My Season Finale at PNC Park

Well, tonight I called it a season for Marilyn and myself at PNC Park.  When I bought tickets for this game, I was envisioning a game with possible post-season seeding implications, and a chance to see Chipper Jones one last time.  Well, you know what happened.  The game was meaningless and Chipper didn't play, but the Pirates did score a nice 5-1 win over the playoff-bound Braves.  A solid start from  Kevin Correia and a nice two-run homer by Garrett Jones were the highlights.  Oh, and four, count 'em, four stolen bases by the Buccos!!

In all, I attended 16 games at PNC this season, and unfortunately, the team was only 6-10 in those games.  Obviously, I was the problem!  Interestingly enough, of the 16 games I attended, none of them were particularly memorable, as might be expected from a 6-10 stretch of games, save for three:  back-to-back shutouts of the Cardinals on August 28-29, and the no-hitter pitched by the Reds Homer Bailey on September 28.

The team now sits at 79-82 with one game remaining, and a chance to sweep the Braves tomorrow and record 80 wins, the highest total in the twenty year drought, but more on that and what might have been later in the week. Before that, however, allow me to quote from my blog post of September 3, written after I returned from a horrible Pirates loss to the Astros on Labor Day.  Looking ahead to the home stand. I wrote:

"So it comes down to this. Two more games with the Astros, and then three with the Cubs, another lousy team, over the weekend.  Unless they win all five of those games, seriously, all five of them, kiss the wild card hopes good-bye. The goal then becomes winning 82 games and ending the streak, and if it comes to that, they are going to be seriously challenged to do so."

Again, you know what happened.  They went 2-3 over those five games.  Had they won all five, and everything else played out as it did, they would still have lost out on the Wild Card, BUT they would currently have 82 wins, and the  - say it with me now - "longest losing streak in North American professional sports history" would be, well, history.  Then again, that doesn't matter to Neal Huntington, only winning a World Series does.  Does Neal have any idea of the feelings of the fan base?

Still, despite the 20 year losing streak and the disappointment of the final two months of this season, I still feel sad when I walk out of the ball park for the last time in a season, and tonight was no exception.  Oh well, four-and-a-half months, more or less, 'til pitchers and catchers report.

Twenty Straight

I plan to offer up my final thoughts on the 2012 Pirates with a lengthy post later this week when the season finally, mercifully, concludes, but I can't let the day on which they officially clinched their 20th consecutive losing season (say it after me now, "the longest losing streak in North American sports history") without noting this milestone, or should I say "millstone".

And when it actually comes right down to it, what can I say?  As I mentioned on Facebook a few days back, the Pirates and their play in the month of September, combined with their front office follies, have left me speechless.  So I will leave it to Bloggin' Bob Smizik who led his blog entry tonight with this great paragraph:

Forty years to the day after Roberto Clemente gloriously walked into baseball history with his 3,000 hit, the team he once so proudly represented slunk into baseball ignominy with a 20th straight losing season.

That, my friends, is a good piece of writing.

A Trip to The Rivers Casino

We celebrated a non-Steeler Sunday today with a trip to The Rivers Casino.  

Marilyn had received a buy-one-get-one-free coupon from the Casino for her birthday earlier in the month for dinner at the Grand View Buffet in the Casino, so we decided to take advantage of that and head on down to the norsside.  Let me tell you, the food at that buffet is excellent, and there is plenty of it, and the twofer coupon made this a terrific dining option.  It also convinced me of a realization I came to when we first visited Las Vegas in 1992, and that is that excessive and opulent food buffets inside of gambling casinos may not be the main reason the rest of the world hates America, but it has to be very high on the list.

After dinner, of course, we tried our hand at the games of chance available to us.  Marilyn didn't do so well on the slot machines.  I, on the other hand, managed to turn a sixty percent profit at the black jack table in little more than a half an hour.  Before you get too excited about this, I started with $50 and left the table with $80.  I only wish that I had the stones to start our with $500 and try to turn it into $800.  That will probably never happen.  

Standing With Clemente

I had the pleasure of engaging in some mild vandalism early yesterday morning when SABR buddies (from L to R) Len Martin, Jim Haller, Dan Bonk and I visited the parking lots in the vicinity of Heinz Field and marked the spots where home plate and second base were located at Three Rivers Stadium.  It was especially appropriate that second base was located and marked since today, September 30, is the 40th Anniversary of Roberto Clemente's 3,000th, and final, hit, a double against the New York Mets.   You can see us gathered around the marker above, but here is that same spot in a picture with which you are no doubt more familiar:

Actually, full credit for locating these marks goes to Len and Dan who used Google Maps, satellite Images, GPS coordinates and God only knows what else to determine the location of these spots.  Len then produced the templates for home plate and second base as well as the wording that you see on them.

