Post-Gazette: Forbes Field relics score rare memories

It’s a restrained but rare collection of memorabilia that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Forbes Field now on display at the Senator John Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum.

From the well-preserved uniform of a Homestead Grays player to the diaries of Barney Dreyfuss, the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and builder of the ballpark, “Forbes Field: A Century of Memories” is a microcosmic portrait of what once was Western Pennsylvania’s sports mecca.

Anne Madarasz, director of the center’s Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, said several items, including Dreyfuss’ diary, opened to June 30, 1909, the day the park opened, have never been displayed before.

“The rarest is the Grays’ uniform,” she said. “We think it’s only one of two still in existence.” (The other is elsewhere in the museum.)

...Other first-time artifacts:

• A 1909 caricature of Barney Dreyfuss as a swashbuckler holding a Detroit Tiger by the tail. Pittsburgh defeated the Tigers in the World Series that year.

From the Bochmann Collection (my neighbor)...Forbes Field - 1945.