It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). In 1972, the Steelers made the postseasonwhich itself was big newsbut the franchises coming-of-age moment occurred in their first playoff game with, arguably, the most memorable play in NFL history. When Heinz Field opened, Coca-Cola also assumed the beverage contract for that stadium (the Pirates signed a deal with Pepsi for PNC Park before signing with Coke again in 2014), and also became the primary sponsor for the Steelers' team Hall of Fame, the Coca-Cola Great Hall. It contained a symmetrical monotony with all the personality of a breakfast buffet bowla bowl detached from the river in a wasteland of parking areas, wrote author Rob Lubove. The fans celebrated in the streets to Sister Sledges We Are Family, the Pirates adopted theme song of the 1979 campaign; Stargell, for his combination of sage and vintage strength at age 39, won co-NL MVP honors (with St. Louis Keith Hernandez) and the straight MVP for both the NLCS and World Series. The novel look, which would catch on throughout much of the major leagues in the years to follow, yielded plenty of odd looksand laughsfrom the home fans, comparing the Pirates look to that of a weekend softball team, while one sportswriter said the unis reminded him of long underwear.. Returning the following year as a member of the Reds, the Pirates wasted no time abetting the acrimony from his former fans. Attendance, abetted by a full-blown depression in Pittsburgh with 23% unemployment at one point, dipped well below a million; in 1983, the Pirates drew their smallest-ever crowd at Three Rivers when a gathering of 1,970 showed up. The scandal devastated the Pirates organization; the team sank in the standings, bottoming out with a 104-loss campaign in 1985. Three months later, on New Year's Eve, this true hero died in a tragic plane crash en route to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua. 7/30/1972. The former home of the Pirates . [67] On September 30, 1972, Pirates' right-fielder Roberto Clemente got his 3,000th hit at Three Rivers Stadium, three months before his death. (Historic Pittsburgh), On July 16, 1970, they finally played ball at Three Rivers Stadium. If Three Rivers Stadium gave the Pirates an early boost, it completely transformed the Steelers into a long-term powerhouse. April 1985: General view of Three Rivers Stadium, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, during a Major League Baseball game in April 1985 in Pittsburgh,. But city leaders, leery of the trend in franchise shifts within Major League Baseball, didnt want to take any chances of losing its most fabled sports entity. Tuesday 00:00 . A two-story, concrete marker for Gate D is the only portion of Three Rivers Stadium still standing. The 1970s: A crowning decade . Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1970 to 2000. Perhaps a live ball was helping to bring the fans in; Three Rivers yielded a stadium-record 171 home runs in 1999then 172 in 2000. The rubble of Three Rivers Stadium towers over passersby Sunday, Feb. 11, 2001 on the North Side. Stargell would share one last honor at years endbeing given Sports Illustrateds prestigious Sportsman of the Year award along with Steelers quarterback Terry BradshawTwo champs from the City of Champions, the magazine boasted. Graphics are awesome on this item. . He was forced to go back to the drawing board when construction bids to realize his design were $10 million over budget. The force of the collision ricocheted the ball back 10 yardswhere it was plucked inches off the ground by breakout rookie running back Franco Harris, who lumbered the final 45 yards down the sideline, barely evading numerous Raiders players and into the end zone with the winning touchdown. The left-field upper deck had been reached by Jeff Bagwell twice, and Bob Robertson, Greg Luzinski, Howard Johnson, Glenallen Hill and Devon White (his home run struck the facade) once each.[68]. Delays and some disputation peppered the building phase of Three Rivers Stadium. This section was taken to Three Rivers Stadium for decoration in the Allegheny Club. [71] A Steelers symbol recognized worldwide, The Terrible Towel debuted on December 27, 1975, at Three Rivers Stadium. Losing the view of downtown was a bitter bill for Ritchey to swallow; he would ultimately call Three Rivers Stadium his biggest disappointment as an architect. Opened on July 16, 1970. On Sunday, Feb. 11, 2001, with the temperature just 21 degrees, more than 20,000 people filled Point State Park to watch the implosion of Three Rivers Stadium. The Pitt Panthers played at Three Rivers Stadium on multiple occasions. [14] A design was presented in 1958 which featured an open centerfield designthrough which fans could view Pittsburgh's "Golden Triangle". Brett's All-Star win a big thrill", "Fun Facts About Pittsburgh's Ball Parks", "The house that the 'Immaculate Reception' built", "Steelers' former radio announcer Myron Cope dies at 79", Thirty Years of Stadium Rock Pittsburgh Music History, Baseball's Last Hero: 21 Clemente Stories, Bill Mazeroski's 1960 World Series home run, District of Columbia Stadium/RFK Memorial Stadium, Frankford High School's Community Memorial Stadium, Municipal Stadium (Kansas City, Missouri), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Three_Rivers_Stadium&oldid=1142567592, Multi-purpose stadiums in the United States, Defunct American football venues in the United States, Defunct baseball venues in the United States, Defunct multi-purpose stadiums in the United States, Buildings and structures demolished by controlled implosion, Short description is different from Wikidata, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, July 30, 1972: Three Dog Night (2nd tour), July 13, 1973: Pittsburgh Jazz Festival (featuring, July 14, 1973: Pittsburgh Jazz Festival (featuring, July 19, 1975: World Series of Rock (featuring, June 15, 1988: Monsters of Rock Tour featuring. Spectators are easily distracted by mesmerizing views of downtown Pittsburgh, the Allegheny River and the Sixth Street Bridge, now named