Half-empty water bottles cluttered the outfield grass of PNC Park. Less than 10 hours before the Pirates took the field for Game 2 of a three-game series against the Nationals, the field belonged to children.
In center field, Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk tossed baseballs to kids by the warning track. Their objective: catch it and run into the wall. One child with long, curly hair reached out, bounced off the wall and dropped the ball to the ground.
“Ooh,” Tomczyk said. “Try again?”
The National PLAY campaign — an annual event run by the Professional Baseball Trainers’ Society that promotes good health and raises youth awareness of performance-enhancing drugs — made its return to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.