Richard “Pete” Peterson is the co-author, with his son, Stephen, of “The Slide: Leyland, Bonds, and the Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates” and “The Turnpike Rivalry: The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns.”

Paul Giamatti’s Father, Bart Giamatti

A few weeks ago, the CBS Sunday Morning program featured a lengthy story on actor Paul Giamatti.  He had recently won a Golden Globe award for his role in The Holdovers.  He was also one of the favorites to win an Academy Award, though he lost to Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer.  Giamatti started his career …

Paul Giamatti’s Father, Bart Giamatti Read More »

The American League’s Jackie Robinson

Black History Month recognizes and honors the greatness of African-Americans who triumphed over prejudice and hatred and brought about major changes in American culture and society.   In baseball, the player most honored during Black History Month is Jackie Robinson, who integrated the Major Leagues when he jogged onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on …

The American League’s Jackie Robinson Read More »

Pie Traynor and Dale Dodrill: Lest We Forget

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 …

Pie Traynor and Dale Dodrill: Lest We Forget Read More »

We Were Teachers

In 2003, I received an invitation from David Shribman, the new executive editor of the Post-Gazette and a Red Sox fan, to write a guest column on what it was like to be a Pirates fan in exile. Over the past 20 years, I’ve written a number of guest columns in exile, ranging from the …

We Were Teachers Read More »

Have a Duke: Baseball and Beer

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.  …

Have a Duke: Baseball and Beer Read More »

Pittsburgh’s Golden Era of Slow-Pitch Softball

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 …

Pittsburgh’s Golden Era of Slow-Pitch Softball Read More »

Ralph Kiner, Frank Thomas and Greenberg Gardens

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, …

Ralph Kiner, Frank Thomas and Greenberg Gardens Read More »

To Run or Not to Run in the Pittsburgh Marathon

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, there were four movie houses on my working-class South Side, so I saw plenty of movies.  I loved then all — the war movies, the romantic adventures, the musical comedies, the biblical epics, the baseball biographies, the hour-long oaters starring Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, but my favorites, …

To Run or Not to Run in the Pittsburgh Marathon Read More »

Is Pittsburgh Still a Baseball Town?

There has been a great deal written about the demise of baseball as America’s game.  After the excitement of last season’s NFL playoff games and the drama of the Super Bowl, sports commentators, lamenting painfully slow and dull baseball games dominated by batters swinging with uppercuts and striking out at a record pace, decided to …

Is Pittsburgh Still a Baseball Town? Read More »

When Jim Thorpe Almost Became a Pittsburgh Pirate

In the 1912 summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, Jim Thorpe won the demanding five-event  pentathlon and the grueling ten-event decathlon and was roundly declared the greatest athlete in the world.  He added to his stature that fall by becoming a football All-American after leading Carlisle to a stunning upset over a powerful Army team that …

When Jim Thorpe Almost Became a Pittsburgh Pirate Read More »

Bill Virdon: He Made Everything Look Easy

In the spring of 1956, I was a senior at Pittsburgh’s South High and the starting center fielder for the school baseball team.   For aspiring high school center fielders, the decade of the 1950s was a great time to be playing baseball and dreaming of a big league career.  In the National League, there were …

Bill Virdon: He Made Everything Look Easy Read More »

The Pittsburgh Dodgers: In the Wake of Jackie Robinson

My memory of going to my first Pittsburgh Pirates game with my father is so vivid that a number of years ago, on a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame, I asked Tim Wiles, the Director of Research at the National Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, if he could find the box score …

The Pittsburgh Dodgers: In the Wake of Jackie Robinson Read More »

1972: Triumph and Tragedy for Pittsburgh Sports Fans

The new decade had started off well for Pittsburgh sports fans.  In January 1970,  the Steelers used the top pick in the NFL draft to select Terry Bradshaw, a strong-armed quarterback from Louisiana Tech.  Drawing comparisons to the comic strip character Ozark Ike, he looked to have the talent to lead the Same-Old-Steelers, after decades …

