Sports & Outdoors Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

I don’t understand why people don’t go wild over pileated woodpeckers. They look like little pterodactyls. They undulate as they fly, with a flap and glide pattern. Their call is a loud KA-KA-KA and when they drum on trees, which they do to defend territories and attract mates, the sound reverberates through the forest. People …

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Nature

Explore French Creek in Venango County

by Thomas Saunders

About a 90-minute drive north of Pittsburgh, in Venango County, there’s a new, beautiful, forested Western Pennsylvania Conservancy-owned nature preserve — great to visit for getting a sense of the French Creek watershed. French Creek is an ecologically important and beautiful stream, whose branches meander from Erie County in northwestern Pennsylvania and from southwestern New …

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Birds Sports & Outdoors

Flying South With A Broad-Winged Hawk

by David Liebmann

Imagine a migrating Broad-Winged Hawk, crossing Pennsylvania from northeast to southwest. Along the way, steep climbs, dramatic drops, and ridgelines with spinning wind turbines mark its route. Born in a large, unbroken tract of mixed forest, high in a nest of sticks, the bird emerged from one of four eggs incubated for a month, mostly …

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Nature Nonprofits

Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy at 30

by Catherine Qureshi

When we talk about quality of life in Pittsburgh, we often point to neighborhoods, schools, or cultural institutions. But for me, it begins somewhere simpler — and more profound: access to our parks. Access means different things to different people. For one person, it’s a peaceful morning walk beneath tree canopies. For another, it’s experiencing …

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Nature

Restoring Nature on Historic Grounds

by Thomas Saunders

Just outside the city of Jeannette, in Westmoreland County, about a 45-minute drive east of Pittsburgh, is a new preserve of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy called Oakford Park Nature Reserve. Oakford Park was historically a “trolley park,” where people could enjoy picnicking, swimming and amusement park attractions. It opened in 1896 and operated until 1938, …

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Sports

That Damn Crazy Pitch: Rip Sewell and the 1946 All-Star Game

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

Just before the beginning of the 1946 All-Star game, played 80 years ago in Boston’s Fenway Park, Ted Williams approached Pirates pitcher Rip Sewell and said, “Hey Rip, you wouldn’t throw that damn crazy pitch in a game like this, would you?” Sewell responded, “I’m gonna throw it to you, Ted, so look out.” That …

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Sports Sports & Outdoors

“Hey, Kraut Head: I’m Comin'”

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

In a 1944 interview with Chet Smith, the long-time sports editor of The Pittsburgh Press, Honus Wagner was asked to name his greatest day in baseball. Wagner went back to the final game of the 1909 World Series between the Pirates and the Detroit Tigers and the moment that Ty Cobb, leading off first base, …

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Birds

The Striking Hooded Warbler

by David Liebmann

A chorus begins at the cusp of dawn. Song builds around us, sunrise revealing birds competing for breeding territories or vying over mates. Step out into the garden, and you’ll hear them by the pond or just beyond the exedra wall. Walk in the woods, and you’ll find them there, too. While the season may …

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Nature

The Springhouse

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

I love outbuildings: springhouses, woodsheds, barns, cottages, tractor sheds. I’d have more if I could — a tool shed, a sugar house, a summer kitchen, a cider house. We have a small wooden building we call a goat shed because once we housed goats there. When the children were young, I wanted to convert a …

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Nature

Highlighting the Beautiful Eastern Redbud

by Thomas Saunders

This spring, there is a brief and spectacular sight to see right in the urban areas of Pittsburgh. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has been planting Eastern redbud trees in Pittsburgh since 2016. Their blooming period varies slightly from year to year, but generally begins in early to mid-April and lasts for two to three weeks. …

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Birds

Jean Jacques’ Audubon and the Eastern Phoebe

by David Liebmann

Jean Jacques Audubon was born in 1785 to a naval officer and a maid in what became Haiti. Raised in his father’s native France, he came of age interested in fencing, music, dance, riding, and, importantly, drawing. His father had invested in property near Philadelphia in the young United States, and at age 18, Audubon …

