Tenants: Pittsburgh Pirates (NL); Pittsburgh Steelers (NFL)
Opened: July 16, 1970
Last game: October 1, 2000
Demolished: February 11, 2001
Surface: Tartanturf, 1970 to 1982; Astroturf, 1983 to 2000
Capacity: 47,971 (baseball); 59,000 (football)

Attendance figures

Architect: Deeter Ritchy Sipple, Michael Baker, Jr. and Osborn Engineering
Builder: n/a
Owner: City of Pittsburgh
Cost: $55 million

Pittsburgh Pirates tickets:

• Viewpoint Tickets - Best prices on Pirates tickets, Baseball tickets and MLB All Star tickets.

Location: 600 Stadium Circle. Left field (E), Interstate 279 Fort Duquesne Bridge approach ramp; third base (N), Reedsdale Street; first base (W), Allegheny Avenue, Ohio River, and the original point where the Monongahela River joins the Allegheny River to form the Ohio River; right field (S), North Shore Avenue, Roberto Clemente Memorial Park, Allegheny River; Stadium Circle encircles the park.

Dimensions: Foul lines: 340 (1970), 335 ft. (1975); power alleys: 385 ft. (1970), 375 ft. (1975); center field: 410 ft. (1970), 400 ft. (1975); backstop: 60 ft., foul territory: large.

Fences: 10 ft. (wood).

Three Rivers Stadium's name referred to where it sat, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio River. It sat almost precisely on the site of Exposition Park, which housed the Pirates for 19 years from 1891-1909. It also sat on a Delaware Indian burial ground, and the location was the site of many battles fought by General George Washington over possession of nearby Fort Duquesne. Pirates management tried to preserve a piece of the club’s past by moving the 18-foot, 1,800-pound statue of Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner, which had stood behind the left-field wall at Forbes Field, into Three Rivers Stadium. A section of the wall where Bill Mazeroski hit his famous home run that ended the 1960 World Series with a Pirates victory over the Yankees sat in the Allegheny Club, a dining and viewing area in the stadium.

The process of building the stadium actually began in 1948, when the first proposal was made to replace Forbes Field, then the Pirates' home. The old ballpark was quickly falling into disrepair, and its 35,000-seat capacity was inadequate. A site on the north side of the city was chosen in 1958, but a series of political squabbles and labor disputes delayed the project for a decade. Finally, on April 25, 1968, construction began. The stadium was scheduled to open for the start of the 1970 season, but unlike Forbes, which had been built in four months, construction at the new site dragged on. The stadium wasn’t ready on Opening Day, nor was it ready for its revised target date of May 29, because the lights had yet to be put in place. Finally, on July 16, the new stadium was ready. It had cost $40 million.

Trivia:

• Roberto Clemente statue dedicated here in 1994.
• Numbers painted on seats in right-field upper deck where Willie Stargell’s homers landed.
• After 61 years without a no-hitter at Forbes Field, a no-hitter was pitched at Three Rivers Stadium less than a year after it opened by the St. Louis Cardinals’ Bob Gibson, on August 14, 1971.
• Without the inner fence, the outfield would have been 342 feet down the lines and 434 feet to center.
• The Honus Wagner statue, which used to stand outside of Forbes Field, stood outside of Three Rivers Stadium.
• An 8-by-12-foot area of the 406 marker section of the Forbes Field brick wall, 12 Romanesque window frames, and the Babe Ruth plaque showing where his 714th home run landed were in the Allegheny Club at Three Rivers.
• Site of the 1994 and 1974 All-Star games.

More on Three Rivers Stadium:

• Artist's rendering of an early proposal
• Seating chart

Recommended Reading (bibliography):

• Take Me Out to the Ballpark: An Illustrated Tour of Baseball Parks Past and Present by Josh Leventhal and Jessica Macmurray.
• The Ballpark Book: A Journey Through the Fields of Baseball Magic (Revised Edition) by Ron Smith and Kevin Belford.
• City Baseball Magic: Plain Talk and Uncommon Sense about Cities and Baseball Parks by Philip Bess.
• Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark by Michael Gershman.
• Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of All 273 Major League and Negro League Ballparks by Philip J. Lowry.
• Lost Ballparks: A Celebration of Baseball's Legendary Fields by Lawrence S. Ritter.
• Roadside Baseball: A Guide to Baseball Shrines Across America by Chris Epting.
• The Story of America's Classic Ballparks (VHS).