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When you walk up into that press box and into your broadcast booth and open the windows, whether it’s for an afternoon game or an evening game, you look across to that skyline, river, and those bridges, and still have to pinch yourself because it’s, without question, the most beautiful ballpark in the country.

—Greg Brown, Pittsburgh Pirates TV/radio play-by-play broadcaster

Known throughout the world as the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is host to three U.S. rivers: the Ohio, the Monongahela, and the Allegheny. The latter two merge into the Ohio, leaving downtown Pittsburgh on one side of its banks, and for 30 years, the multisports facility Three Rivers Stadium on the other. Known as one of the “cookie-cutter” stadiums, Three Rivers hosted two World Series champions (’71 and ’79 Pirates) and four Super Bowl champions (’74, ’75, ’78, and ’79 Steelers). Although the ’80s was a forgettable decade in the Steel City, in the early ’90s the Pirates returned to baseball’s postseason spotlight. The team reached the National League Championship Series thrice, during the ’90, ’91, and ’92 seasons. When free agent Barry Bonds exited for San Francisco after the ’92 season, a 21-year play-off drought began for Pirates fans. In fact, the franchise was in danger of relocating to another city before being bought out by Kevin McClatchy in 1996. With an “extended lease” on baseball life, a new stadium was announced, and the ground was broken for the Pirates’ future home on April 7, 1999. Two playoff-less seasons later, Three Rivers Stadium was imploded on February 11, 2001, and the club’s new home, the baseball-specific PNC Park, took its seat on the banks of the Allegheny. Providing a visual that couldn’t be outdone by the best advertising agency, Pirates play-by-play broadcaster Greg Brown recalls his first impression of the team’s new home: “I will never forget, in Spring of 2001, we left our last Grapefruit League game in Bradenton, Florida, and headed to Pittsburgh with the team. It was just about sunset when the other announcers, the players, and I arrived at PNC Park. We took a fairly long walk from the clubhouses to the dugouts and walked out for the first time. I don’t know that a lot was being said. We all looked around, and all I could see were literally jaws dropped just in complete awe of what they saw. They couldn’t believe in that moment what a jewel they had built.”

With the press boxes located at the top of this “jewel,” the broadcasters have the highest vantage point of anyone and a view better reserved for marriage proposals and political ads. Greg Brown reflects, “Most every time when a sponsor or fan walks into our TV booth, they look at the skyline, the Clemente bridges, and the river and say, ‘Wow! What a view! This must be the greatest ballpark for you.’ Please understand I don’t mean this derogatory to the ballpark. It should be the greatest ballpark for fans—and it is—but, from a broadcaster’s perspective, it’s one of the worst ballparks. We’re so high up and so far back, to call a game is quite difficult.” Soft infield fly balls can be mistaken for balls grounded off the plate, causing the broadcasters to glare over at first base rather than at the umpire with his fist already raised. While the fans are watching the game at home on their TVs, the broadcasters are watching the game on their own monitors, making the process seem more like a Pink Floyd album cover. Brown adds, “There’s a fly ball to—what I believe off the bat is—deep left center field, and I see the left fielder camped out under, 10 steps in front of the warning track. It really throws off your depth perception. No matter how many games you’ve done as a play-by-play guy, it’s still quite a challenge.”

A Golden Tribute to Number 21

Undoubtedly one of the greatest players to ever put on a Pirates uniform, Roberto Clemente, a native Puerto Rican, played 18 seasons for Pittsburgh, leading them to two World Series titles, in 1960 and 1971. Over his hall of fame career, Clemente had 3,000 hits and won the National League MVP award in 1966, but he is perhaps better known for his defense than his bat, winning 12 straight gold gloves in right field. Sadly, Clemente perished in a plane crash in 1972 while attempting to deliver emergency aid to Nicaraguans suffering from a recent earthquake. Clemente’s humanitarian efforts are recognized to this day by Major League Baseball, with an award in his name given every year to the player in the league with the greatest display of altruism outside the playing field.

