Serious Sports
By Billy Elmer

Maz Is In; No Bum Rap About Baseball

Well, Pirate fans, I have almost run out of excuses.

For years, I have refused to attend baseball games. My attitude was based on sound principle and righteous indignation.

I would not go to a Pirates' game or spend any money on MLB products until my hero and favorite Pirate, Bill Mazeroski, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. That, and the fact my butt didn't fit comfortably into the seats at Three Rivers Stadium.

The fact is, I haven't been to a game since 1980, when I worked at Three Rivers as a security guard for $3 an hour—an embarrassing fact for my mother and an Indiana University (Pa.) journalism graduate like myself.

The job had offered the exciting chance to work in professional baseball while being paid to watch games.

I was stuck in the gift shop where I could only hear and smell the crowd. So much for the major leagues.

Now there is PNC Park, considered one of the nicest parks in the world.

But you can't bring a roll of Lifesavers in without setting off an alarm — unless you're happy to see me, if you know what I mean.

When I was a boy in the early 1960s, my Aunt Kitty would load myself, brother Jim and a huge picnic basket onto three Port Authority buses and haul us to Forbes Field. And I mean huge picnic basket. The kind that Boo Boo and Yogi could fit into snugly.

It was filled with sandwiches, fried chicken, potato salad, chips, and Coke Cola 16-ounce returnable bottles — which we returned. We even brought a folding chair for Aunt Kitty, her being afflicted with extra large buttocksitis.

Try that at PNC Park. They have donut sniffing dogs at the turnstiles.

I refuse to pay outlandish prices for tickets, food and beer. So, buyer beware.

They do cavity searches and colonoscopies. Hide your SlimJims well.

I bet my butt still doesn't fit those seats.

Billy Elmer can be reached at billy.elmer@yahoo.com.