pat Connell who said that given the convivial nature of the group, last night would have even been a perfect night for a rain delay!

Here are some scenes of our night out, including the pre-game gathering at Dominic's.....

Okay, to those Pirate Chat members reading this, a few questions.  Call it preliminary market research for Pirate Chat Night 2014.

1. Do we want to do this again in 2014?
2. Should we do this earlier in the season next year, say, prior to the All-Star Break, or should we stick to a mid to late August date?
3. Would you prefer a week end game, or do we keep it on a week night, or does it not matter?  Keep in mind that it is much more difficult to arrange to secure a block of group tickets for Friday and Saturday dates, and I suspect that it may be even more difficult to do so next season.
4. If you were unable to attend this season for whatever reason, would you plan on attending such a group night event in 2014? (Understand that this is not a firm commitment. The ability to attend such a game on any given night is, of course, subject to any number of variables in our own personal schedules.)

We sold 21 tickets for this event last night.  Wouldn't it be great to at least double that number for next season?