after Pirates legend Roberto Clemente. (Historic Pittsburgh). [36] The bullpens were moved to multiple locations throughout the stadium's history; however, their first position was also their final onebeyond the right-field fence. Will the last baseball fan to leave Three Rivers Stadium please turn out the lights? . Three Rivers Stadium Home Plate Location. But few expected the team to plummet deep into the Hades of Baseball. Never mind the possibility of the 100-year flood wreaking havoc on such a complex structure; the U.S. Department of Defense was more concerned with the potentially devastating impact from an act of terrorismbefore that word became a thingand nixed the idea. On December 23, 2012, on the 40th anniversary of the Immaculate Reception, the Steelers unveiled a monument at the exact spot where Franco Harris made the reception in the parking lot. Three Rivers Stadium, home to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers from 1970 to 2000. [25], In their first game after the All-Star Break in 1970, the Pirates opened the stadium against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday, July 16; who won, 32. The final Pittsburgh Pirates home game was on October 1st, 2000 vs. the Chicago Cubs. The rancor became so R-rated that, by 1985, the Pirates set up a G-rated family section at Three Rivers that forbade profanity and alcohol. They received the honor of hosting the very last event at Three Rivers, easily dispensing of the Washington Redskins, 24-3. Instead of allowing cars to park, the team instructed fans to park downtown and walk to the stadium over bridges or take shuttle buses. Willie Stargell is the all-time leader in upper deck shots at the stadium, hitting four of the remaining five right-field blasts; Mark Whiten hit the other. The plan was to build a whole mixed-use community around the stadium, including hotels, restaurants, a theme park, science center and marinaall connected by people movers. After being hotly debated throughout the entire southwestern Pennsylvania region the initiative was soundly defeated in all 11 counties; only in Allegheny County was it even close (58-42). They were considered by many to be ugly and obsolete, as well as not financially viable. Although the Pirates, in the midst of a two-decade stretch of losing unparalleled in pro sports, were awful over Three Rivers final two years, they managed to never draw a crowd under 10,000. Photographed By Harry S. Coughanour, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, circa 1970. By the early 1990s, multipurpose stadiums had gone out of fashion. Three Rivers Stadium stood alone, literally, as another cookie cutter, or concrete donut, or bowl. Jack Tatum hit the intended receiver, 'Frenchy' Fuqua, and knocked the ball back to Harris, who caught it and ran into the end zone. The initiative's defeat led to the development of "Plan B", an alternate funding proposal that used a combination of monies from the Allegheny Regional Asset District (an extra 1% sales tax levied on Allegheny County), state and federal monies and a number of other sources. Even if they end up building a hockey rink there, they should put some kind of a monument to that area where the Immaculate Reception took place. Bradshaw, desperately escaping Oakland defensive linemen, somehow managed to heave a 35-yard throw down the middle toward running back John Fuquawho was drilled to the ground by hard-hitting Oakland defensive back Jack Tatum. Three Rivers Stadium Home Venues Rock Doo Wop Radio Jazz Pop Blues Thirty Years of Stadium Rock Three Rivers Stadium during its short 30 year existence from 1970 to 2000 hosted almost 50. [63] The Pirates lifted their television blackout policy for home games so that local fans could see the inaugural game. Skunks were said to live under the stadium. Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1970 to 2000.It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL).. Its spaciousness was evident from the outside; tall windows stretched upward and across, allowing patrons on cascading levels of table seating and barstools to enjoy the game while eating and/or imbibing. Most of the stadium's former site became a parking lot for PNC Park and Heinz Field. Forty years earlier, Art Rooney had paid $2,500 he had floating around from winnings at the racetrack to purchase an expansion National Football League team in Pittsburgh. Former Pirates manager Chuck tanner acknowledges the crowd before the final game at Three Rivers Stadium. An automatic tarp, which wasnt so much meant to replace the grounds crew as it was to make their jobs easier, made everyones life miserable one night late in 1970 when it crashed back into the trench where it was stored; a rain delay became a suspension of the game until the next day while the apparatus was fixed. The particular spot for the new stadium was, in fact, once upon a time the same site as Exposition Park, the Pirates first home. In 1979, the Pirates introduced the Pirate Parrot, a mascot patterned after the successful debut of the Phillie Phanatic in Philadelphia a year earlier. Except, according to the Post-Gazettes Robert Dvorchak, for a gas station which closed in 1980, unable to make a profit. [57], On September 30, 2012, members of the Society for American Baseball Research marked and painted the home plate and first base of the former stadium on the 40th Anniversary of Roberto Clemente's 3,000th hit.[58]. [72] In the 1995 AFC Championship game, the Steelers' Randy Fuller deflected a Hail Mary pass intended for Indianapolis Colts receiver Aaron Bailey as time expired, to send the franchise to their fifth Super Bowl. (May or June, 1986) The statue was originally located in Schenley Park, just beyond the left-field fence of Forbes Field. ", The Pittsburgh Steelers played their first game in Three Rivers Stadium on September 20, 1970a 197 loss to the Houston Oilers. When Parker, who once said, Money isnt everythingpeace of mind is important to me, hit free agency in 1983, he wasted no time fleeing Pittsburgh.

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