Finale at Forbes Field: 2 wins, chaos and a souvenir free-for-all
Fans climb the scoreboard in left field following the final game at Forbes Field, June 28, 1970.
A ticket stub from the final game at Forbes Field.
A seat from Forbes Field
Ticket sign from Forbes Field
”And there used to be a ballpark where the field was warm and green. And the people played their crazy game with a joy I’d never seen. And the air was such a wonder from the hot dogs and the beer. Yes, there used to be a ballpark right here.” -
Frank Sinatra, ”There Used To Be A Ballpark.”
While it was different entering Forbes Field that last time – June 28, 1970 – my eyes, as always, were drawn to center field and the batting cage that rested there in play. It was 442 feet to dead center and 462 to the deepest corner of Forbes Field from home plate.
Having been there a handful of times before with my grandpap and dad, it is the one thing of many that captivated me about that ballpark.
To this very day, it is difficult convincing young baseball fans that it was true about the batting cage being being in fair territory.
It is inconceivable and a fable to most.
It was part of the charm and awkwardness of Forbes Field. Poles obstructed many views and were more than in the way.
The ivy on the outfield wall, the manually operated scoreboard and the real grass made it genuine, ingrained in the memory.
A few hours later, after we entered that day, Forbes Field would never be the same.
Mayhem, after the final out, reigned. Destruction and looting overcame anything nostalgic.
“It was bedlam,” said Christopher Miles, an attorney and Washington native. “I don’t recall security trying to stop anything. I remember being on the field after the game below the guys climbing the scoreboard. There was a picture on the front of one newspaper the next day and I could locate my back and head in the picture. We got a seat or parts of a seat. The frames were cast iron and bolted down, and the seat and back were made of wooden slats. The seats were a dark blue color.
“On our way out of the stadium my cousin got on someone’s shoulders and was able to pull down a sign with the types of seats and prices.”
That sign is now in possession of Leo Trich of Washington, who also attended the doubleheader.
“It was festive,” Trich said. “People were milling around. It was nice to be there. The Pirate band was playing. That’s what I remember.”
Jim Tripodi, of Beaver Falls, went to the games with his father.
“There was a sense of transition,” Tripodi said. “It was different. When we were leaving, we saw three guys carrying a urinal down Forbes Avenue, which was just one big tub.”
Tripodi, who would later own Diamond Jim’s (1989-2014), sold his two scorecards from the games for $1,000 each.
“Back then, if you didn’t go to a game, you never saw baseball in color. Forbes Field brought baseball to light for me.”
What awaited the Pirates and Pittsburgh, after those two games, was a road trip before the opening of Three Rivers Stadium, new double-knit uniforms, artificial turf, and in a little more than a year, the club’s first World Series championship since Bill Mazeroski’s career- and Forbes Field-defining moment in 1960. His home run won the Pirates a World Series, himself lifetime fame and brought the New York Yankees to their knees.
This final day, however, was about Forbes Field and what one could pilfer from it.
The details of the games were secondary in comparison to the closing of the ballpark and the aftermath.
The games were significant to the Pirates as they were marching to their first of six National League East Division championships in the 1970s.
Pittsburgh notched two wins that day, 3-2, in the first game of the doubleheader. Dave Giusti got the win. Luke Walker earned a save. Bill Hands suffered the loss.
Time of game: 2:35.
In the second game of the doubleheader and the final game at Forbes Field, the Pirates won, 4-1. Jim Nelson got the win and Giusti the save. Milt Pappas was the losing pitcher.
Al Oliver hit the final home run at Forbes Field in the sixth inning and Bill Mazeroski recorded the final out on an unassisted forceout at second base.
Time of game: 2:14. The final out was recorded at 6:31 p.m. It took just five hours and 25 minutes to play two games with a 37-minute break between games.
The games were star-studded. Eight future Hall of Famers were in uniform that day, including Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ferguson Jenkins and manager Leo Durocher of the Cubs, and Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Mazeroski of the Pirates. Al Barlick, one of the umpires, is in the Hall of Fame. Nine Hall of Famers in all.
Butler native Ed Vargo, a decorated umpire in his career, worked that day, including behind the plate in the final game.
The lasting memories, however, are the aftermath.
It was chaos, lawlessness and frenzy.
“There was no stopping anybody,” said Terry Shields, a Munhall native and former scholastic sports editor at a Pittsburgh newspaper. “People beside me had wrenches, hammers and screw drivers.
“It was a free-for-all. People were running around trying to grab anything they wanted. It was weird and kind of sad.”
Evan Pattak, long-time official scorer for the Pirates, wasn’t enamored with the public’s display. He said it wasn’t the people’s stuff to take.
Pattak said the craziness, at least to him, was the tearing apart of a ballpark that actually belonged to a company. It was constructed by the Nicola Building Co.
No one seemed to care what was being taken that day.
“Anything people were getting their hands on, they were taking,” said Michael Popovich, a Monessen resident. “People were animals that day.”
