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Monday, May 27, 2002

By Ernie Hoffman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Frank Rivella has carried on two love affairs for about three-quarters of a century: one with his wife, Emma; the other with baseball.

	Frank Rivella and his wife, Emma, of Beechview, celebrate his 95th birthday with family members yesterday at PNC Park on the North Shore. (Matt Freed, Post-Gazette)

The Beechview residents have been wed for 74 years and so it seemed natural that Emma should join 11 other members of the family in helping Frank celebrate his 95th birthday -- which occurred May 18 -- by attending his first Pirates game at PNC Park yesterday.

"I'm impressed," Rivella said after a member of the Pirates' staff gave him an escorted tour -- including a picture-taking session with some of the players -- before game time. "It's the best park I've ever been in."

Michael Marchetti, who is married to one of the Rivellas' granddaughters, Doreen, said Rivella is addicted to the Pirates.

"He either listens to or watches every game," Marchetti said.

Before the game with the Cardinals began, Rivella told a reporter that PNC Park is a better ballpark than Three Rivers Stadium, which it replaced, and Forbes Field, the Pirates' home from June 30, 1909, to June 28, 1970.

And Rivella should know, because he once helped a friend take tickets at Forbes Field for about two months and saw his first major league game there in the 1920s.

Rivella said his stint as a ticket-taker's helper was spawned by a dispute with a schoolteacher when he was growing up in Bloomfield and in the fifth or sixth grade at Woolslair School.

When he showed up without his homework assignment one day, Rivella said, the teacher told him to leave school and not to return until he could produce the work.

So Rivella said he left and played hooky for the next couple of months, during which he helped a friend who was a ticket-taker at Forbes Field.

"Bleacher tickets were 35 or 50 cents," Rivella said. Reserved seats were about $1.50, a far cry from what PNC Park tickets cost today, he said.

Rivella, who drove a Yellow Cab in Pittsburgh for about 40 years before he retired, said when was growing up, boys did not get an allowance from their parents, so they spent their time playing baseball. "We were always on a ball field," he said.

It was 1924 when Rivella saw his first game at Forbes Field and he can still rattle off the names in the Pirates' lineup that day, names like Pie Traynor, Wilbur Cooper, Charlie Grimm, Rabbit Maranville, Carson Bigbee and Max Carey.

"Those players weren't paid much at all," Rivella said. "Paul Waner made $15,000 a year." Players didn't move around years ago, but today because of free agency they demand and get millions, he said, "And you can't blame them."

Referring to the Pirates, Rivella said, "This is like a farm club here ... look at Barry Bonds," who played for the Pirates before he became a superstar with the San Francisco Giants.

Young players develop in Pittsburgh and when the Pirates no longer can afford to pay them what they want they go elsewhere, Rivella said.

Yesterday marked the Rivellas' first trip to PNC Park because advancing age has made walking difficult for Frank and Emma will tell you emphatically, "I'm not crazy about baseball."

But he doesn't mind that she doesn't share his affection for the sport.

They were married when he was 21 and she was 18. "I'm happy. I've got a good woman," Frank Rivella said.