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Nature

The Indian Pipe

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

An eerie plant appears in the woods. i bend down and study its translucent white color — ghostly against the vibrant green of mid-summer. The three-inch stems have specks of gray and black, and its tiny leaves resemble scales. Some of the pipe-shaped flowers stand upright, while others droop in a melancholy manner. I think …

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Sports Sports & Outdoors

When the Steelers Hired Three Coaches — In One Season

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

As Mike McCarthy takes over as coach of the Steelers, sportswriters across the country remarked about the Steelers’ “unprecedented stability” with just four head coaches in 57 years, “unmatched by any NFL franchise in the Super Bowl era.” Well, sports fans, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, in the early years, the opposite was …

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Sports Sports & Outdoors

Maz, You’re Up

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

In 2010, The Heinz History Center published Maz, You’re Up, a children’s book written by Kelly Mazeroski, Bill Mazeroski’s daughter-in-law. When Kelly was writing the book, Sally O’Leary, a good friend and, at that time, the Alumni Liaison for the Pittsburgh Pirates Alumni Association, told me that Kelly had never done anything like this before …

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History Sports

Heavyweight Champion John L. Sullivan’s Wild Bouts in McKeesport and Allegheny City

by Clayton Trutor

“The air of Pittsburgh has been thicker today than at any time since the discovery and general use of natural gas,” intoned an unnamed editorialist for the Pittsburgh Post on September 19, 1886. “But not as in the old time with smoke however but with pugilism.” On the previous evening, heavyweight boxing champion John L. …

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Nature

Purslane

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Henry David Thoreau gathered purslane in a cornfield. He boiled and salted it and called it “a satisfactory dinner.” When writing about the plant in Walden, he made sure to include its Latin name — Portulaca oleracea — “on account of the savoriness of the trivial name.” By trivial name, I assume he’s referring to …

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Nature

Mystery and Reverie

by Christina Schmidlapp

“Do not (repeat: DO NOT) attempt to cross the creek during periods of high water. This is a significant waterway and the current can be very strong.” So said the Guide to the Quehanna Trail tucked in my backpack. But exactly how high was “high water”? Yes, it was spring, but it hadn’t rained for …

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Nature

A Wintry Forest Trail Walk in Lawrence County

by Thomas Saunders

About an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh in Lawrence County, Plain Grove Fens Natural Area is a wonderful place to visit. It’s just a few miles from the Slippery Rock exit off I-79, and once you’re there, you’re greeted with a 400-acre preserve featuring a hiking trail, hardwood forest, vernal pools and woodland stream. The …

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Sports

I Almost Missed the Greatest Play in NFL History

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

Each Christmas reminds me of the near miss I had with the most dramatic moment in NFL history. In 1969, my wife Anita and I and our kids had moved to Carbondale, Illinois where I took a teaching position in the English Department at Southern Illinois University. With our families still living in the Pittsburgh …

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History Sports

Steelers Cheerleaders?

by Bob Fulton

Dedicated students of Steelers history are likely aware that Pittsburgh was the first NFL team to feature cheerleaders. The Steelerettes, composed of co-eds from what was then Robert Morris Junior College, were active from 1961 to 1969. But mention the Ingots — the Steelerettes’ male counterparts — to any Pittsburgh fan and the response is …

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Nature Travel

First Cruise, Last Continent: A Voyage to Antarctica

by Tracy Certo

There is a language for ice. Tabulas are broad, flat-topped icebergs, and growlers are smaller bergs under three feet tall. Brash ice is a collection of floating discs that form mesmerizing patterns in the water. Then there are the bergy bits, a name that sounds like an offering from a fast-food outlet but denotes chunks …

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Nature

Bird Flu?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

It was near dusk on an evening last spring when I looked out at the chickens from the dining room window. I was checking to see if the flock was heading toward the coop for the night. It’s easier to round them up if they want to retire; if not, they run this way and …

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