We've been wanting to get into reviewing ballparks for a while now, and when Nate and I took a road out to PNC Park in Pittsburgh, PA we decided that it was a perfect time to begin. We had originally planned to review Victory Field in Indianapolis as a benchmark for future reviews, but in retrospect I'm glad we didn't because PNC Park in Pittsburgh ended up being a perfect place to set the standards of what is expected from a ballpark.

NOTE: I feel to maintain the integrity of this post and blog I must explain that although Nate and I purchased tickets for the game we attended, we were given complementary seats on the third base line via a friend of a friend who works in the Pirates Front Office. The Pirates organization had no knowledge of us coming to review the stadium or even that we are bloggers. It was just simply that we had a friend who pulled some strings to give some of his friends a nice night. This event had no barring on our review of PNC Park.

Our scale is generally simple. It's a 1-25 scale divided amongst 5, 5-point categories: Stadium Design, Game Experience, View, Concessions, Personality.

Stadium Design: Overall flow of the stadium, architecture and unique parts of the stadium.

Near perfect. That's what I would use to describe the design of PNC Park. It all starts with the walk over the Roberto Clemente Bridge into the stadium. While it's not technically part of the stadium, it is definitely intended to be part of the experience, with the Pittsburgh Police Department closing it off on game days so patrons can walk across the middle of the bridge and take in the wonderful views it provides.

Meanwhile, inside the stadium the concourse is one of the best examples I've ever seen of an open-air concourse I've ever experienced. The stadium is built in such a manner that one can see not only the field of play, but also the surrounding structures on the outside of the stadium at all times.

Also the open roof rotundas add a nice touch to the stadium. It took us a while before we noticed that the rotundas did not have a roof, but once we did we both remarked it was a nice touch on the design that really went well with the rest of the stadium. Once you enter the stadium through a rotunda, one goes up either a set of stairs or an escalator to the main lower level concourse and then can continue up to the upper levels via the spiral rotunda ramp. The purpose for this design is obvious, it is a more efficient way of moving people up and down levels before/after games when compared to stairs/escalators. PNC really adds to this design feature by cutting away the walls along the ramps to give those walking on it a nice view of the surrounding city.

Finally, one thing that we both really enjoyed was walking around the outfield side of the stadium. While the skyline of Pittsburgh can be seen almost anywhere in PNC, the view of the city from the completely open outfield concourse cannot be beat.

For the Ballpark Design portion of this review, I give PNC Park 5 out of 5 Yeahhhhh Boyeeees.

Game Experience: The experience of enjoying a game at the stadium.

I highly enjoyed watching a game at PNC Park. While some stadiums I've been to tend to go a little overboard on mid-inning entertainment. PNC Park found a happy medium that kept me entertained while not annoying me by holding up the game. Most of the entertainment provided was generally trivia questions with members of the crowd, along with a contest when the contestant was given a hat as a prize and asked to choose between the hat or what was inside the mystery box. The crowd also seemed rather active with most yelling out their answer to the questions.

The highlight of the mid-inning entertainment definitely belonged to the pierogi race. While every stadium anymore has some sort of bizarre race, the amount of crowd reaction to the race was insane. People were really getting into the race.

A part of any ballpark experience that is sometimes over looked is the ticket prices. PNC Park currently has the 3rd lowest ticket prices in all of Major League Baseball. So the affordability of the game adds to the overall experience. You definitely get more than your money's worth at PNC.

One feature of the stadium that really added a lot to the game experience was the closed caption board under the scoreboard. While I'm not deaf, I know how helpful that can be in adding to the experience for someone who is deaf. It allows them to enjoy the event just as much as everyone else. Also kudos to the Pirates on actually transcribing the Latin from the O Fortuna during the pre-game animation that featured a sole Pirates' ship taking on an armada from the opposing team and winning. It was actually a really great video and fun to watch.

Although I do have to admit that the in-game scoreboard host, "Sir Peat" was a bit over the top and corny. He was actually the only thing that annoyed me during the game, although I do admit the time it took to actually make all those different scoreboard animations took a lot of effort and for that it wasn't that bad.

While I want to give it a five, I can't. Sir Peat knocks this score down to a 4.

Concessions: Overall pricing and convenience of ballpark concessions.

One thing I noticed as I was walking around the concourses of PNC Park was the amount of stands that were closed. It appears that the management at PNC opens stands in conjunction with the amount of people expected at the stadium that day. Well, they must have it down to a science in Pittsburgh because the there were plenty of stands open and the longest line I saw was about three orders long.

While the gift shops were slightly crowded due to the size of the store, everyone seemed to move around with relative ease. Also the attendants in the stores were very courteous and willing to help fans find what they wanted. Lines in these stores also moved very fast.

As for the prices, they were about what you'd expect at a major league ballpark. I though they could have been a pinch lower, but I still wouldn't be willing to count that as a negative, more or less just a suggestion.

Overall I give PNC's concessions a solid 5.

View: View of game play from the seats, along with scenery surrounding the stadium.

We walked all over PNC in search of a bad seat. The closest thing we could find were some seats next to the bullpen in Left Field that had a slightly obstructed view of Right Field. Although, from those seats you could see everything going on in the bullpen and the walls of the pen have a see through black screen so the view of Right wasn't completely obstructed. It also needs to be said that the Right Field wall is 21 feet high, so there isn't much of a danger of missing a home run ball sail over the fence. There really just isn't a bad seat in this stadium,even from the upper deck the view is fantastic.

As for the view of the surrounding area, as mentioned prior, the city can be seen almost everywhere in the stadium. The skyline provides one of the nicest backgrounds for a baseball game I've ever seen.

For the lack of a horrible seat and the beautiful background. I give PNC's views a 5 out of 5.

Personality: Does the stadium have it's own unique personality and does it capture the personality of the city/team it represents.

Pittsburgh is known as the Steel City and most people equate several things with the city. One of those is steel and the other is the color scheme of black and yellow. Both of those things can be seen throughout the stadium.

The open-air rotundas mentioned earlier are topped by steel beams painted black. In fact, exposed steel beams painted black are commonplace around the stadium and while in other cities it may not look good, it not only looks great, but really captures Pittsburgh's personality.

As for other ways the ballpark's personality captures the city and the team's personality is the whole setup of the part itself. It faces the skyline and the bridge named after one of the team's most famous players.

Even the food selection in the concessions matches the city, as a fan coming to the game can get a taste of Pittsburgh's own world famous Primanti Brothers.

Outside of the stadium are three statues in honor of some of the greatest players to ever don a Pirates uniform, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Honus Wagner.

Finally, even though I marked off a point earlier, the scoreboard animations really do capture the Pirate spirit and the video montages of the team's history along with the banners showcasing former Pirates players/lineups give fans a link to the past.

PNC Park is a Pittsburgh stadium. It captures everything about the city and their home team. Therefore I award PNC with 5 personality points.

So for a final score Sixty Feet, Six Inches gives PNC Park a final score of 24 out of 25. It is a near perfect ballpark and the best one I've ever been to in all of my years of attending baseball games. Congratulations to the Pirates and Pittsburgh for building such a quality facility.