Media Savvy
Remembering Three Rivers
By Guy Junker
Fox Sports Pittsburgh

My kids had never seen an IMplosion before. They had witnessed many EXplosions though, mostly in the minivan on the way to the ocean. So when Three Rivers Stadium crumpled into more of a heap than it already had been for 31 years, I expected them to whoop it up and ooh and aah at the unbelievable spectacle they had just witnessed.

But instead, they sat there in kind of a stunned silence. We had a birds-eye view from the tenth floor of our office building at Allegheny Center.

Suddenly my six-year-old daughter started crying.

"Why did they have to wreck it?" she sobbed.

Here I thought I was going to be the hero-dad for at least one morning and instead I found myself explaining how much better things were going to be in the new stadiums and that we would still go to a lot of games. She wasn't convinced.

My son, a year younger, showed wisdom beyond his years. As the dust cloud from the wreckage drifted toward downtown, he said, "When it first fell down I thought it was cool. But then I got sad."

Naturally, I asked why and he replied "because you used to take us there." Now I was the one trying to hold back tears.

Combined, those two had attended maybe 20 Pirate games and one N'Sync concert that nearly drove me out of my mind. I expected them to watch the thing fall and then ask if we could go to McDonald's for breakfast. Instead, they really seemed to understand that something had just been eliminated forever.

I wasn't much older than they are now when I saw my first baseball game in Houston's Astrodome on television. Bob Prince used to call it the "eighth wonder of the world." It was so cool when the steer's head came on the electronic scoreboard, snorting smoke when one of the Astros hit a home run. And that incessant bugle charge that seemingly played every 10 seconds. It drove me nuts when the Pirates were losing.

But I remember wishing that Forbes Field had that kind of modern stuff. This was long before I ever even heard of knee ligaments but I even thought the Astroturf was great. I may not be that bright now, but I was really stupid then.

So when Three Rivers opened in 1970, I was there for the first game. I'll never forget Matty Alou charging out of the dugout, the first one to reveal the new double knit pullover uniform.

I loved the electronic cartoons on the scoreboard, especially when the opposing team made a pitching change and the guy had to walk the plank.

Within a few short years that stuff all seemed like the leisure suit of the major leagues. A good idea at first but one that grew tacky in a short time. But it didn't matter, at least for awhile. Because the teams playing in the place were the best.

In the first 10 years the Pirates called Three Rivers Stadium home, they won 916 games and lost just 695. That included, of course, six division titles and two World Championships. They only finished lower than second place once.

During those same 10 years the Steelers won four Super Bowls, never having a losing season at home. Their regular season record those first 10 years was 99-44-1.Their post-season record was 14-4. They made the playoffs all but the first two seasons.

It didn't matter that the Stadium wasn't perfect. What took place inside was as close to it as you can get in sports.

In fact, much of the attitude of today's Pittsburgh fans was forged during those years. They expect the best and won't support anything less.

My Three Rivers Stadium experiences are different than most. It was more than a place to go with my family and friends for entertainment. I spent most of that first magical decade walking up and down every step in the place, selling soda and peanuts and eventually beer. I wore the embarrassing green and black ZumZum uniform (with the u's made out of wieners) and later the clown-like red, white and blue ARASERV smocks. The crowds were large and sales mostly were brisk back then. It helped me pay my own way through college.

Combine those years with 22 more working as a member of the local sports media, and I estimate I have spent enough time in the building to cover more than a full year of my life, 24 hours a day.

Yet for most of those years, I hated the place. As a kid I wanted turf and electronics. As an adult, I was looking for real grass and maybe some ivy.

I thought nothing of it when people were planning their $50 breakfasts and boat rides and parties to watch the implosion. I would have loved to press the plunger myself.

But that all changed during the 10 seconds or so of perfectly placed dynamite blasts that sounded the old bowl's death knell. And for the brief few seconds of silence, when nothing seemed to happen, I found myself hoping it wouldn't fall. Then, of course, it did.

Just the other day, I caught my son in his room, shaking his Three Rivers Stadium snow globe that the Pirates gave out last season. As he silently stared at the toy I asked "what are you doing bud?" He's only five and still can't say his r's. "I was wememebewing how the stadium used to be."

If you only knew pal, if you only knew.

Guy Junker is co-host of SportsBeat and the 11 p.m. Regional Sports Report with Fox Sports Pittsburgh.