At PNC Park, you don’t have to look far to see the tribute the team pays to their beloved hero, as the bridge beyond the outfield walls bears his name. In fact, before home games, the Clemente Bridge is closed to vehicular traffic so fans can make their way across the Allegheny and into the park. The architects of PNC had Clemente on their mind when they designed the field’s dimensions as well, building the right-field wall up to a height of 21 feet, the number the gold glover wore during his 18 years of patrolling the outfield. Although the porch in right field is a mere 320 feet from home plate, a home run isn’t all but guaranteed to lefties. Greg Brown notes, “I remember saying to Brian Giles, the left-handed power hitter, ‘That’s gotta be fairly routine for you to try and pull that ball and hit home runs over the right-field wall.’ He said, ‘320 sounds cheap, but you don’t know how difficult it is to get lift and 21 feet high. It’s not easy.” Another area where a home run is not easy is “the north field notch” in left center field. At 389 feet, this nook in the left-field power alley is just 10 feet shy of straightaway center for the deepest part of the park honors. The broadcasters may not be the only ones with their depth perception tested by the park, as left center to straightaway left comes in a full 64 feet, culminating in a “literal” short porch. Though the left-field wall’s six-foot height isn’t in honor of former Pirate number 6, Smoky Burgess, Orlando Merced, or Rennie Stennett, it does allow the fans to interact with the outfielders, especially of the visiting team. The bleachers in left appear to be what Greg Brown refers to as a “band box,” and the broadcaster describes the difficulty visiting left fielders face: “Fans have played a role because they can reach out and touch a player as they go back and try to catch a home run ball. They’ve battled left fielders who have tried to leap over that wall and rob home runs. The fielders have had to fight Pirates fans for those balls.” All black-and-gold-wearing pillagers aside, PNC Park’s asymmetrical dimensions help make it what Brown refers to as “the fairest ballpark in the National League.”

Weather and Nature Playing Their Part

As can be expected in a city east of the Mississippi, baseball tends to play differently in summer than in the introductory months of April and May at PNC Park. With the thin, warm air in place, it becomes the pitcher’s task to keep the ball down, especially to right-handed hitters. Greg Brown explains, “The weather comes into play at PNC Park unlike any other yard at different parts of the year. You just never know how that ball is going to play. There comes a stretch, for whatever reason, the ball seems to jump out in right center field. It has to do with the time of year, the climate, and density of the air. If you look at it from home plate or the press box, you say to yourself, ‘There’s no way that’s ever going to happen. That’s a fluke,’ but it does. There are times when you see a right-hander poke that ball over the right-field wall. It’s so unpredictable and that’s another reason why it’s such a great yard.”

The placement of PNC Park with respect to the Allegheny River gives the hitters a target for which to display their power. Although a splashdown into the water may not be as commonplace as in San Francisco’s McCovey Cove, the atmosphere in Pittsburgh is quite similar. Greg Brown notes, “There have been dozens of home runs hit on the fly in the bay in San Francisco, but the Alleghe-ny is the most difficult poke of all. There have been maybe a dozen that have bounced in off the river walks, but only twice in the history of the ballpark (Darryl Ward, Garrett Jones) has a player hit it on the fly. We have people in boats out there—as they do in the bay in San Francisco—ready to catch home run balls, especially during batting practice.” Though Barry Bonds himself would have hit a few into the Allegheny had he not departed for San Francisco, his playoff torch was finally passed some 21 seasons later to 2013 National League MVP Andrew McCutchen, who, Greg Brown says, is “the antithesis of Bonds.”

Hoisting the Jolly Roger

In a sport of traditions dating back to the 19th century, a relatively new and winning one has started to catch fire in Pittsburgh thanks to broadcaster Greg Brown, who relates: “About 15 years ago, Bob Walk suggested I come up with a signature phrase after a Pirates victory in the traditions of Lanny Frattare with his, ‘There was Nooooo doubt about it’, and Bob Prince before him with his iconic, ‘We had ’em all the way.’ I told Bob that when I was a young man working in the Pirates front office back in the early ’80s, I had suggested to our Stadium Operations VP that we take a page out of the Cubs playbook and fly a flag over the stadium after each win. My thought was since pirates fly the skull and crossbones after capturing a ship, we should fly those colors after a Pirates victory so that everyone would know—throughout the following day—the Buccos had won just by looking toward the sky above the stadium. The response I got from that VP was ‘get out of my office, kid.’ When I relayed that story to Bob, he suggested something like, ‘Hoist the flag!’ I played with that awhile and finally decided on ‘Raise the Jolly Roger!’ They have a small flagpole by the batter’s eye in center field, where, after each win, a fan would be selected to hoist the skull and crossbones and raise the Jolly Roger. They leave it up overnight, and take it down the next day before batting practice. It got little attention for about a decade as the team continued its struggles and didn’t win a whole lot of games, but, over the last few seasons, it’s caught on beyond my wildest dreams. Flags, T-shirts, banners, signs proclaiming, ‘RTJR,’ ‘Raise It,’ ‘Stay calm and Raise it,’ ‘Raise the Jolly Roger!’ are everywhere! It has become a Pirates fan’s rallying cry all over the country. Other fans and I have tried to campaign to convince Pirates management to get a gigantic flagpole out in right field, so people who go to work the following morning in Pittsburgh and didn’t know whether the team won or lost the night before, if they look across the river, they could easily see if the colors were flying.”

