Surprise, Surprise…

Well, I certainly did not think that a trip to PNC Park was in store to me on this journey but that’s where I found myself this afternoon. The Pirates were playing the dodgers in a day game and Dixie suddenly said this morning, “Hey let’s go down to the stadium and have a Manny Sanguillen pulled pork sandwich for lunch and watch the game for a while.’

So off we went. My mom drove us down and dropped us at the door so we didn’t have to walk anywhere; we bought some scalped box seats for 20 bucks and were sitting in the sun by the top of the 2nd. The Bucs lost 13-5 in a rather pathetic show but it was a lot of fun and really quite amazing. I did not even expect to come to Pittsburgh this trip in large part because I thought my dad was going to be largely bed-ridden in New York. So him being up and home and then at a baseball game was truly mind-blowing.

We ended up having a Primanti’s sandwich (me) and Quaker chicken wings (Dixie) for lunch. Dixie felt good enough to bitch about the lack of ice cream stands to a customer service rep – “Every time I come here there’s a 20-minute wait to get a damned ice cream cone and you miss an inning!” That prompted them to fetch an Aramark rep, who came to our seat to talk. He and Dixie are pictured here chatting. He also felt good enough to stop in a bar on the way out and say hi to the proprietor, a doo-wop singer who goes by the name Johnny Angel and has a huge pompadour. They have music there and apparently Mr. Angel has hired Dixie and the boys a few times.

We walked across the Roberto Clemente Bridge into downtown, stopping to have a picture taken by the statue of The Great One, then caught a cab at a hotel there and headed home.

PNC Park is spectacular, Pittsburgh looked great and just being there together was fabulous. I will have to figure out other ways to bond with my kids because we won’t be getting misty eyed at Mets or Yankees games in 30 years.