My wife Sophie joined me on this trip and she got a nice (for me) or terrifying (for her) glimpse into our future when we were surrounded by scores of older, presumably retired couples wearing Twins gear at the gate awaiting our early Thursday morning flight to Pittsburgh. Our plans got pushed back a bit when our Delta gate agent got on the loudspeaker and asked for volunteers to take $500 per person to take a later flight. We were the first ones to take the offer and didn’t actually fly out until 12:30, but did so $1000 richer. Always take the extra pierogi money, friends.
Neither of us had been to Pittsburgh before and while the trip was largely influenced by wanting to see the Twins play at PNC Park, I had heard from numerous people that Pittsburgh was a wildly underrated city and actually had a lot of appeal outside of the ballpark, and that proved to be true.
The main things I knew about the city entering the weekend were that the local "Yinzers" speak with ridiculous accent, which had initially come to my attention during this sketch. I also knew that they liked to eat pierogies and sandwiches with fries on them. While all of those things were on display throughout the course of the weekend, we came to find that the city is also very picturesque. It was once the sixth largest city in the country which explains why it has such an impressive skyline for a city that currently only has about 300,000 people. It’s split up by the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers which meet to form the Ohio River, so you are never far from water or bridges and get some really great views.
When it comes to getting around town, the public transit options aren’t great. I would guess that’s largely due to the aforementioned rivers and bridges splitting up parts of the city and a lack of necessary connectedness, but Uber and Lyft were both pretty reliable. We took the bus from Lawrenceville, the neighborhood where we stayed, down to the Strip neighborhood and downtown a few times which was a good option for simple trips. The funicular at the Duquesne Incline was pretty cool too and only took about five minutes to ride to the top. Once you’re up there there are some great views (pictured above), especially at night, but not a whole lot to do except head back down.
Pittsburgh is also the only sports market smart enough to have all of their professional teams wear the same colors. The Pirates, Steelers, Penguins, and even the Riverhounds in the USL, all don the black and gold. This results in a lot of cross-sport wearing of merchandise; for example there were a lot of Steelers shirts and jerseys at the Pirates game that didn’t look out of place. It seems like a great deal for fans; they can buy one black and gold shirt in their lifetime and fit in at any game in the city, but it’s probably not as great for the teams’ bottom lines.
Friday night game
Friday morning and afternoon before the first game of the series I decided to throw on my Roberto Clemente shirt and blend in amongst the Yinzers. While I think this won me some points, it also created some confusion from the multiple people who asked me for directions or where they could find a bathroom and were met with my blank, helpless stares.
Later on before the game, I changed into my Joe Ryan Grateful Dead shirt and became just another Twins fan jagoff.
Ahead of game time we contemplated heading over to the Andy Warhol museum which is just blocks away from PNC Park, but decided we didn’t have enough time and that we’d tackle that the next day. Instead, we headed over to Southern Tier brewery down the street from the ballpark and had some beers with a large swath of Pirates fans listening to an acoustic guitar-playing singer banging out timeless hits like “Thong Song” and “No Diggity”. This was a pretty solid spot to have a few beers before the game, but it looked like there was no shortage of breweries around the park where you could do the same.
About a half hour before game time, we strolled over to PNC Park and were able to get in pretty quickly. I had purchased seats up in Section 322 a few days before the game and the prices were pretty reasonable at around $25 a ticket. I like to get cheaper seats when I go to a ballpark for the first time as I expect to be walking around and exploring for a good portion of it. I feel most at home with the upper deck patrons at a ballpark anyways. These seats and really any section in the 300s near the third base line had a great view of the city and the bridge.
Our seat neighbors for the most part were pretty engaged, but right in front of us, there was a group of girls likely in their late teens or early 20s that spent the entire game taking pictures of themselves and recording Tiktoks. This is not an exaggeration, it was the entire game. Just as I was losing hope in our youth, I noticed the group of girls to our left that were likely in their early 20s and were drinking beers and eating hot dogs and watching the game without a phone in sight. Let that be a lesson that there are not disappointing generations, just disappointing people.
