Take me out to, well, anything would be good
There are few things more obviously wasteful than an empty ballpark. Those who didn’t want hundreds of millions of tax dollars to subsidize sports stadiums across the commonwealth must be particularly galled by the ostentatious impotence of these behemoths on the North Shore. The 38,362 seats in PNC Park seem likely to stay empty all year (unless players leave the dugouts to socially distance themselves in the stands). The 68,400 seats at Heinz Field could stay buttless in 2020 as well. We can’t know yet because it all depends largely on how well Americans dodge a virus that’s killed more than 127,000 of us so far. We don’t seem to be getting any better at staying out of its way.
Baseball fans have been promised a shortened no-fans-in-thestands season of 60 games, starting in three weeks. But some players are opting out, all minor league games have been canceled, and nobody should bet the mortgage money that a World Series will be played. If the mixed enthusiasm in my fantasy league for this weird sprint of a season is any indicator, we might consider postponing baseball until 2021 and just show movies on the scoreboards.
I’m kidding, I think. Months ago, when it looked as if millionaire players and billionaire owners would never agree on a plan to play, I asked the Pirates front office to consider movie nights at PNC Park. It could safely sell a few thousand seats in advance, have staggered entries at specified gates, and have a widely spaced crowd watch “The Sandlot” or “Field of Dreams” on the big screen.
That’s been done in the minors this year. On May 22, the Daytona (Fla.) Tortugas showed “42” at Jackie Robinson Ballpark, the same field where its namesake integrated Florida baseball as a minor league player in 1946. The sellout crowd of nearly 600 movie fans bought socially distanced, 10by-10-foot squares on the artificial turf for up to four people, and 10by-20-foot squares for up to eight people. The smaller ones went for $20 (or $40 with popcorn and sodas) and the larger ones for $40.
That easily met the state’s then maximum of 25% capacity, and team president Ryan Keur told me later that patrons had no problem with the distancing rules as they waited in credit card-only lines to buy to-go boxes from sellers behind Plexiglas.
“It was definitely one of those goose-bump moments,” Mr. Keur said, when the crowd erupted at the moment in the movie when Jackie Robinson buys a plane ticket and exclaims, “I’m going to Daytona Beach!”
A slew of essays have been written in the past several months about people missing the shared experience of watching movies on a big screen. There’s only one drive-in theater in Allegheny County, the indispensable Dependable in Moon, but its four screens can handle only a few hundred cars in a county of 1.3 million people. The city’s drive-in showings of “The Lorax” and “A League of Their Own” maxed out its 130 free tickets to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium parking lot on two weekend nights last month, and it plans to show “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” somewhere on Saturday, July 11. So we know demand is there.
But under Pennsylvania’s pandemic rules, a stadium event is different. Never mind that a couple of thousand people, outdoors, in a place that seats 38,000, would seem a safer experience than shopping in a store. Green phase rules say, “Large gatherings of more than 250 are prohibited,” and a county spokesperson said it couldn’t overrule that.
“Should that [restriction] change,” Brian Warecki, the Pirates vice president of communications and broadcasting, said in an email, “we are willing to explore any and all ways in which we can bring families together, whether that is through Pirates baseball games or other events such as a movie nights.”
The club has more pressing concerns. The players’ threeweek summer camp starts at PNC Park Friday.
“Our field will see the most use it has ever endured during this period, with about 10 hours of use each day for 21 or so straight days,” Mr. Warecki said. “When players are not using the field, our grounds crew will need that time for care for the field to ensure it is game ready come Opening Day.”
No ushers will be needed to wipe down the seats, though.
It was a practically perfect afternoon Wednesday, so I walked past the empty ballpark and across the Roberto Clemente Bridge to The Encore on 7th, and rode the elevator up to the 13th floor with Bob Bucci. He and his wife, Amy, have lived there three years and, from their terrace, we could see all but the right-field slice of the playing field. It’s also eye-level for fireworks if Pittsburgh has them this summer (an “if” no living Pittsburgher has needed to use before).
The tickets I bought last winter for the Boston Red Sox game Sunday are no good, but I’m calling the Buccis if Pirates do take that field.
By the way, the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel on Sixth Street also has rooms with views of the ballpark. Even the bathrooms have them, I’m told, which would bring new meaning to PNC Park. (Think about it.)
Yes, I know I could also watch the games on TV, but I believe this meets the definition of stir crazy, doctor.