Jerry Dipola: 5 decades covering Pittsburgh Sports provided memories to last a lifetime

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

I was crazy for the scores of the pirate and pirate box, and I used to spread the Pittsburgh Press newspaper on the ground and devour every detail of the day before. (I then delivered this door to door to door – really! – And I even worked in his editorial room for six years in the thirties.)

I spent so much time reading the sports pages that my father said that I was trying to “read the impression of the page”. I would have always tilted three places in the order of the strikers to see how Clemente did.

My father was just a fan of occasional sport. His comment on our first visit to the Three Rivers stadium was “Wow. It’s a lot of concrete ”.

But he knew that baseball counted to me, and every day commemorative (my birthday before it was moved to the last Monday in May), it found a way to get tickets. A night in the 60s, a Field Field Usher – The friend of my father from the old district – allowed us to sit in boxes in the box. It was not only a rare treat, but the first of its kind. I’m not sure of the season or the result, but Bill Virton hit a home run for the central land directly.

Also in the 60s, I put the newspaper wisely. I found my mother’s scissors, cut the score of the pirate box, caught my glove Eddie Mathews and a rubber ball – 10 cents with the grocery store at the bottom of the hill – and I recreated a game in my narrow alley by throwing the ball against the house. I never remember that my mother complains about the repetitive noise.

Newspapers and sports were my passion for most of my 71 years, but today I put them aside. In fact, time and computers have done so for many printed editions (not to mention the tribune-review), but the quest is always the same in the cyberspace: respect the language, dying on the placement of each comma and be just for all those whose name appears under your signature.

I retire today after 32 years in Triblive, the end of a career that started in the early 1970s before obtaining my diploma from the Avalon high school. I wrote Sports for our school newspaper, The Travalon. Do not ask where the name comes from. We haven’t traveled anywhere.

I have worked in several publications over the years; Some of them still exist. My pay checks helped to raise a family – my biggest achievement, by far – and the work allowed me to see many of the biggest sporting events in the history of this city and to speak to some of its most memorable characters.

Of all the people, at the top of this list is a guy whom I really do not 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 asking for an interview For a story about religion in the NFL. He had become friends with Brett Favre during his stay in Green Bay.

During the search for this story, I had a long conversation with Troy Polamalu in the locker room of the Steelers, so long that the open window of the media expired before our end. A guy in relations with the Steelers media by the book – just doing his job – tried to finish it for us, but Polamalu signaled it. He appreciated the subject and wanted to continue to speak.

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

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

There are two seasons, I was carrying a splint on my right wrist after a fall. Narduzzi spied on one day at a press conference and said, “What have you done on your wrist?” I was looking forward to giving him my repeated answer: “Coach, we are not talking about injuries.” Fortunately, he laughed.

Narduzzi and I have had a lot of back and forth over the years, and I lack as much as anything. I think it is appropriate that Pitt’s spring match on Saturday was my last tribes assignment.

• Former basketball coach Duquesne Keith Dambrot For his honesty in the interviews, engaging the personality and the appreciation of the work of the media. When Dambrot was hired from Akron in 2017, I received a call with the news from a journalist at the Akron Beacon-Journal. He gave me the Dambrot phone number, I called and the coach confirmed it – one day before Duquesne made an announcement. (Note to school officials and teams who like to keep secrets: perhaps Dambrot spoke too early, but the world did not end because of this.)

• Pitt’s basketball coach Jeff Capel, Who I interviewed Martin Luther King Day, 2020, in my car parked to Robert Morris where I was preparing to cover a match. We spoke for almost half an hour from his paternal grandfather, Felton Capel, a businessman and politician, who was picked by hand by King to help derewe the southern states. Capel is one of the most decent men I met in all my years.

• Former Pirates Manager Clint HurdleAnother of these guys I would like to sit at dinner. Hurdle graduated from the baseball director at home school instructor So that her daughter author. I loved the emblematic photo of his PNC Park office by Danny Murtaugh and Casey Stengel shaking hands before match 1 of the 1960 World series. The story counts for him.

• Former quarter-arre Pitt Pat BostickWho never tires of telling the story of 13-9. Bostick was the quarter-Arrière on December 1, 2007 in Morgantown, W.VA., when Pitt withdrew the astonishing of all time against Virginia-Western. I was not there, but I now know every detail. Bostick, who said he was “sick as a dog that evening,” marked the only touch of the game, a tash push before she became famous. Years later, he was proud to say to me: “We sang” Country Roads “on the bus all along the way.” Bostick has moved his career far beyond the quarter and is now an associate sports director / major assistant gifts at university and color analyst for Pitt Radio Broadcasts.

It is just a tiny fraction of people and stories that quickly come to mind when I think of my life (now) spent. There are many others and many other stories to tell.

Only this time, it is someone else’s turn to get on the merry -go -round.