Some fun gimmicks at the game included the Warhol cam, which was a jumbotron filter honoring Pittsburgh’s famous purveyor of pop art, and the Pierogi race, honoring Pittsburgh’s famous Polish dumpling. Had we gotten a Michael Keaton-related activity, I think that would have covered the Pittsburgh Big Three.
You’re likely not here to read about the game itself, and the Twins got shutout so there’s not a whole lot for me to write about on that front anyways. Joe Ryan pitched really well, the Twins hit a lot of singles but not in a row, and the home plate umpire was clearly doing a very bad job even from my seat in the 300 level. If you’re looking for a much more detailed writeup on the 3-0 loss, you can find a great one here.
The only thing worse than the result was that the Pirates' closer David Bednar, who is from Pittsburgh, walked out to “Renegade” by Styx for his intro music.
One redeeming note: With legal sports betting in Pennsylvania I decided to place an “emotional hedge” bet on the Pirates moneyline so I would get to either see the Twins win or win some money. 15 bucks on the Pirates at +114 yielded a nice 17 dollar profit that paid for the jumbo 24 oz IC Light I had at the game.
After the game we were told there were fireworks, what we didn’t realize was that they would match the pyrotechnics budget of the helicopter Ride of the Valkyries scene in Apocalypse Now. To say these fireworks were a bit over the top would be like saying a Dinosaur Jr. show is a bit loud. We decided to watch them on the Roberto Clemente bridge since they were being fired off of a barge in the river right in front of the bridge. This seemed like a great idea until we started getting bombarded with smoke and actual fireworks shrapnel. Great view though!
Ballpark thoughts
PNC Park is as good as advertised. The sightlines are great from everywhere, the views are spectacular and it only has two seating decks which makes it really manageable to get around. The Clemente bridge is closed to traffic on game days which makes for an easy way to get there if you’re coming from downtown. The Pittsburgh fans are pretty dang good too. I was a little disappointed in the attendance for a beautiful Friday night in June but the ones there were very tuned in and loud.
Going to a Major League ballpark for the first time always makes me consider where it ranks among the others I’ve been to so far. I have a hard time comparing Fenway and Wrigley to ballparks that were built in the last 30 years as it feels very apples to oranges. However, I would probably put those two in the top spots due to the joy and overwhelming sense of history one gets from attending a game there. That being said, I think my current top ten now including PNC, would be something like this:
1. Fenway Park (Boston)
2. Wrigley Field (Chicago, the good one)
3. Oracle Park (San Francisco)
4. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
5. Target Field
6. Citi Field (Queens)
7. Coors Field (Colorado)
8. Kauffman Stadium (KC)
9. T-Mobile Park (Seattle)
10. Miller Park, it will always be Miller Park to me (Milwaukee)
Fenway and Wrigley are pretty interchangeable for me at 1A and 1B and so are Oracle and PNC at 3A and 3B, but it’s really all about personal preference. Wrigley is typically a more fun game experience with better sightlines than Fenway, but I like the architecture and quirkiness of the Green Monster at Fenway better. When comparing Oracle and PNC, they both have great views on the water but PNC gets the edge with the skyline and the Roberto Clemente bridge in the background and Oracle gets the edge on food and beer selection.
The three I still haven’t visited that I’d really like to get to are Dodger Stadium in LA, Petco Park in San Diego (been to the park but in January during the offseason), and Camden Yards in Baltimore.
Other Pittsburgh activities
My wife and I spend most of our vacations eating and drinking so while this section is titled “Other Pittsburgh activities” it’s mostly just going to be some of our favorite restaurants and bars to consider if you’re making the trip.
As I mentioned earlier, we stayed in Lawrenceville. This was a really good hub if you want to be close to a lot of bars and restaurants that are walkable and cater to all ages. Of the neighborhoods we visited, we were definitely happy with our choice and it was validated by one of our Lyft drivers (shoutout David) who said we nailed it by choosing to stay there. Downtown had a lot of nice looking hotels if that’s more your scene and Squirrel Hill supposedly was nice if you’re looking for a more residential, quiet vibe.