Popovich went to the game with his brother and aunt. He had been given a ball by Santo. A ball hit by the Pirates’ Gene Alley ended up in his aunt’s hands and a third foul ball his brother grabbed.
“My fondest memory of Forbes Field was the smell of popcorn, peanuts and stale beer,” Popovich said. “But the neatest part of that day,” Popovich said, “we got three balls from the last game.”
Conrad Auel, another Monessen resident, called the game’s aftermath “some kind of a jail break.”
“It seemed odd,” Auel said. “I had been on the field with the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and we were permitted entrance sometimes through the outfield fence. This was nothing like that. There were just too many people on the field. They were seven or eight deep the length of the scoreboard. I went back to get my seat.”
Denny Passantino and Guy Montecalvo were neighbors in Washington. They went to the game together.
“My most vivid recollection was the chaos that ensued after the final out,” said Passantino, who now lives in Colorado. “Fans were removing anything that could be removed, including turf from the field. Guy kicked out the seats that we were sitting in. It’s possible that two of those seats are still under the front porch of the home that I grew up in on East Wylie Avenue. I guess that we were a little part of history that day.”
Montecalvo, a long-time and devoted Pirates fan, still has the seat.
“I was only 14, but I do have a few vivid memories of that day,” Montecalvo said. “We were in contention for first place and it was a perfect baseball day weather-wise. So, it was exciting. I remember we won the doubleheader and I recall Maz recorded the last out in Forbes Field history, on an innocuous grounder to second.
“We stayed for the festivities after the game, as they were going to give away some souvenirs. After (Pirates legendary announcer) Bob Prince finished with his remarks, I have a picture that is vividly etched in my mind like a brain engram, as I remember the field being swarmed with determined fans who were intent on grabbing whatever memento of Forbes Field, they could get their hands on.
“I will never forget the mass of fans that scaled the Longines scoreboard in left field, pulling themselves up the board by grabbing on to the vacated holes where numbers were manually inserted in those days. People took numbers, signs, pieces of the grass turf, rows of seats, and individual seats that they stomped on to break the hinges. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing, as I’d never seen such a scene, and frankly haven’t since.
“As I watched how fans were freeing the seats from their hinges by jumping up and down on them, I thought ‘Why not? This would be a nice remembrance,'” he continued. “Little did I know that I’d have it in my house as a computer chair 50 years later. My father was a pretty handy craftsman, and as a present a few years later, he refinished the chair, so that the Forbes Field logo was still evident, and attached it to a base of a small school-student desk chair. It is still a beautiful piece that I cherish for several reasons.”
Anyone who was there has their own memories of that day. Forbes Field is where I fell in love with baseball and the Pirates. Telling the batting cage story is a delight.
The days meant so much to others:
- ”I remember sitting on the steps of the aisle watching the game, so many people and how exciting it was,” said Sharon Mauck, another loyal Pirates fan from Monessen. “I had maybe attended one other game at Forbes Field. I was 16-years-old and so excited to attend the ballgame. I was excited that the Pirates were going to play in another ballpark, and it would be brand new. At the end of the game, people went crazy, it was kind of scary. It was an experience I will never forget. I got a piece of a blue seat that some fella gave me and said, “Here you go; you will always remember this day.”
- ”My friend and I went early because of the lack of parking spaces near Forbes Field,” said George Guido, sports writer from Lower Burrell. “It was memorable watching the place fill up. There were 40,000-plus fans, about 5,000 over capacity. People were sitting in the aisles and standing wherever feasible. I had just gotten my driver’s license several months earlier and it was the first time my mother allowed me to drive to Pittsburgh.”
- ”That was quite a scene, but it was all done so matter-of-factly that it never took on the aura of being a riot or anything close to that,” said Terry Hazlett, former entertainment editor at the Observer-Reporter. “At first, a few people grabbed some signage, but that was about it. Then, I think, fans took their cue from people trying to get mementos from on the field, namely the bases. At the point, people started to take seats – the people next to us somehow managed to walk off with three seats still attached to each other. As we were walking to the car, we saw people with coffee pots, signs, whatever they could grab. The police did nothing other than direct traffic.
- ”I still have my ticket stub – white and dog-eared,” said Rick Shrum, the current business editor for the Observer-Reporter. “I paid $3 to sit in Box J10, seat 2. I also won’t forget that the energy never abated during (the games). Part of it was the Pirates were contending for the NL East title, but the main reason was this was it for Lady Forbes, as Prince called the place. I was 17-years-old, heading into my senior year of high school, and actually was appalled that people were boldly stealing seats and the numbers and letters from the scoreboard. And I was a little scared. Even though there were a lot of kids, there was something of a mob mentality.”
Fifty years later, I have been privileged to have covered the final baseball game at Three Rivers Stadium, the first one at PNC Park, first one at then-Jacobs Field in Cleveland, and first game at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, where I was joined by my then 13-month-old daughter, Milana – her first baseball road trip.
Nothing will ever compare with those final games at Forbes Field. First loves are hard to forget.