1972: Triumph and Tragedy for Pittsburgh Sports Fans Read More »

Remembering Our Ethnic Heritage

I was born in Pittsburgh in April 1939, less than five months before Hitler began World War II by invading Poland.  I entered first grade in September 1945, a month after the end of the war.  I was a member of the war-babies generation, the pre-baby boomers, who would grow up searching for an identity …

Remembering Our Ethnic Heritage Read More »

The Homestead Gray’s Vic Harris: Baseball’s Winningest Manager

When ranking baseball managers, historians often use the number of times a manager led teams to a victory in the World Series as a yardstick for measuring their greatness.  By that measurement, Major League baseball’s greatest managers are the New York Yankees Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel.  Each led Yankee teams to seven World Series …

The Homestead Gray’s Vic Harris: Baseball’s Winningest Manager Read More »

Edinboro, By Any Other Name

After graduating from South High in 1956, I spent the next five years in Pittsburgh drifting through mind-numbing jobs in gas stations, factories, and warehouses, until I finally ended up working as a stock boy in Gimbels Downtown department store.  The only distraction from my misery was playing softball, touch football, basketball, and volleyball at …

Edinboro, By Any Other Name Read More »

50 Years Ago, Clemente Proved His Greatness

In the spring of 1955, at the same time that I was trying out for my high school baseball team and dreaming of becoming a big league ballplayer, the Pirates were breaking in a flashy rookie outfielder from Puerto Rico. By all accounts, Roberto Clemente was a natural.  Pittsburgh sportswriters described his arm as a …

50 Years Ago, Clemente Proved His Greatness Read More »

Pittsburgh’s Greatest Sports Rivalry: Satchel and Josh

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson, who started his professional career with the Kansas City Monarchs, played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers and began the integration of the Major Leagues. This past December, nearly 75 years later, Major League Baseball decided to elevate Negro League Baseball, founded in 1920, from minor-league to major-league …

Pittsburgh’s Greatest Sports Rivalry: Satchel and Josh Read More »

Pittsburgh’s First Great Boxing Rivalries and the One-Punch Wonder

While the Pirates may have given Pittsburgh its first major sports championship when they defeated the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series, its boxers gave Pittsburgh its first claim to the title City of Champions. In the first half of the 20th century, there were nine boxing champions with ties to Pittsburgh and the …

Pittsburgh’s First Great Boxing Rivalries and the One-Punch Wonder Read More »

Pittsburgh’s First Great Hockey Rivalry: The Needle and the Great Wall

In the 1950s, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns were well on the road to what eventually became known and celebrated as the Turnpike Rivalry. But that wasn’t the only rivalry at that time between sports teams from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. While Pittsburgh sports fans were in the early stages of hating the Cleveland Browns, …

Pittsburgh’s First Great Hockey Rivalry: The Needle and the Great Wall Read More »

Duquesne’s First Great Rivalry: Slaying Dayton’s Goliath

There have been outstanding college basketball teams and great players in Pittsburgh’s sports history, but only the 1954–55 Duquesne Dukes, led by All-Americans Dick Ricketts and Si Green, won a major national basketball tournament when they defeated a powerful Dayton Flyers team in the 1955 National Invitation Tournament. At that time, the NIT was considered …

Duquesne’s First Great Rivalry: Slaying Dayton’s Goliath Read More »

The Steelers’ First Great Rivalry: Those Bloodbaths with the Eagles

In 1933, Art Rooney, in anticipation of the elimination of Pennsylvania’s Blue Law banning professional sports from playing on Sunday, paid $2,500 of his racetrack winnings to purchase an NFL franchise for the city of Pittsburgh. Across the state, Philadelphia native Bert Bell, partnering with his friend Lud Wray, paid $2,500 for a defunct NFL …

The Steelers’ First Great Rivalry: Those Bloodbaths with the Eagles Read More »