Jerry DiPaola: 5 decades covering Pittsburgh sports has provided memories to last a lifetime

I guess my love for the written word began on the living room floor at 326 Elizabeth Ave.

I was nuts for the Pirates and Pirates box scores, and I used to spread out the Pittsburgh Press newspaper on the floor and devour every detail from the previous day’s game. (I later delivered that publication door to door — really! — and even worked in its newsroom for six years in my 30s.)

I spent so much time reading the sports pages my dad used to say I was trying to “read the print off the page.” I’d always thumb down three spots in the batting order to see how Clemente did.

My father was only a casual sports fan. His comment on our first visit to Three Rivers Stadium, was “Wow. That’s a lot of concrete.”

But he knew baseball mattered to me, and every Memorial Day (my birthday before it was moved to the last Monday in May), he found a way to get tickets. One night in the ’60s, a Forbes Field usher — my dad’s buddy from the old neighborhood — allowed us to sit in box seats. It was not just a rare treat, but the first of its kind. Not sure of the season or the outcome, but Bill Virdon hit a home run to straightaway center field.

Also in the ’60s, I put the newspaper to good use. I found my mother’s scissors, clipped out the Pirates box score, grabbed my Eddie Mathews glove and a rubber ball — 10 cents at the grocery store at the bottom of the hill — and re-created a game in my narrow driveway by throwing the ball against the house. I don’t ever remember my mother complaining about the repetitive noise.

Newspapers and sports have been my passion for most of my nearly 71 years, but today I set them aside. Actually, time and computers did that to many print editions (not including the Tribune-Review) long ago, but the quest is still the same in cyberspace: Respect the language, agonize over the placement of every comma and be fair to everyone whose name appears under your byline.

I am retiring today after 32 years at TribLive, the end of a career that started sometime in the early 1970s before I graduated from Avalon High School. I wrote sports for our school newspaper, The Travalon. Don’t ask where the name originated. We didn’t travel anywhere.

I have worked at several publications through the years; some of them still exist. My paychecks helped raise a family — my greatest accomplishment, by far — and the job has allowed me to see many of the greatest sporting events in this city’s history and speak to some of its most memorable characters.

Of all people, near the top of that list is a guy I really don’t know — The Most Reverend David A. Zubik, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and former Bishop of Green Bay, Wisc. He actually called me at home after I had requested an interview for a story on religion in the NFL. He had become friends with Brett Favre during his time in Green Bay.

While researching that story, I had a long conversation with Troy Polamalu in the Steelers locker room, so long that the open media window expired before we were finished. A by-the-book Steelers media relations guy — just doing his job — tried to end it for us, but Polamalu waved him off. He appreciated the topic and wanted to keep talking.

Polamalu is among the best people I have encountered over the years. But many others have presented me with memories to last a lifetime. Here are a few:

• Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi, who rolled his eyes and said,“Jerry, you know better than that” every time I asked about injuries. Which was all the time.

Two seasons ago, I was wearing a brace on my right wrist after a fall. Narduzzi spied it one day at a news conference and said, “What did you do to your wrist?” I couldn’t wait to give him my well-rehearsed response: “Coach, we don’t talk about injuries.” Thankfully, he laughed.

Narduzzi and I had many back-and-forth moments over the years, and I’ll miss them as much as anything. I think it’s appropriate that Pitt’s spring game Saturday was my final Trib assignment.

• Former Duquesne basketball coach Keith Dambrot for his honesty in interviews, engaging personality and appreciation for the media’s job. When Dambrot was hired from Akron in 2017, I got a call with the news from a reporter at the Akron Beacon-Journal. He gave me Dambrot’s phone number, I called and the coach confirmed it — a day before Duquesne made an announcement. (Note to school and team officials who like to keep secrets: Maybe Dambrot spoke too soon, but the world didn’t end because of it.)

• Pitt basketball coach Jeff Capel, who I interviewed on Martin Luther King Day, 2020, in my parked car at Robert Morris where I was getting ready to cover a game. We spoke for almost a half hour about his paternal grandfather, Felton Capel, a businessman and politician, who was hand-picked by King to help desegregate southern states. Capel is one of the most decent men I’ve encountered in all my years.

• Former Pirates manager Clint Hurdle, another of those guys I would like to sit down with at dinner. Hurdle graduated from baseball manager to home-school instructor for his daughter to author. I loved the iconic photo in his PNC Park office of Danny Murtaugh and Casey Stengel shaking hands before Game 1 of the 1960 World Series. History matters to him.

• Former Pitt quarterback Pat Bostick, who never tires of telling the story of 13-9. Bostick was the quarterback Dec. 1, 2007, in Morgantown, W.Va., when Pitt pulled off the stunner of all time against West Virginia. I wasn’t there, but by now I know every detail. Bostick, who said he was “sick as a dog that night,” scored the game’s only touchdown, a tush push before it became famous. Years later, he was proud to tell me, “We sang ‘Country Roads’ on the bus all the way home.” Bostick has moved his career far beyond quarterbacking and is now a Senior Associate Athletic Director/Major Gifts at the university and color analyst for Pitt radio broadcasts.

Those are just a tiny fraction of the people and stories that quickly come to mind when I think about my (now) past life. There are plenty of others, and many more stories to be told.

Only this time it’s someone else’s turn to ride the merry-go-round.