On the Road: PNC Park (Part 2)

More things I learned while at PNC Park watching the Buccos with my dad a few weeks ago:

1) Baseball is not exactly huge in the 'Burgh right now: At least it wasn't in the middle of the week in April when the Penguins are still playing. I didn't expect sellouts for Wednesday and Thursday night games when school was still in, but I expected a bit more than we saw for the Cardinals and Braves. Oh, well. I was pleased to see that among those who WERE there, many of them were young--not just small children dragged by their folks, but teenagers and people in their 20s. Who says baseball is just an old person's sport?

Seriously, who? I wanted to quote them here, but I couldn't find them.

2) If you want wings, show up early: One night, we decided, hey, we had a seat in the front row with a rail ahead of us, nobody was sitting in our row, we could stretch out and relax--why not share a bucket of wings? Oh, yeah! The wings were tasty and provided some of the best overall value in the entire place, but our options were limited because the concession stand had run out of 2 of the 4 sauces.

Who the hell operates a wing stand that runs out of wing sauce before game time in the middle of a homestand, with a weekend series coming up, no less? Apparently, the Best Ballpark in America!

I repeat, the wings were great, but still, that was odd. And speaking of bizarre...

3) The Pirates have some weird-ass scoreboard videos: The team rotates through a series of pre-produced videos showing each player and runs them on the big board as they come to the plate. The oddest assortment is comprised of the player doing a serious pose, then turning to the camera as we FREEZE FRAME.

That would be innocuous enough if not for the fact that the shot lingers on the giant scoreboard while the at-bat occurs, creating an awkward situation for everyone: The players because they are trying to hit 95-mile-an-hour fastballs while gargantuan mug shot of themselves loom high over the outfield, the fans because the effect is reminiscent of "Police Squad."

Remember how at the end of every episode, everyone, or almost everyone, would remain motionless as if they were in a cheesy freeze frame but they were really just staying still while the cameras rolled? Yeah, these scoreboard videos are kind of like that.