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Monday, April 03, 2000
By Chuck Staresinic
In stadiums across the country this week, baseball fans will celebrate opening day. When the starting lineup for the Pittsburgh Pirates streams out of the dugout today at Three Rivers Stadium, I'll be in the right field stands with my mother. Mom is a high school math teacher who will retire in a few months. It occurred to me this spring, while watching the construction of PNC Park, that my mother and I represent two distinct generations of Pirates fans.
As a child, my mother used to ride the streetcar to Forbes Field with her grandmother for "Ladies Day." In the late 1950s, my father courted her with $1 seats in the left field bleachers. When Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-ninth homer sailed out of Forbes Field and crushed the Yankees' hopes in the 1960 World Series, Mom was in her first year of marriage, already pregnant with my oldest sister.
I'm sure Forbes Field was nice, but it's just a name to me. I, for one, will miss Three Rivers Stadium when it's gone. This Astroturfed concrete bowl may not be perfect, but it's the only place I've seen Major League Baseball. There's been some fine baseball in that stadium -- enough to make an incurable fan out of me.
In my family, there's an unspoken reverence for baseball, for which I think my mother is responsible.
I was in fourth grade when she told a bald-faced lie to my teacher so that I could go to the home opener. On that day, I knew there was something special about baseball.
To understand the effect of my mother's untruthfulness upon my 9-year-old mind, you have to know a little about my parents. They are what the baby boomers call "old fashioned."
Dad grew up in Lawrenceville, the son of Slovenian immigrants. He inherited stolid, old-country values along with dark hair and a square jaw. Like my father, Mom was raised Catholic. She had little use for her children's complaints about how strict the principal was at school. She once instructed me to follow the rules because "they are the rules." Authority was not meant to be questioned, at least not by her children.
My parents sent me and my eight siblings (we were enough to field our own baseball team) to Catholic school to learn reverence for God and the rules of the church. It worked, to an extent. I became an altar boy. I enjoyed being a part of the solemn ritual of the Mass. I was very good at appearing alert, pious and interested all at the same time. I felt it was my responsibility to do so, and I took responsibility seriously. It was a sort of reverence.
In the spring of 1980, I was in fourth grade and the Pirates were reigning World Series champions. There was no better time to be a Buccos fan. Back then, the opener was held in the afternoon on a weekday. I wasn't looking forward to it because it was on a school day. But on morning of the game, my mother sent me to school with a note for my teacher. "Dear Mrs. Marietti," it read, "Please excuse Chuck from school at 11:30 today. He has a dentist appointment."
I've experienced an inordinate amount of joy in my 30 years. But nothing will ever equal the joy of bursting through the doors of St. Raphael's elementary school at 11:30 that morning. The empty playground never looked so sunny. In that moment, I knew that my mother was the most wonderful person I'd ever met.
She lied! She concocted a story, wrote a counterfeit note, signed her name to it and sent it to my homeroom teacher so that I could go to the ballgame! To be honest, I don't even remember the game. I don't recall riding the bus to town with my brothers, or walking across the Seventh Street Bridge to the stadium. But I do remember what I learned that day: Some things are not as important as the first baseball game of the season, and school is one of them. Moreover, not all children were blessed with parents wise enough to know this.
From the time I was a child to this final season at Three Rivers Stadium, baseball has always been our game. Steelers football was for other folks -- families with more money and fewer than nine kids. Pirates baseball was always a short bus ride and a cheap general admission ticket away. For the 2000 season, it will continue to be our game. But we'll have to wait and see if we can afford the new PNC Park.
If you ask my mother, she might tell you I didn't learn everything I should have in Catholic school. She still goes to church on Sundays and on most religious holidays, too. Other than Christmas, I don't think I've been to church with her for years. But we go to see the Pirates together. And we'll be there in the right-field stands for this year's home opener.
One more thing: You can bet that we'll be there for the final pitch. All those fans who give up and head for the parking lot early are guaranteed never to see the most exciting thing in baseball: the come-from-behind victory in the final inning. We don't care if the Buccos are down six runs going into the bottom of the ninth. We stay.
We usually shiver with cold, but we cheer with something like faith. Faith in this team and in the possibility of a seven-run rally. We believe.
Chuck Staresinic lives in Highland Park. 