Out-of-town scoreboard returns

During a Pirates town hall Monday featuring president Travis Williams, general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton, it was conveyed that the out-of-town scoreboard at PNC Park would return in 2023, multiple people in attendance confirmed Wednesday to the Post-Gazette.

This past season, the out-of-town scoreboard — long a baseball pastime — was turned into ad space on the 21foot Clemente Wall, a move that did not sit well with fans.

Members of the media were not notified of the town hall, which one attendee said included “50 or 60” people. Those wanting to query Williams, Cherington or Shelton had to submit questions ahead of time. Several had recently canceled their ticket packages.

Reasons for returning the out-of-town scoreboard should be fairly straightforward. PNC Park was pretty much the only major league park without one, and fans made their displeasure known, either in postseason surveys or via social media. The Pirates averaged 15,524 per game in 2022, down from 18,412 in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.