Baseball Road Trip Year 2: Pittsburgh

This post is exactly one month belated but absolutely needs documenting because, in short, I fell in love with Pittsburgh on this trip. But lets start at the beginning...

Remember last year's baseball road trip? Chris and I went to Philly, ate a bunch of cheesesteaks, saw the Brewers win in extra innings, and had bottles thrown at us on the way back to the hotel. Good times all around. Well this year's trip, almost a full year in the making, was a 5-day-Pittsburgh-DC-baseball-filled adventure.

view from the top of the Duquesne Incline

After picking Chris up from the airport in DC, we drove a quick four hours up to Pittsburgh for the first leg of the trip. The Pittsburgh agenda included two Brewers/Pirates games (the crew won both), lunch at the original Primanti Brothers location (order the pastrami, and bring your own Tums), an afternoon at the Andy Warhol Museum (the Silver Clouds alone exhibit made it worth the $20 admission), and an early morning trip up the Duquesne Incline (via the part-awesome, part-terrifying rickety old cable car system).

view from the Riverwalk at PNC Park

A full month after the trip, the one thing that will really sticks with me are the views. The Pittsburgh skyline is beautiful from all angles; and the rivers and bridges give the city an incredibly unique feel.

One of the many, many bridges throughout the city

In the year leading up to this trip, I lost count of the number of people who said they loved PNC Park. Seriously. It is regularly listed as one of the best places in the country to watch baseball. Did I have high expectations? Absolutely. And even with all that hype, I was still surprised with how beautiful the area around the stadium was, how magnificent the views were, and how smartly laid out the stadium was. Formerly called 3 Rivers Stadium, you're safe in assuming that it's nestled right on the riverfront, the edges of the upper decks framing the Pittsburgh skyline and Roberto Clemete bridge (the yellow bridge in the photo below).

The entire stadium is essentially two levels, instead of the normal 3/4/5 that most MLB stadiums are built with. The lower concourse level allows access to a mass of field level seats, and the upper concourse allows access to the 200/300 level seats and some nifty patio areas complete with bar height tables and patio umbrellas (I didn't inquire, but I'm guessing you could rent out these areas for private parties). For each of the two games we had field level seats, but before the first game we took a walk to the upper decks to check out the view (below) and it does not disappoint from that angle either. Didn't seem like there was a bad seat in the house.

View from the upper decks of PNC Park

The Pirates fanbase is comprised of a very cynical bunch of people. Given, they were on the brink of their 20th consecutive losing season, but even then, they seemed to take pride on how terrible their team was. Several people actually bragged about it. A strack contrast to last year's Philly crowd who not only turned on their own team once the game started going south, but refused to go quietly into the night by shouting profanity out a school bus window as they drove past Chris and I in out Brewers blue t-shirts. Keep it classy, Philly, keep it classy.

Our view of left field for Wednesday night's game

Kudos to Chris for selecting two awesome sets of tickets for the Pittsburgh games. On Wednesday night we enjoyed batting practice from our seats in left field, where relief pitcher (and a personal favorite of mine) Kameron Loe made fun of Chris not once, but twice, for losing a ball in the sun and dropping it. Thought you'd escape this entire post without me mentioning it, didn't you? Not a chance.

best baseball road trip buddy ever

Two days was not nearly enough time to explore the city, but it was enough to convince me to plan another trip back. Baseball game or not, Pittsburgh is a city worth seeing. A big thank you to my friend, and Pittsburgh native, Jamie for the recommendations on restaurants and hotels (we ended up staying at the Hampton Inn & Suites Pittsburgh-Downtown, a 20 minute walk from the stadium. Walking distance + continental breakfast FTW!). Knowing a local really, really helps when planning trips.

More to come on the DC leg of the trip, but I loved Pittsburgh so much it seemed deserving of it's own post.