(PICTURE: Roberto Clemente, my dad's favorite baseball player ever.)In 1956 my dad and his best friend Mark decided to stop rooting for the Yankees -- apparently they were too good -- and each picked a terrible team. My dad picked the Pirates and his friend Mark picked the Orioles.
Although the Pirates haven't had a winning season in fifteen years, my dad had lots of great years with the Pirates in the 60s and the 70s. My dad's favorite player was Roberto Clemente and when I was a kid I collected Clemente cards at baseball card conventions to show off to my dad. In turn, Clemente became my favorite legendary player.
Despite being a huge Pirates fan, my dad had never been to Pittsburgh. While living in Vietnam, I told my dad that I was going to take him to a Pirates home game when I came home. I asked my brother if he wanted to come along and well, I'm in Pittsburgh this weekend with my dad and brother.
Last night we went to PNC field -- a gorgeous stadium overlooking the Pittsburgh skyline -- and saw the Pirates lose 3-1.
2 comments:
how do you like pittsburgh? that was sort of my first intro to the states back in '88. i'm pretty sure the pirates were on a roll, because one of the first days of school, they gave us all little action dolls of their mascot: a plastic green parrot dressed up as a pirate. or maybe they were on a losing streak and couldn't sell the toys, so they gave them away to public school kids...
I love Pittsburgh. I was here a few years and loved it then too. It was just voted the most liveable city in the country for the second time in a row.
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