If you care to see these for yourself, take a stroll down General Robinson Street towards Heinz Field.  As you walk down the left sidewalk just past Stage AE, you will see the second base marker.  Then, walk 127 feet to your right, cross General Robinson into the parking lot, and you will be at home plate.

Here you see the vandals at work:

While Len and Dan were doing this. Jim and I were pretty much standing lookout in hopes that the cops didn't come and haul us away to the hoosgow.

Next up: refreshing the paint job on home plate of Exposition Park, which is located in yet another parking lot about a half a block closer to PNC Park.  Len, Dan, and a few other SABR guys were responsible for finding that land mark back in 1995.  We ran out of time yesterday, so that will wait for another Saturday morning raid in the future.

I leave you with one more picture from yesterday:

This is a nice early morning view of downtown Pittsburgh as seen over the rooftop of Stage AE.  I took it while standing at "home plate" of Three Rivers Stadium.  Thanks to Len Martin and Dan Bonk, you can now stand in this same spot and imagine yourself to be Willie Stargell or Roberto Clemente, digging in at home plate, ready to do battle with Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver.

The Homer Bailey No-Hitter

One of baseball's great cliches is that every time you go to a ball game, you might see something that you have never seen before, and tonight that was fulfilled as Marilyn and I watched the Reds' Homer Bailey throw a no-hitter against the Pirates.  There you see the evidence above - my score sheet and game ticket.  I saw my first Pirate game in 1959, and now, 53 years later, I have for the very first time witnessed a no-hitter.

Funny thing is that after the way this Pirates season has been concluding, and after some dicey looking skies this afternoon, it would not have taken a whole lot to make me skip going to this ball game tonight.  Also, I was strongly considering not bothering to take a score sheet along, but at the last minute I thought, what the hell, score the game.

I never consider the possibility of a no-hitter until the pitcher gets through the fourth inning, so when the Bucs went down 1-2-3 in the fourth, I began thinking of what might happen.  And as 1-2-3 inning followed 1-2-3 inning (Bailey only faced 28 batters tonight)  the tension, in my mind, anyway, began to mount.  I say "in my mind" because I never had the sense that the crowd was aware of what was taking place, and I was astonished to see people actually leaving the ball park in the seventh and eighth innings.

The fact that the score was only 1-0 made the crowd still root for a Pirate rally in the ninth, especially after the "hoist the colors" clip on the scoreboard before the inning began, and no doubt lessened the crowd's eagerness for Bailey to pull it off.  I wonder how the crowd would have been if the score was, say 7-0?  Anyway, once pinch hitter Michael McHenry flied to left for the second out leaving Alex Presley as the Bucs' last hope, I think at that point, the crowd began rooting for Bailey.  When Presley hit his pop up that second baseman Brandon Phillips would catch, I watched Bailey on the mound raise his arms, and it was neat to see the Reds' players, dugout, and bullpen mob him on the mound.  The PNC crowd also gave Bailey an appropriate tribute of cheers and applause when it was over, which was nice.

Lost in all of this was that this was that A.J. Burnett pitched a terrific game himself, one run in eight innings, in a losing effort, and that this was the Pirates 81st loss, so there will be no winning season in 2012.

Two months ago, we were looking at the schedule and thinking how important and dynamic this series with the Reds might be.  Well, it didn't turn out that way, but I am sure glad that I was in attendance tonight anyway.

Welcome Back, Zebras!

I don't remember if I wrote it down on The Grandstander, posted it on Facebook, or just mentioned it in discussions with friends, but my thoughts all along about the NFL lockout of their game officials was that as soon as one especially egregious officiating error took place that involved and negatively impacted one of the League's "flagship" franchises (Cowboys, Giants, Patriots, Steelers, and Packers were the teams that sprung to mind at the time), then all Hell would break loose and a settlement would be reached.

Monday Night Football.  The Packers get screwed.  Regular refs back in time for tonight's Thursday Night NFL Network game.  Scab refs go back to Saturday morning peewee league games.

On a personal level, I am most happy for a certain NFL Head Linesman, whom I count as a personal friend.

To Absent Friends: Steve Sabol, Andy Williams

Time to wish Melancholy Happy Trails.....

A belated Happy trails to Steve Sabol, of NFL Films, who, along with his father, Ed, changed forever the way we watch all sports, and professional football in particular.  They, as much as any player, coach, owner, or commissioner, are responsible for the unparalleled popularity of the NFL in America.  Steve Sabol, who won over 40 Emmys for his work,  succumbed to brain cancer last week at the age of 69.  

Today the news arrived of the death of singer Andy Williams at the age of 84.  He has no doubt now found that rainbow's end, waiting 'round the bend.

RIP Steve Sabol and Andy williams.