PRESERVATION PROJECT
One man bore witness to the future. One man bears witness to the past. Although they never met, time and fate have brought them together over a stadium of star and memory.
Mark Woods sat at the dining room table of his Franklin Park home, rummaging through a box of old photos and gasping in amazement. With each manila envelope that he grabbed, Woods grew more and more excited.
“Oh, this is a good one,” he gushed over a stack that showed Three Rivers Stadium the night it opened — lights blaring in the summer sky, bunting draped throughout the bowl-shaped structure and Dock Ellis about to deliver a pitch to Reds shortstop Woody Woodward in the top of the fourth inning.
In addition to coaching baseball for more than three decades at North Allegheny High School and Bethany College, Woods has an insatiable appetite for collectibles. Seats and signs from Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium occupy an upstairs bedroom, one filled with too many bats, helmets, balls, pins, pictures and other Pirates-related trinkets to count.
While Woods’ collection is nothing short of immense, and impressive, the photos
are a special treat — upwards of a thousand images documenting the construction of Three Rivers Stadium, along with the final game at Forbes Field and other scenic views of Pittsburgh in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of them in color.
Woods got them from a family member of his who was working at Three Rivers at the time. The Pirates were going to throw them away, but his wife’s cousin saved them and gave them to Woods around six or seven years ago when he moved to Florida.
“I can’t believe the amount of stuff here,” Woods said. “It took me an entire day just to go through everything.”
On the whole, the pictures tell one story: A peek into one man’s passion and the memories that have been passed down through generations. They also provide a rare, behind-the-scenes look into the construction and opening of Three Rivers Stadium, which occurred 50 years ago on July 16, 1970, the work of a World War II veteran named Alvin Church.
Church and his wife, Esther, had one child — a daughter named Jill — who now lives with her husband, Mark, in Upper St. Clair. Jill Simpson taught at Bethel Park High School for 40 years but decided to stay home for good after the coronavirus disrupted the school year.
“Al” and his work have long been a source of pride in the Simpson family. Ben and Dan Simpson have spent significant time researching their grandfather (they were 6 and 2 when he died), while Jill and Mark have enlarged prints of some of Al’s best photographs prominently displayed throughout the house.
“I’m glad to see someone has them,” Jill Simpson said of the photos that Woods saved. “Because I know my dad would’ve hated to have seen them thrown away.”
‘He cared about it’
Church attended Pitt but never finished, enlisting in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, his family said. He was stationed in North Africa and did tours of duty in Italy and China, the latter of those two heavily documented through his photography.
Aircraft armorer was Church’s primary job before the Army sent him to photography school for two weeks in California. In that role, he took public relations photos for the 91st Tactical Fighter Squadron as a member of the 81st Fighter Squadron, Ben Simpson explained, along with snapping identification photos and developing gun-site camera film.
Church’s military work became his career vocation when he returned home and opened a photography studio on Allegheny Avenue on the North Side. Ironically, he lost the three-story row house via eminent domain in the building of Three Rivers. Church would open another studio on West North Avenue.
“I think he felt like he was losing the building to a good cause,” Jill said. “I know he was excited about having a larger stadium.”
Alvin Church specialized in commercial and industrial photography and was hired by the City of Pittsburgh’s Stadium Authority, which was formed in March 1964, to take pictures of Three Rivers, the concrete home of the Pirates and Steelers from 1970-2000.
Jill Simpson spent plenty of time at both of her father’s studios, helping him develop and stamp photos and also befriending the older woman who lived on the third floor.
Her most vivid memories include playing with that woman’s dachshund, the old woodwork and the original studio’s many fireplaces, one of which Jill and her family kept around and worked into an addition on their current home.
On the weekends, Jill regularly would accompany her father on shooting assignments, often lugging equipment and learning more about the family business.
“It gave me a good idea of all the different places in Pittsburgh because I became familiar with almost every neighborhood,” Jill said.
Alvin Church had a variety of regular assignments, from working for Pittsburgh Public Schools to various construction and transit companies and eventually the Stadium Authority to chronicle the building of Three Rivers Stadium during the 29-month process that began when ground was broken in April 1968.
Baseball was always Church’s favorite sport, as he regularly attended games at Forbes Field with one of his uncles. Through his work with the Pirates, Alvin Church — who died in 1991 at age 79 — met many Pirates luminaries, including Bob Prince, Roberto Clemente, Bob Moose, Steve Blass and Kent Tekulve.
The family still has a baseball that Church received, one that’s signed by every member of the Pirates’ 1971 World Series championship team.
Although he was young when Alvin died, Ben Simpson remembers asking his grandfather about the Pirates and some of his photography, although he said he doesn’t remember a ton of specific information from those conversations.
