Ballpark quest - 60 ballparks

  The last two days have were the first baseball games I’ve gone to in Pittsburgh, but it isn’t the first baseball stadium in Pittsburgh I’ve been at. Sort of. From 1909 until 1970, the Pirates played at Forbes Field , one of the first metal and concrete baseball stadiums. The earliest years of major league baseball were played in stadiums made of wood, which weren’t that sturdy, and had a habit of burning down. Forbes Field wasn’t the first metal and concrete stadium, but it was the first in the National League. In the next two decades, every major league city built one. Two of those, Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston, are still in use. By 1958, the nearby University of Pittsburgh was growing enough that the university purchased Forbes Field for the land, with the understanding that the Pirates would play there until a new stadium was built. That new stadium was Three Rivers Stadium , which, like most stadiums being built then, was a multi-purpose (the Pit...

  Slipping away from a meeting for a ballgame is a good way to get to a lot of parks if you have a job where you end up with meetings around the country, even if you’re not trying to systematically see all the stadiums. This trip to Pittsburgh counts as one of those, and also got us some great seats. Kerry is part of the lay leadership for our church denomination (Disciples of Christ) in the state, and was asked to go to a meeting of state leaders from across the nation in Pittsburgh this week. The person doing the asking, Jay Hartley, knows Kerry well enough that he mentioned that the Pirates were going to be in town when he did the ask, so she was hooked, and I came along. Incidentally, we went to last night’s game with Jay, a die-hard Reds’ fan, and his wife, whose engagement ring was paid for by selling an extensive baseball card collection. Today, the folks in charge of the meeting put together an outing at the ballpark for anyone who wanted to come, so we (and Jay) natu...

  This evening, we watched a “phenom” pitch. Paul Skenes is a 22-year-old who has had a phenomenal start to his career. Among other things, he was the National League’s starting pitcher in last week’s All-Star game, a rare honor for a rookie. Coming into tonight’s game, he had started 11 games in his career (other than the All-Star game), hadn’t lost any, and in the last six, had pitched at least innings, struck out at least eight batters, and walked no more than two in each of those games. In his last start, he didn’t allow any hits through seven innings, but was pulled by the Pirate coaching staff because he had already thrown 99 pitches, and they didn’t want him injuring his arm. It’s the most hype around a rookie pitcher that I can remember in 15 years, and it’s fun to watch, both because he is pitching very, very well, and because every time he pitches, it’s an event. Tonight, Pittsburgh had 32,422 in attendance for a weeknight game, nearly 10,000 more than their average...

  We’ve been watching baseball games every night this week, and even though I haven’t seen either of them play, I’ve thought a lot about two shortstops, Brandon Crawford and Nick Ahmed, and their would-be successors. Shortstop is my favorite position to watch. It’s traditionally the place where the most athletic player goes on defense, because it’s in the middle of all the action. Besides pitcher, it’s one of two positions on the field (catcher is the other) where a player who doesn’t hit very well can start for a major league team, and they’ll keep sending him out there. Many, many major league players, at all sorts of positions, started out as shortstops, because they were the best athlete on their team as a teenager. Aging shortstops often get moved to play third base (Cal Ripken Jr. and Manny Machado are only two examples) as they get older, but the very best shortstops sometimes successfully resist the move (a young Jose Oquendo switched to second base because Ozzie Smith ...