Inside PNC

Inside PNC
Originally uploaded by Butch Wynegar.

Only because we're heading to Wrigley on Wednesday will I hold off on calling this the best park of the trip, but boy oh boy is PNC a gem. Intimate, beautiful, and comfortable, it's like Camden's cute little sister. We circumnavigated the stadium before and after our game, and couldn't find a bad seat (this picture was taken from our seats) in the whole park. Sightlines were great and seats were comfy. Fortunately, ours were just under an overhang; by the second inning, most fans with seats in the sun were watching from the concourse (and they STILL had better views than from box seats at most parks). While we couldn't find a bad seat, we had no trouble finding two bad baseball teams; they were playing right in front of us. The Pirates, in fairness, have some solid young players: Lawton, Bay, Mackowiak, Castillo. But the Devil Rays would lose to a good college team; you could trade the starting 9 for whoever's starting for their AAA team with no loss of quality. By the end of the game (it went 13 innings), JW and I were taking bets on the likelihood of finding Lou Piniella drowning his sorrows at the Outback Steakhouse in the outfield. --JF