Sports & Outdoors Archives - Page 3 of 17

When Pittsburgh sportswriters go back into the past, they tend to focus on the glory years of Roberto Clemente and Willis Stargell and of the Super Bowl dynasty, but there are players from earlier eras that richly deserve our remembrance of the glory of their times. There are four statues at PNC Park honoring Pirate …

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Birds

Fond and Friendly

by David Liebmann

If any bird qualifies as the neighbor we’ve known our whole lives, it has to be the chickadee. Gregarious, sprightly, and fearless, chickadees can become so habituated to people and the offer of birdseed that they’ll literally eat out of your hand. They’re at our windows wherever a feeder goes up, finding the food within …

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Nature

Spring Blooming Plants Blooming in Fall

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

It’s the holiday season and my rural Pennsylvania town is bursting with the signs of Christmas: wreaths hung on doors, trees strung with colorful lights, a creche erected in the town square — and spring-flowering plants in bloom. My forsythia is blooming a bright yellow. White lilac flowers are just dying back. Pink magnolia buds …

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Nature

What Would Rachel Carson Say?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

On a Tuesday morning late last August, I turned out of my driveway onto Route 711 to drive into Ligonier. Route 711 is a two-lane state road, a main north-south corridor, designated as the Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway. I passed, heading in the other direction, two large white trucks, one of which had a long …

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Books Sports

From Basket Ball to the NBA

by Fred Shaw

While the debate over Pittsburgh’s status as a basketball town continues on barstools and radio waves across the region, what’s been settled by Claude Johnson, Carnegie Mellon University grad and author of The Black Fives: The Epic Story of Basketball’s Forgotten Era, is the important role that a black player from Homestead, once a “basket …

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Sports

A Victim of the Life He Led

by Clayton Trutor

Pittsburgh is unquestionably one of the great fighting cities in the United States. The city and its surrounding boroughs have produced world champions Billy Conn, Michael Moorer, Paul Spadafora, and a whole host of other world-class pugilists. Experts in the fight business place two-time world champion Harry Greb on top of Pittsburgh’s pugilistic slag pile. …

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Nature

Roaring Run Natural Area

by Thomas Saunders

A beautiful place for hiking and exploring is the Roaring Run Natural Area within Forbes State Forest in the Laurel Highlands. Roaring Run is a 3,600-acre wild and rugged expanse of forest on the western slope of Laurel Ridge in southern Westmoreland County. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy protected this land in 1970 and transferred it …

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Nature

The Common Snapping Turtle

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Each spring before my first real swim, I stand at the house and gaze downhill to the pond. (I have dipped every month of the year, but that doesn’t count as a real swim.) I scan the water’s surface, looking for snapping turtles. I see them when they come up for air — their little …

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Birds

The Peak Before Migration

by David Liebmann

I appreciate the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. There are seasons of want and seasons of plenty, seasons of abundance and seasons of scarcity. That’s true for both people and birds. With all this year’s hatchlings taking to the wing, fall marks the annual peak for avian populations before the rigors of migration, predation, and the other …

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Nature

One Lone Bat

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

I never noticed so many ash trees in the forest until hundreds toppled over. The drumming of the ruffed grouse is dearer to me now because of its absence. But of all the things on the farm that have revealed themselves by passing away, none is more striking than the decline of bats. Thirty-five years …

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Nature

Forever Chemicals

by Deborah Weisberg

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first-ever national drinking water standard to limit six chemicals whose potential health effects are raising red flags. They are part of a family of about 9,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds — collectively known as PFAS — that are used to impart water-, oil-, grease-, stain-, and heat-resistant …

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Birds

Listen for the Song of the Wood Thrush

by David Liebmann

The wood thrush sings a haunting song, “Ee-oh-lay.” Just three syllables, it’s a brief, ethereal mix of bouncing notes and plaintive, romantic flutings. I have heard the males sing from brushy patches of suburban scrub in the late spring and from deep in the summer woods. Their notes are almost elven, with something beckoning and …

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Sports

Have a Duke: Baseball and Beer

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

While baseball fans are happy with the pitch clock because it has, on average, cut 30 minutes off this season’s games, there has been an unanticipated problem. If fans are spending less time at the ballpark, they’re consuming less food and drink. Major league teams have been particularly concerned about the declining consumption of beer. …

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Nature

Touring Pittsburgh’s Community Flower Gardens

by Thomas Saunders

This column usually focuses on remote places to hike around Western Pennsylvania, but there are beautiful outdoor destinations to see in the heart of Pittsburgh. A biking tour of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s community flower gardens is one way to simultaneously enjoy nature and explore the uniqueness of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods. Each May and June, the …

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Nature

Giving Thanks to Mosses

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

We hardly notice them. we trod all over them. Most mosses don’t even have universal common names. Moss experts are few. Yet mosses are among the most ancient of plants — the first to crawl out of the ocean and inhabit land 450 million years ago.I wonder if that’s why I feel as if I’m …

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Sports

The School of Social Work Basketball Dynasty

by David M. Feehan

When people think of University of Pittsburgh athletes, the first person to come to mind is probably Kenny Pickett. Some may recall Aaron Donald, or Larry Fitzgerald. But Michael Whitelock? It may be hard to believe, but the School of Social Work once produced a basketball dynasty. Not only that, but there have been several …

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Nature

The PA Wilds

by Thomas Saunders

Several hours from Pittsburgh, in the north-central counties of Pennsylvania, is the beautiful area referred to as the PA Wilds. It’s a region of deep forests, dramatic hilly terrain, and wild streams. Two wonderful places to explore there are Susquehannock State Forest in Potter County and Elk State Forest in Cameron County. A drive through …

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Sports

Pittsburgh’s Golden Era of Slow-Pitch Softball

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

Pittsburgh’s slow-pitch softball home-run king, Paul Tomasovich passed away March 5 at the age of 89. Described in his obituary as “the man, the myth, the legend,” he was fabled in the 1960s for his tape-measure home runs. His obituary mentions two of the most remembered Herculean home runs hit by Tomasovich. In a game …

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Birds

A Couple of Rare Birds

by David Liebmann

The couple walked briskly down the road, binoculars around their necks. Spring had come to western Pennsylvania and with it migratory birds, but they were only interested in one species, the cerulean warbler, and the check mark they could add to their life list once they saw it. Bird watchers come in many varieties. At …

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Birds

The Evening Grosbeak – a Bright Winter Visitor

by David Liebmann

The day I saw the evening Grosbeaks up along the Allegheny River, I was at a winter corporate retreat at a golf club. I was sitting at a conference table and outside, there were bird feeders. Grosbeaks were picking seeds at every opening, stacked one atop the other. I have no memory of what the …

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Sports

Ralph Kiner, Frank Thomas and Greenberg Gardens

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

At the end of the 1946 season, the Detroit Tigers placed Hank Greenberg on waivers. That season, he had led the American League in home runs and RBIs, but the Tigers they felt they couldn’t afford Greenberg’s $75,000 salary. The 35-year-old Greenberg cleared waivers in the American League, and the Pittsburgh Pirates, under new ownership, …

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Sports

When Wampum High School was Small Yet Big

by Bruce Zewe

In the well-trod regions of the sportswriting firmament, there is a progression in cliches used to describe successful coaches. It starts with “winning” and escalates to “renowned” and culminates with — ultima gloria — “legendary.” With justification, sportswriters in Lawrence County, which borders Pennsylvania and Ohio about 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, reflexively apply the …

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