Perrotto: Pirates Break a Brick Over My Father’s Memory

For the second time in three days, I’m making my father the lead in my column. I wouldn’t have expected that just a few days ago.

At least I could spotlight my father’s sense of humor in the previous column, saying how incompetent people could “(mess) up a one-car funeral.” He would certainly concur that Bob Nutting, Travis Williams and the merry men who run the Pittsburgh Pirates are capable of such an impossible feat.

Perhaps my father is looking down and smiling at that column. He would find Nutting and the rest of the crew who run the Pirates as a bunch of goofs.

However, my father might be angry with the Pirates, who are off to a 4-8 start. He would be perplexed by general manager Ben Cherington’s strange roster construction and manager Derek Shelton’s baffling moves.

Sadly, though, Tony Perrotto would have shed a tear on Tuesday. I know I did. I’m sure my late mother would have.

The Pirates tripped over themselves yet again, just days after the Roberto Clemente sign fiasco, but this time it was worse. The Pirates played with the emotions of some of their oldest and most loyal fans.

Fans could buy commemorative “Bucco Bricks” from the Pirates while PNC Park was being built. The bricks were then displayed in areas outside the ballpark.

Some of those bricks had messages from fans showing support for the Pirates. Even more bricks were dedicated to fans, some living and many dead.

My mother and I bought a brick in remembrance of my father, who died in 1991. He was a huge baseball fan, and the Pirates were his favorite team.

His brick was near the Honus Wagner statue in front of the home plate gate. The photo accompanying this story shows my wife and me looking at the brick on what would have been opening day of the 2020 season until the pandemic struck.

I’d often stop to look at the brick and feel Dad was there with me.

My father watched at least a thousand games at Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium. The first game he attended was in 1935 at Forbes Field when Babe Ruth hit the last three of his 714 home runs while finishing his career with the Boston Braves.

The Pirates did some much-needed renovations to the sidewalks outside PNC Park during the offseason. It was overdue.

However, the Pirates also removed some of the Bucco Bricks and did not replace them. KDKA-TV reported Tuesday that the bricks were found dumped in a recycling facility in Westmoreland County.

It seems callous for the Pirates to take the bricks and throw them out with empty Sprite bottles and old editions of TV Guide.

Recycling wasn’t a thing when my father was alive. I’m sure he would approve of the concept. However, he would have difficulty accepting that his memory would be recycled.

The Pirates say they will make things right and preserve the memories inscribed on the bricks. I’d like to take them at their word. Considering their preternatural ability to mess up anything, I’m not expecting much.

It was cheaper for the Pirates to tear the bricks out and send them to the scrapheap than to preserve them and return them to the people who bought them.

I get it.

We all know the Pirates usually choose to save money. I worked for Nutting’s Ogden Newspapers. It was one of the cheapest operations I’ve ever been associated with.

That is not axe grinding, either. It’s telling the truth, which is something my father taught me.

At the very least, the Pirates could have alerted their fans that the bricks were being recycled and laid out a solid plan to replace them. That’s common courtesy, and where the lack of interpersonal skills by Nutting and Williams shows.

I’ve been blessed to cover baseball over the last 38 years. I have been to places, seen things and met people who would have been beyond my wildest dreams while growing up in rural Ohioville in Beaver County.

None of this would have happened without my father handing down his love of the game to me.

When I watched the KDKA report, it felt like the Pirates had urinated on my father’s grave. And like they had hit me over the head with a brick.