Ben Simpson has since researched his grandfather’s military service and his involvement in World War II, learning about his squadron’s ground attacks on German positions and subsequent moves through Iraq, India and Burma (now Myanmar).
“It would be awesome to know why he was interested in that particular brand of photography,” Ben said. “I remember him giving us some turf from Three Rivers, but I don’t remember much about the story behind it.
“Being born in Pittsburgh [Crafton] and living here his whole life, was there a certain amount of pride in getting to do those photos? Who knows?”
One thing Jill remembers is that her dad preferred construction photography to taking pictures of people because the equipment would always cooperate.
“I remember he complained that Bob Moose wouldn’t stand where he wanted him to stand,” Jill said. “It ruined the picture.”
“He also said that’s why he never did portrait photography,” Mark Simpson added. “Because people were difficult.”
During the implosion of Three Rivers Stadium, which occurred Feb. 11, 2001, Mark took the boys to watch and snapped his own photos, purposely bookending the work his father-in-law did. Jill Simpson couldn’t bring herself to go.
“I felt too bad about it,” she said, “because of dad’s connection.”
For the last baseball game at Three Rivers Stadium — a 10-9 loss to the Chicago Cubs Oct. 1, 2000 — the Simpsons went, and Mark tried to replicate some of Alvin’s photos by approximating their location.
“Dad would be thrilled that somebody has the photos and that they care about it because he cared about it,” Jill said. “My dad was an older guy when I was born. Had the boys been older or born sooner, I think he would have liked someone to take over the business.”
‘Big into baseball’
Knowing how much Church loved photography and how much he put into his work — it was common for Alvin to turn family outings into photo assignments, where he would disappear for stretches of time — it seems appropriate, then, that some of his best work wound up here, in Mark Woods’ baseball shrine.
The space would rival any at the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, for both its depth and the detailed approach employed by Woods.
There’s an original turnstile from Three Rivers Stadium and stadium signs throughout — ramps to various levels, sections of personal significance and others signifying where to find telephones or a bathroom.
When you enter Woods’ museum, he immediately drops the needle on an old record. “I hope you don’t mind,” he says. “But we gotta hear ‘The Gunner.’ ” Clearly, Church isn’t the only one who loves Bob Prince.
Woods has every type and color of seat that Three Rivers held. His stories are hilarious, too, like the one where he stumbled upon a couple of Penn Hills guys in trench coats peddling floormounted yellow seats for $45.
“I almost ripped a hole in my pocket getting the money out,” Woods said.
The pieces of history are priceless for any baseball nerd.
The scorecard from John Candelaria’s no-hitter Aug. 9, 1976, signed by Lanny Frattare. A uniform worn by Bill Mazeroski. The list of World Series bonuses that were paid out in 1960. A collection of Three Rivers Stadium ushers’ garb. The actual bunting from Forbes Field, which Woods had professionally mounted on the wall. A separate shrine dedicated to another of Woods’ passions: The AllAmerican Girls Professional Baseball League
There’s even a separate section dedicated to Dick Stuart, one of Woods’ alltime favorite players. Woods recently paid $2,000 to purchase the helmet Stuart was wearing while standing in the on-deck circle when Mazeroski homered to the end the 1960 World Series.
In 1971, Woods drove home from college at Edinboro to watch Nellie Briles twirl a two-hit shutout and for the Pirates to beat the Orioles, 2-0, in Game 5 of the World Series, the framed ticket stub (section 664, row O) offering proof of his leftcenter field seats.
“I’m just big into
baseball,” Woods said. “That’s what I like.”
But only a certain kind — old baseball. Woods doesn’t watch the current stuff much anymore. Games are too long. There’s no pace or flow. Skills and strategy have been replaced by home runs and strikeouts. Free agency and the constant reminder of baseball being a business have stripped the fun out of it for him.
Collecting is how Woods stays in touch with something he loves, the same way Church did through his photography. Woods actually had season tickets two rows behind the thirdbase dugout for years, then dropped them after the 1994-95 strike. Now, Woods would rather play the baseball pinball machine in his basement and grow his
collection.
“I kind of washed my hands of it,” Woods said. “I went more into history. I
wanted to give my money to Hall of Famers and go see them at collectibles shows.”
Woods has a 1967 Willie Mays card that, in mint condition, sells for several thousand dollars. He has a ball signed by Ellis and Kris Benson — the first and last starting pitchers at Three Rivers, along with ticket stubs from the same seat for those games. There’s a hefty price tag on some of what Woods owns, but it’s more about a passion and dedicating an incredible amount of time and effort to something he loves, the same as Church and his photography.
“I think it’s about the history of the collectible,” Woods said. “I don’t collect because it’s worth money, even though it is. I collect it because, just like the photos, you’ve never seen it before.”