-Cork Harbour Pub was literally next door and was a solid home base/Lyft drop off spot for us. We ended up going all three days of the trip at some point in the day and even when we weren’t there at night, we got to pretend we were because we could hear it from our bedroom when we were trying to sleep.
-Big Jim’s in the Run was a classic dive that naturally has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It was tucked into an odd, hidden neighborhood called Four Mile Run and is the most authentic Pittsburgh place we went to. I will admit that the food didn’t blow me away, but I would still highly recommend it just for the experience. This was also where I watched the final four innings of the Saturday loss and thanked my lucky stars that we explored a few more areas of the city instead of paying to watch the Twins get shutout two days in a row.
-Dish Osteria Bar on the South Side was the best meal we had on the trip. If you don’t mind shelling out a little more money and have the foresight to snag a reservation (we had to grab one for 10 pm on Thursday) this is about as good as it gets for Southern Italian food. The pasta was perfect, the seafood was delicious, the drinks were great, and it was in a very nice, intimate setting.
-I hesitate to even admit it, but the only time we ate at a Primanti Brothers sandwich was at the ballgame. I’m confident that a limited menu and a ballpark kitchen was not the best way to experience Pittsburgh’s most legendary sandwich chain but the capicola and cheese we got (topped with fries, of course) was still very good. I wish we would have made it to one of the locations around town and gotten the true experience but alas, I only have one stomach.
-La Gourmandine was a great French bakery just up the road from us where we had a wonderful almond croissant and an apricot pastry for breakfast one day. It was a tough place to order because everything there looked so good, including the sandwiches.
-S&D Polish Deli in the Strip was a good stop for pierogies and had some interesting Polish deli items to browse.
-Colangelo's was a solid pizza joint right around the corner from the Polish deli. I had a really tough time figuring out what they’re doing with pizza in Pittsburgh. Most of the places we saw or ate were similar to a Detroit style pizza which is fine by me, but then you have the unmelted cheese abomination of the Ohio River Valley style that’s served famously at Beto’s in Pittsburgh. I actually wanted to try it out of morbid curiosity but didn’t find the time.
-I ducked into William Penn Tavern to catch the fifth set of the Alcaraz/Sinner French Open semifinal while Sophie was shopping one day and that was a great spot to grab a beer and watch a game in the middle of the day. It looked a little more rowdy at night when we walked by however, so beware of that potential bro-fest.
-After the fireworks on Friday night, we wandered over the bridge into downtown and eventually settled at Emerson’s which was a good, hidden cocktail bar on the second floor. They had some really interesting cocktails and the food looked promising too.
-Bar Marco was another good spot for drinks in the Strip that looked to have some good Italian food as well.
-Pennsylvania Macaroni Co. was a huge Italian market that was fun to walk around if you like spending time in a place that has 40 different kinds of canned tomatoes. Think Cossetta’s in St. Paul on steroids.
-After that dinner at Dish on Thursday night, we went to a bar called Dee’s in South Side Flats that still allows smoking and employed some bartenders with great accents. From what I could tell, South Side Flats and all the bars on Carson Street are basically Pittsburgh’s version of the old Combat Zone in Boston. In other words, this was an area I was entirely too old for, so we didn’t last long there.
-Schenley Park was a good place to go for a walk in the city. The northern half of the park felt like being at a park that was in a city. It had an arboretum that we decided not to pay $22 for and had a couple weddings going on. The southern half of the park was a bit more rustic and while we may have gotten slightly lost in there, we did get to see a couple deer which was an unexpected surprise.
-The Andy Warhol museum is very conveniently located only a few blocks away from PNC Park and was a good place to spend a few hours. It has seven floors that are broken into the different stages of Warhol's life and career. We later found out it’s half price on Fridays so that’s probably the time to go.
Overall, I'd highly recommend making the trip out to Pittsburgh next time the Twins are in town, or just to see the Pirates. It's a highly underrated city if you know where to look and features arguably the best ballpark in the country that's been built in this century.
Jump into the comments if you made it to the games this past weekend or have been to a game at PNC previously and have some experiences to share.
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