Things Get “Wild” at PNC Park

On October 1, 2013, after 21 years of early vacations, the Pirates played past game 162, hosting the Cincinnati Reds in a one-game, wild card playoff. Arriving well before the game’s opening pitch, Greg Brown found he wasn’t the only early bird at PNC Park. Describing the atmosphere, Brown says, “It was almost tribal. I took a walk around the circumference inside the park before the gates opened and looked down at this sea of black. Andrew McCutchen, Michael McKenry, and A. J. Burnett had tweeted out to the fans to wear black and they responded like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re out there chanting, ‘Let’s go Bucs’ an hour and a half before the gates even opened. You couldn’t move on the sidewalks or in the streets outside the ballpark. It was a mob scene. Then, as the introductions started, Andrew McCutchen got announced. He made his way from the dugout to the third base foul line, and he was hopping around. He pointed a 360-degree point and beat his chest, telling the fans how much he loved them as much as they loved him. I couldn’t control my emotions. I had tears. It was unbelievable.” Although it seemed as if a baseball lifetime had already passed, there was still the actual game to be played.

Known in more recent years as a football and hockey town, the city of Pittsburgh made it clear what sport reigned supreme that night. Brown adds, “I’ve had hardcore Pittsburgh fans tell me it was the single greatest event that they’ve ever been to, and they’ve been to Super Bowls, AFC Championships, and Stanley Cups. My broadcast partner John Wehner, who grew up a Pittsburgh sports fan, said the same thing. He said, ‘I’ve been to playoff games for all the sports, and nothing compared to that night.’ For those that were there, they understand it. For those that weren’t, they think they understood it by watching or listening to it, but, unless you were there, that was a surreal moment that will probably never be duplicated. It was unlike anything anybody in that ballpark had been a part of in their entire lives, and that’s pretty special.”

As could be expected from a sea of black-shirt-wearing Pirates fans, the crowd had an impact on the game’s outcome. Out past left field are the “left-field loonies,” a group of 2,000 fans who wear wild hats and Looney Tunes shirts to Pirates games. During the bottom of the second inning of the wild card game, the left-field loonies contributed to Cincinnati starter Johnny Cueto’s unraveling. Having already given up a home run to Marlon Byrd, Cueto faced Pirates catcher Russell Martin. Greg Brown relates the events that took place next: “In unison, they started chanting, ‘Cueto, Cueto.’ Just then, he drops the ball on the return toss from the catcher, and it was probably coincidental. There are those who believe it had nothing to do with what happened next, but when he dropped the ball, the chants started louder and louder. Russell Martin stepped out of the batter’s box, looked toward his dugout, and actually laughed. I don’t believe what happened next was coincidental. I believe that Cueto wanted to quickly throw a strike to stop the chant, and what he did was throw a quick strike to Russell Martin that he could hit out of the ballpark.” Martin’s home run was the first of two he hit that night, as the Pirates went on to win the game 6–2, earning them a spot in the Division Series against the eventual National League champion St. Louis Cardinals. Looking back on that historic day, on which playoff baseball returned to Pittsburgh, Greg Brown concludes, “The fans played a big role in that ball game. That’ll live on in Pirates lore for the rest of our lives.”

PNC Park Today

Although it didn’t take another 21 years for the team to play past game 162, the ’14 Pirates—thanks to the MVP-caliber numbers of Andrew McCutchen, the speed of fellow outfielder Starling Marte, and the starting pitching of Edinson Volquez—made it back to the wild card game at PNC Park against the San Francisco Giants. Although the stands were “blacked out” once again, Giants starter Madison Bumgarner began his phenomenal 2014 postseason pitching run with a complete game shutout of the Bucs. Bumgarner won three more games that postseason, including two in the 2014 World Series, to cement his MVP honors. With two straight playoff appearances and a black-clad fan base standing with arms open to any and every free agent and current player, the glory of Pirates baseball has returned to the Steel City.