On July 12, 1997 - I went to a baseball game with my dad. I was 13 years old and was just excited to spend a summer evening watching my favorite team.
We went to games fairly often together - starting out when we lived in Harrisburg going to Senators games. The Senators are a AA team and it was minor league baseball at its best. Guys smoking cigars in the bleachers, goofy promotions and may flies raining down from the sky. People actually brought umbrellas to combat the falling insects. This is horrific as I'm looking back on it - but I didn't seem to mind when I was 6 or 7.
We moved to Pittsburgh in 1995, which for 12 year old Matt, meant I would be able to see my favorite teams (the Pirates, Penguins and Steelers) more often. This was tremendously exciting. Up until then, we'd get to about 1 Pirates game a year while visiting family.
In the summer of 1997, the Pirates were dubbed the "Freak Show". They had been struggling ever since losing to the Braves in game 7 of the NLCS in '92. This year was different though. their payroll was approximately 38 dollars, and they had a team of youngsters and cast-offs. Somehow though, they were competing!
There was a festival going on that day downtown; I believe it was the Three Rivers Regatta, so we decided to check it out (it was Free - so this automatically seemed like a great idea). They were going to have members of the Pirates to sign baseballs and as we soon found out - tickets to that night's game against the Houston Astros for a dollar. We stood in the various lines and had my baseball signed by 12 or so of the Pirates. After milling around the festival for a bit, my dad and I made our way to the baseball game.
In those days, I would insist on getting to the ball game when the gates opened - 2 hours before the first pitch - because 1) We got to watch batting practice and 2) the cheap seats were general admission in Three Rivers Stadium, so the earlier you got there, the better your seat. Luckily my dad tolerated this non-sense and we ended up in the front row in right field. The game started out slow - not much action, but the crowd was huge this night! Cheap tickets, fireworks and a competitive club are the perfect storm in Pittsburgh.
Inning after inning, no action. This was terribly boring for the first 5 or so innings, but slowly, one by one the crowd began to notice that there wasn't just no action, there were no hits either.
It's considered bad luck to talk about a no-hitter, so no one really said much, but you could feel the tension rise after each inning, each out, each pitch! If a member of the Astros made contact, 50,000 people held their breath and collectively exhaled as the ball was fielded to complete the out.
Francisco Cordova was on the hill for the Pirates that night with maybe a year of MLB experience under his belt. He had a short career as it turned out, but he was absolutely dealing on this night. The tension rose as we entered the 9th inning, and one by one, the Astros were sat down. 9 innings! 0 hits! 1 Problem! The Pirates hadn't scored yet either. It was 0-0 after the Pirates went down in the 9th inning, heading into extras.
Cordova was out of gas at this point and was replaced with Ricardo Rincon. Talk about an uneasy feeling. The guy who threw 9 no-hit innings just got replaced with a relief pitcher. Luckily for all involved, Rincon was able to preserve the no-hitter and we headed into the bottom of the 10th.
We had to score here, enough was enough! The first two batters were able to draw walks. Men on 1st and 2nd and the crowd was absolutely ready to erupt with anticipation. Mark Smith came to bat and completed one of the greatest games in Pirates history with a bomb into the left field seats. The Pirates won, the 10-inning no-hitter had been completed and the magic of baseball had been reaffirmed. The best part was being able to share that night with my dad, and let's not forget that it only cost 2 bucks! I still have that signed baseball from earlier in the day on my shelf (Ricardo Rincon is one of the signatures) .
So this weekend, Happy Father's Day - especially to all of the "Pittsburgh Dad's" out there. Get out there and do something fun together, you never know when you may see history together.
Drive slow
NY Times Article
