EDITORIAL – Don’t hate the player or the game

The 2006 MLB All-Star Game filled PNC Park with fans from across the country and pumped… The 2006 MLB All-Star Game filled PNC Park with fans from across the country and pumped revenue into the city.

At the same time, it proved to outsiders that the city of Pittsburgh features more than the defending Super Bowl champions and contains a lot less steel than one is led to believe by network commercials.

In the eyes of many, Pittsburgh has the reputation of being a gritty, everyman kind of city. The smog of past industry has been gone for decades, and the city is engaging in a broad revitalization effort that has gradually transformed the face of the steel city. Heinz Field and PNC Park are just part of this effort.

For the Pittsburgh Pirates, however, the future isn’t as clear.

Dubbed as “the worst day in Pirates baseball history” by local sports media bigwigs, today the All-Star Game festivities pick up and leave town, leaving hungover baseball fans with an empty ballpark.

In anticipation for the All-Star Game, many baseball fans purchased season tickets to lock in a seat for the big day. After the All-Star Game, who knows what will happen to attendance, which averages around 22,667 people per game in a park designed to hold 38,000.

Since the 2001 season, the inaugural year for PNC Park, attendance has slowly dropped as the Pirates continue to lengthen their losing skid each year.

Baseball in Pittsburgh on a national scale has disappeared as the Pirates slip into their 14th consecutive losing season. But the All-Star Game’s presence brought the team’s problems to the forefront.

Numerous sports news outlets, including CBS Sportsline, ran a number of features detailing the Pirates’ woes with a verdict that the city deserves better — a consensus that wouldn’t have been reached by the major media without the All-Star Game in town.

While the end of the 2006 All-Star Game won’t mean an increase in tickets for the Pirates, it gave the city an opportunity to show off two of its finest assets, PNC Park and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, which housed the All-Star FanFest.

Sure, the minor inconveniences of traffic and bridge closings congested the city for the past few days, but the overall benefits of the MLB’s presence in the city outweigh any short-term headaches.

And you have to admit, the excitement of an actual baseball game — rather than the free bobbleheads or postgame fireworks — was refreshing. Even if it was just for one night.