Pittsburgh Pirates

Ed’s 40^th birthday was Sunday, so we had to do something special to celebrate this milestone of having lived half of his allotted fourscore years (should God give him strength to do so!). He wanted to go to a Pirates game. So, we went Saturday night.

First, an explanation to those of you who might not be major league baseball followers. The Pirates are Pittsburgh’s baseball team. Or you can call them the “Buccaneers” or “Bucs” or “Buccos” for short. And, yes, you see a lot of pirate flags flying around Pittsburgh. To be honest, I’m not really sure why they’re called that except Pirates starts with “P” and so does “Pittsburgh”. Because the thought of Blackbeard sailing the “Three Rivers” just doesn’t capture your imagination quite like sailing the “Seven Seas”. But, who knows? Maybe pirates did once haunt the shores of the rivers of Pittsburgh.

Not being a stat person, I can’t tell you a whole lot about the team. And it probably suffices to say they haven’t been to a World Series since 1979, although they did win that one. Then they went through the longest consecutive losing streak in North American professional sports history for 20 seasons before having a winning season last year and earning a wild card for the play-offs. I don’t think they’ll pull that off this year.

Let me also add an interesting piece of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh has three professional sports teams – Pirates, Steelers and Penguins. All three have the same colors – black and gold. So, if you attend any of their games it is quite safe to wear gear pertaining to any of the teams or just to cover yourself with black and gold. But, since I am a Naval brat with two brothers in the Marines, I own absolutely nothing that is black and gold because I could never do enough penance for wearing Army colors. So, I just wore a black sweatshirt, which no one noticed anyway because it was so cold I wore a jacket over it the whole time.

All that being said, it was an enjoyable night. We started out by taking the ferry up one river and across another to the park. The view of the city on the other side of the river from PNC Park is lovely. The park itself is very nice. Sadly, the “Bucs” decided not to play ball until the 8^th inning, which was very thrilling but not enough to beat the Cubs. And I couldn’t eat much because the smells of fried food just didn’t sit well with being pregnant. But Ed ate enough for the both of us (or three of us). And I got a sample of a rock concert because he wanted to see Lynyrd Skynyrd and I managed to survive one song (if that’s what you call that). Then we ended the night very late with a very cold ride on the ferry. All in all, a good way to celebrate Ed’s 40 years.