Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Forbes Field was a baseball park in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1909 to June 28, 1970.It was the third home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) team, and the first home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city's National Football League (NFL) franchise.
The city of Pittsburgh had suffered its longest pro-sports championship drought by 1960, having waited 35 years since the Pirates won the 1925 World Series; meanwhile at the time, the Steelers were mediocre at best, the city had long ago lost its NHL Pirates, and had seen only spotty success during the intervening period from their minor-league ...
The 1933 Pittsburgh Pirates season marked the debut of the team known today as the Pittsburgh Steelers.The team was established by Arthur Rooney Sr., a former boxer and semi-pro football player, who paid the National Football League (NFL) its $2,500 expansion fee with winnings from successful weekend gambling at the Saratoga Race Track in New York.
In May 1933, in anticipation of the repeal of some of Pennsylvania's restrictive laws in the fall of that year, Rooney applied for a franchise with the NFL. [9] His request was granted on May 19, 1933, and the Pittsburgh Professional Football Club, Inc. joined the NFL in exchange for a US$2,500 franchise fee (roughly $59,000 in today's dollars). [10]
A proposal for a new sports stadium in Pittsburgh was first made in 1948; however, plans did not attract much attention until the late 1950s. [9] The Pittsburgh Pirates played their home games at Forbes Field, which opened in 1909, [10] and was the second oldest venue in the National League (Philadelphia's Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium was oldest, having opened only two months prior to Forbes).
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL first took to the field as the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 20, 1933, losing 23–2 to the New York Giants. [6] Through the 1930s, the Pirates never finished higher than second place in their division, or with a record better than .500 ( 1936 ). [ 12 ]
After the Alleghenys moved a few blocks south in 1890, the main tenant became the Allegheny Athletic Association, and the grounds would eventually be referred to as 3A Park. [b] After the turn of the 20th century, it was converted to a velodrome called the Coliseum. In 2001, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates built stadiums not far from this site.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pittsburgh Pirates shared Three Rivers Stadium from 1970 to 2000. After discussions over the Pirates building a full-time baseball park , a proposal was made to renovate Three Rivers Stadium into a full-time football facility. [ 11 ]