A Keystone Weekend

My brother, two friends, and I went to the Eagles Steelers game this past weekend.

We got to Pittsburgh around 830 Saturday night, checked into our hotel downtown, the Westin, and then hit the city. We heard fatheads was great, and it was, unfortunately too packed for us to get in or at least to be seated for dinner in a reasonable time. We wound up at the Pittsburgh steak company restaurant where we polished off some 24 oz ribeyes and four bottles of wine. We hit a couple other bars, watched North Carolina State upset Florida State and called it a night at some point.

 

Woke up the next morning and started walking to the stadium around 9 AM. Downtown Pittsburgh was kind of deserted on a Sunday morning except for the occasional SUV that was parked on the street and had guys tailgating out of - which was kind of an odd sight. Weather was overcast in the low 50s.

Both the baseball and football stadiums are across the river from downtown and have a whole bunch of bars around them. We stopped at one for breakfast, beers, and bloody's. As we were leaving they put our last order of beers into plastic cups so that we could take them out of the pub. On the street they had some vendors just selling beers out of coolers and we were told it was okay to walk around in this area with open beer bottles on game day. It still felt a little weird, especially as we walked by some police, and we were wondering if the Pittsburgh waitresses were messing with us Eagles fans but we didn't have any problems.

Stopped at another bar, the tilted kilt, great place where the chicks are in push-up bras, tiny blouses and plaid skirts for the slutty Catholic girl look. The whole area was bustling but not particularly crowded. We got into every bar with no wait. To me it seemeds like every Steelers fans down there was wearing a jersey – like nearly EVERYONE, the overwhelming number of which were Polamalu's 43. I'd say for every 10 jersey seven were Polamalu's, one was either Hines Ward or Roethlisberger, one was Lambert, and one was a random player.

Eventually we headed over to the stadium where almost by accident ran into the official Steelers tailgate party 300 feet from the stadium's gates, which was rocking with this great band,  Tokyo Radio. Weirdly, it was only about 10% full even though they had cheap beer, no lines and plenty of bathrooms.

Heading into the stadium it was interesting there was no security perimeter, several vendors were right on the curb next to the stadium selling fairground food. We got some good natured ribbing from Steelers fans we were mingling with all of whom were incredibly nice and gracious wanted to know where we were from in Philadelphia and were making connections with the cities and neighborhoods we mentioned. Interestingly, the Steelers tickets didn't have a picture of any player on them but featured pictures of fans taken by fans with their name and hometown wearing their Steelers gear. For the Eagles game, the Steelers fans on the ticket were a father and son from Cinnaminson New Jersey of all places.

 

Our seats were great. We were under an overhang so when it started raining late game we didn't get wet. Even though we were rows up it felt like we were really close to the field had a great view of the entire action. The stadium seats I guess about 65,000 but it felt a lot more open and smaller than the Linc. A surprising number of empty seats midway through the game (but before the rain). I'm not sure if the weather chased people away or what even though it didn't start raining until their fourth quarter that was consistent with the entire day not feeling very crowded. Heinz Field has only one Jumbotron which is at the open ended end of the stadium which is really all you needed. We also noticed that the stadium and Jumbotron didn't bombard you with advertising and solicitations like they do at the Linc during every stoppage of play. Over the scoreboards are two ketchup bottles, and when the Steelers get inside the 20-the red zone-the ketchup bottles tilt over slightly and their caps open and the score board "fills" with red ketchup.

 

After the game we walked back to downtown, stopped at a restaurant to eat some gyros, headed back to the hotel picked up her car and headed out. It was about two hours after game time and even with a smaller crowd we were shocked at how bad traffic was at that time leaving the city. Once we finally broke free from the traffic it was two hours to Breezewood and then another hour and a half home from there.

 

Pittsburgh's a great city for a weekend sports visit, compact downtown within walking distance to the games, good nightlife neighborhoods, great stadium area, and a relatively short drive away. The Steelers fans couldn't have been nicer and the Rooney family clearly goes out of their way to make a fan and family-friendly environment without all of the commercialization and hostility we've become accustomed to in Philadelphia.