Suffering The Benz

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Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

During our trip to the ‘Burg, Lara and I took one of the tours sponsored by Rivers of Steel, a non-profit group that’s doing great things to preserve Pittsburgh’s industrial past. They offer several tours, and this one, Babushkas and Hard Hats, focused on the immigrant experience in Pittsburgh. (Babushkas are the head scarves Eastern European women wear, but when I was a kid, we used the word to describe any older Hunky woman.)
In short, the tour was fantastic, especially since it focused on several sites that are pivotal in a novel I’ve been plotting out for several years (but never have gotten around to writing …)
We started on the Southside at Station Square, where I snapped this HDR picture of the Clinton Furnace with the PPG building in the background. The Clinton furnace was one of the first Bessemer blast furnaces in the area and revolutionized steel making in Pittsburgh and across the world. We also saw key sites in from the Homestead Steel Strike, which is a pivotal part of the novel I’m plotting. And perhaps most importantly, we stopped at H and B Bakery for some Eastern European sweets.

I forgot how much fun it is to sit among a few thousand pissed off yinzers screaming for blood when one of their sports gods has let them down.

I went to see the Pirates play the Padres last night, and I took my brother and his family along for the ride. Despite a torrential rain and bomb threats that closed the Fort Pitt and Squirrel Hill tubes, the game got started about an hour late, at 8 o’clock.

I’m not a big baseball fan, but hell. Beer. Hotdogs. A chance to yell for the home team. I’m there. And all was good till the 9th inning, when the Pirates sent a hapless reliever in to try to seal up a 2-0 victory on the strength of Shawn Chacon’s very strong pitching performance up to that point.

The reliever, Salomon Torres, promptly gave up 2 runs, and the Pirates ultimately lost the game 4-2 in the 11th. The abuse from the fans was astoundingly cool. From the stands around us, they shouted at the umps, the pitchers, the porky Padres right fielder (who heard one of their quips and burst into a wide grin). There are no greater pessimists among sports fans than Pittsburghers. It’s like they were waiting to lose the game for nine innings, and when their prophesy proved self-fulfilling, they still howled in indignation. As we filed out of the stadium, one of the most virulent hecklers just sat dejectedly in his seat, head down, beer empty. My brother patted him on the back in an attempt to console him, but to no avail.

Damn, it was fun. I’m almost glad we lost.