Plaques adorned the facade of Forbes Field, Ed Dombrowski salvaged the above plaque from the stadium's 1972 demolition.

By Kevin Kirkland
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Forbes Field was falling before Ed Dombrowski's eyes. Then a University of Pittsburgh student, Dombrowski was walking by the old ballpark as a bulldozer was pulling down the arches around the main entrance.

	Norman W. Schumm Photos of the Forbes Field arches. Post-Gazette file photo Click photos for larger image.

A lot of people walked by that summer day in 1972. But he apparently was the only one who stopped to ask the demolition contractor if he could pick through the pieces of the 63-year-old stadium in Oakland. Dombrowski even got him to pull down the walls a little more "gracefully" so they wouldn't shatter in so many pieces.

Three or four hours later, the passerby had what he wanted: two 53-inch-wide concrete plaques with stylized "PAC" logos. The letters, which appeared on both sides of each Forbes arch, stand for Pittsburgh Athletic Club, the Pittsburgh Pirates' official name when owner Barney Dreyfuss built Forbes Field in 1909.

"Most people walked away with chairs or numbers off the scoreboard," said Dombrowski, an Oakland native. "I was pretty much intent on these. They were novel."

For 34 years, the plaques lay in eight pieces in a shed and garage at Dombrowski's house in Plum. Then, the All-Star FanFest brought Hunt Auctions to town, and he thought he might auction them off. The pieces were shipped Friday to company headquarters in Exton, Pa., for auction this fall in Louisville, Ky.

Now, the passerby wants them back, hoping they will pass into their rightful place in Pittsburgh history, rather than a private collector's hands.

"It's not too late. Maybe we can change directions here," he said in a phone interview yesterday.

What changed was that Dombrowski, 65, discovered someone here was looking for what he had. In a Post-Gazette story Saturday about the dedication of a historical marker at the Forbes Field wall, Len Martin of Point Four Ltd. made a plea to see one of the old PAC plaques.

Martin is the co-author of a book about the ballpark and designer of a replica of the arches that stands near the old outfield wall on Bouquet Street in Oakland. He gave the replica's builders, the carpenters union, drawings he had made of the plaques based on old photographs. But he had never seen one intact. Now he has seen two, or at least photographs of them.

"This just made my day," said Martin, whose research shows there were 57 arches, or 114 plaques around Forbes Field. "I couldn't believe that someone didn't have one."

Meanwhile, Dombrowski has discovered that the plaques are still in the area. He hopes to get them back to show to Martin and other local baseball experts. He would prefer to see them displayed at the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum or at PNC Park.

"Since I found out there is local interest, I'd just as soon they'd be a part of local history," said the retired scientist from Bettis Laboratories in West Mifflin.

Until now, Dombrowski was convinced nobody else here found the plaques valuable or interesting.

When PNC Park was under construction, he offered them to the Pirates. But they had more than enough memorabilia, one official told him.

He and his wife, Mary Ester, thought Hunt Auctions might want to include the PAC plaques in the memorabilia auction today at FanFest before the All-Star Game.

But a company representative said they would get more "play" at a general auction of stadium memorabilia in November in Louisville, Ky. Hunt officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Dombrowski has no idea what the two plaques are worth, but a Hunt official told him he should place a "significant" reserve on them.

He is just glad he happened to walk by that day in Oakland and found a helpful bulldozer operator.

"That was the first time in my life I had done anything like that. He was very, very helpful. He even rooted through the debris with me to find the best pieces."