Tim Benz: PNC Park opener like we may never see again. Let's hope so, anyway.

Curiosity.

That’s what drew me so deeply into 2020’s coronavirus-delayed first weekend of Major League Baseball.

Well, that, and desperation for any sort of live sports whatsoever. Just having the games back is what mattered most.

Fans in the stands or not.

I wasn’t eagerly looking forward to what “Pandemic Ball” was going to look like. But I couldn’t ignore the unknown either.

How was the artificial crowd noise going to sound? Would the cardboard cutouts work or look stupid? Would the broadcasts from regional studios be functional?

First basemen with hand sanitizer. Masked arguments with umpires. And extra innings starting with runners at second base.

With the comfortable distance of the Pirates playing in St. Louis, I just sat back and embraced the weird. From Busch Stadium and a bunch of other buildings across MLB, I watched the league’s first weekend with a type of macabre fascination.

I was significantly less excited about going to PNC Park in person on Monday for the Pirates home opener, though.

I love that building. Between the final out of Game 6 of the 1992 National League Championship Series (let’s not talk about Game 7) until October 2013 (when the Pirates beat the Reds in the NL wild-card game), that stadium is the one thing the Pirates franchise got right.

And every year since the ribbon was cut in 2001, Opening Day has been as much a celebration of the stadium and the development of the North Shore as the game of baseball itself.

Regardless of the Pirates’ win-loss record, or payroll, or “fill-in-the-blank-number-of-years” rebuilding plan, when the gates open behind the Honus Wagner statue, it’s a local holiday.

The crowd is usually at capacity. The parking lots are packed with tailgaters. And, sometimes, it’s even sunny and warm.

In April. In Pittsburgh. Seriously.

The scene Monday evening wasn’t befitting of those fuzzy memories.

There was a smattering of fans parking at 6:30 p.m.

Yeah. A night start for the home opener. Not right.

They must’ve been drawn by a sense of tradition and a quest for normalcy. The would-be ticketholders congregated in different patches on the outskirts of the stadium’s property, where they were allowed to sit in their lawn chairs, their Josh Bell jerseys and their Pirates caps.

Masked and socially distanced, I assume.

A few moved along Federal Street and the Riverwalk behind right field. Some even had gloves just in case a batter launched a home run way beyond the Clemente Wall. A handful of boats could be seen in the Allegheny River waiting patiently as well.

They got their wish as Colin Moran bounced one into the water against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Colin Moran ships one to the Allegheny River. pic.twitter.com/U6yJXMZp7k

— MLB (@MLB) July 28, 2020

But the lots were virtually empty. Many of the bars were closed. I was one of roughly 20 pedestrians around the park 30 minutes before game time. There are sometimes 50,000 people down there at that time on Opening Day.

If that wasn’t strange enough, it was 95 degrees for a season opener. I guess that’s the difference between opening in July as opposed to April.

The players stretched all the way up and down the foul lines for the opening “ceremonies.” Six feet apart. Well into the outfield. A social justice video played on the big screen. Too bad 99.99 percent of society wasn’t allowed in the park to see it.

The national anthem played. No one took a knee. But “the bombs were bursting” before my eyes could locate the singer. She wasn’t behind home plate or in the center field grass, as is normally the case. She was sequestered all the way out on that overhang, deep in the Northside Notch. Practically on the Clemente Bridge.

The Pirates logo on the right-center field wall with the bandana-mask made me laugh at first. Then sigh dejectedly.

Initially, the empty stadium couldn’t have looked more gorgeous.

What a great backdrop. But what a weird feeling. #HappyOpeningDay pic.twitter.com/BY7SpDVLUC

— Tim Benz (@TimBenzPGH) July 27, 2020

Unfortunately, that picture was snapped six minutes before the first pitch. Not three hours before the game during batting practice.

Fittingly, it was only a few innings before torrential rain came.

“I don’t think the heavy stuff is gonna come down for a while....” pic.twitter.com/RphnNCTwof

— Tim Benz (@TimBenzPGH) July 27, 2020

Like, we needed a real-life ominous black cloud? A figurative one wasn’t enough? Because we got one courtesy of headlines about the covid-19-infected Florida Marlins.

It was Mother Nature’s way of saying, “I gave you a taste of the good times. Don’t get used to it!”

Thanks for the reminder. The rain delay lasted one hour, 42 minutes.

That was just for good measure. As was the blown 5-1 Pirates lead in the ninth inning. And the ensuing 6-5 defeat in 11 innings.

Curing coronavirus may be an easier task than fixing the Pirates bullpen.

New Pirates manager Derek Shelton was making his regular-season PNC Park debut. He’s been dealt an impossible hand on the field. One that is now complicated by the pandemic. Shelton has handled it with energy, enthusiasm and sincerity.

Shelton got his first big-league managerial win on Sunday, as his club beat the Cardinals 5-1. If anybody earned a round of applause from the Pittsburgh sports world this week, it was him.

He got pregame manufactured crowd noise over the speakers instead.

Before the game, I asked Shelton if he’d allow his mind to wander to a place where he could envision this event with fans in the stands.

“Not to romanticize it all, I’m definitely going to take a moment to do that,” Shelton admitted.

But with about 39,000 empty seats in the building, like the rest of us, Shelton just promised to soak up whatever he was allowed.

“We’ve been waiting since November to manage a game here,” Shelton continued. “Every night during Spring Training 2.0, I left this park about 10:30 or 11 at night. To walk through this stadium with the lights off. To see the picture of the skyline of the city. It would be unfortunate for the future of my career if I don’t take in this moment. For our staff to take in this moment.”

Even though Shelton’s club blew the game late, he still deserved better. Players in both uniforms deserved better. So did the anthem singer and the fans on the boats.

So did the building and the tradition of the day itself.

The intrigue of “Covidball” is over. It stopped being cute real fast. I’ll take what I can get for as long as I can. But I like the real thing a lot better.

Even if the real thing still includes the Pirates bullpen.