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Friday, August 30, 2002

By Tom Barnes and Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writers

You can take the man out of the North Side, but you can't take the North Side out of the man.

	Randall Durham, right, of Clearwater, Fla., gets close to his lifelong buddy Dan Haggerty of Butler at yesterday's Pirates game. With them is Durham's wife, Karen. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

"Go, bay-bee! Go, bay-bee!" shouted burly ex-North Sider Randall Durham, as he rose and clapped his hands joyously over his head to celebrate a Jerome Bettis burst through the line at the Steelers game last night.

"This is what it's all about! Yes! This is what this trip's all about!" boomed the 54-year-old Durham, who now lives in Florida and, with his wife, Karen, and six others, was making his first trip to Heinz Field.

It was a doubleheader for the group, who came down yesterday morning from Butler in a refurbished yellow 18-passenger school bus driven by Dan Haggerty, 57, a retired state trooper who's been a friend of Durham's since their days together at St. Peter's Elementary on the North Side.

Steelers owner Dan Rooney coached Haggerty's grade school football team almost 50 years ago.

In the afternoon, the group saw the Pirates defeat the Atlanta Braves, 4-1, sitting just to the third base side of home plate. It was the Durhams' first visit to PNC Park.

Their only other visit as a couple to Pittsburgh was in 1996, when Haggerty's daughter, Shaney, married Jeff Mitchell, her sweetheart from Grove City College. The Mitchells were there yesterday, along with Jeff's dad, Rob Mitchell, who grew up in Ross but now lives in Reading. The party also included Dan McKnight, another retired state trooper and friend of Haggerty's, and McKnight's wife, Sue.

Randall and Karen Durham said the trip was perfect -- a visit to two new stadiums and a rare double dip -- a Pirates game by day and a Steelers game at night.

"It doesn't get any better than this," said Randall. "This is awesome. This is amazing."

Haggerty had gotten the preseason Steelers tickets from a friend, Butler businessman Billy O'Donnell, who also lent him the yellow bus, adorned with Steeler logos.

The tickets were on the 30-yard line in the lower tier of seats and offered a close-up view of the field.

For the eight friends there was no better way to spend a hot August day and cool night than to watch both teams play at home on the same day -- the only time it would happen this year.

Karen Durham never much cared for sports until she married Randall. "I grew up in a family of girls and didn't think about sports," she said.

Now she is a Steelers fan of the first order, tuned in to the roster and strategy of a team that plays 1,050 miles from her home. She wore a Jerome Bettis jersey to the Pirates game, brushing off passersby who said she had found her way to the wrong ballpark.

Before the football game started, the Durhams stood in the south plaza, behind the end zone, and watched the team practice.

"We saw Kordell and Bettis and other players," Karen boasted. "They're better looking than any celebrity any day. This is just so cool."

Back in their home in Clearwater, Fla., the Durhams got their neighbors' attention by adorning their black mailbox with Steelers decals.Their trip to Pittsburgh was planned months ago, right after they discovered that both teams would be at home on the same day.

Randall Durham currently works as a sales manager for a Clearwater resort hotel, but for the six years he lived in Pittsburgh he was a truck driver, and the difficulty in getting around the city bothered him.

And he hated the winters. "For five months of the year things were gray," he said. In Clearwater, he added, things are green year-round and there's water everywhere -- Tampa Bay.

But Randall said he couldn't get over how much Pittsburgh had changed for the better since he was growing up.

"Both stadiums are awesome," he said. "They're designed so you can see the skyline. It's not like Three Rivers [Stadium]. Pittsburgh's got one of the best skylines anywhere.

"Sometimes it's good to get away for a while and come back and see what has changed," he said. "This is phenomenal. I'm overwhelmed."

"It's thrilling," Karen said of the atmosphere at Heinz Field. "I just want to stop and breathe it all in."

Tom Barnes can be reached at tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548. Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1956.