Florida Marlins @ Pittsburgh Pirates (1)

I walked from my hotel to the stadium, as it was only 20 minutes, through the Cultural District and then across the Allegheny River over the Roberto Clemente Bridge (the website has a nice photo of it)    The bridge was closed to allow people to walk to the stadium from downtown more easily.

From the moment you start crossing the bridge, the stadium is immediately impressive.  You can see the seating bowl as you cross the bridge and get a sense of the atmosphere in there.  Many of the new stadia have a skyline view of their home city's downtown, and PNC Park's is beautiful, but this is the first I've come across where people can see in as well.  Now I understand why so many people say that this stadium rivals the Giants' AT&T Park as the best MLB stadium.  (Aside: IMHO, Fenway & Wrigley are not great places to watch games - they give you something entirely different, an atmosphere steeped in history and tradition that the new stadia do not yet have)

I have club level seating for all three of the games, the sections moving progressively from down the first base side towards the plate.  The view from the second deck is excellent - both of the city skyline and the game below.  The inside of the club level is air-conditioned, which will be useful for summer games and day games such as tomorrow's game, and the whole experience just seems so much more civilised - there are tables to sit and eat your food at, less noise, lots of Pirates' memorabilia on display, and nice carpets!

The game this evening was an odd one - it seemed somewhat ponderous, perhaps because I'm quite tired, but given that runs were scored only in one half-inning of the entire game (top 3rd) you'd have thought it should have been over sooner.  Having got so close to seeing a one-hit shutout a few days ago, Anibal Sanchez actually delivered one.  Pittsburgh never really looked like getting going, and the 3 runs that the Marlins put up, highlighted by a John Buck 2-RBI single, were enough.

Happily enough, the Pirates had a firework display after the game, which made it two in two days for me.  I didn't think that they would top the display in Chicago, but they did!  It was just as long and the explosions were bigger, there were more of them, the sounds of the explosions were echoed off the stadium and the buildings on the other side of the river disappeared at times behind the smoke.  Behind all of this a full Moon hung in the sky, occasionally being obscured by smoke and at the end turning a fiery red colour as the smoke blocked it out and then dissipated.  They load all the fireworks onto barges and sail them to the middle of the river and fire them from there (having closed the river and the Clemente bridge!)

Pierogis after their race around the warning track