Photo gallery: Last Pirates game at Three Rivers Stadium, Oct. 1, 2000

Editor's note: The Pirates played their last game at Three Rivers Stadium on Oct. 1, 2000. Here's Joe Rutter's dispatch from that game.

The baseball version of the Three Rivers Stadium farewell party featured a little bit of everything.

From Sister Sledge singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” to Carrick native John Wehner's improbable home run to Willie Stargell's surprise ceremonial final pitch, the final baseball game in stadium history wasn't lacking in excitement, drama or memories.

The only thing missing Sunday night was a victory.

A ninth-inning rally came up short, and the Pirates lost a 10-9 decision to the Chicago Cubs before 55,351, the largest regular-season baseball crowd in the stadium's 31-year history.

But as outgoing manager Gene Lamont said, “On a last night like this, it's not about winning a game.”

The final baseball game at Three Rivers Stadium was about so much more.

It was about Pirates players from the past returning to say goodbye and hearing the fans' cheers one more time. It was about Wehner appropriately hitting the final homer in stadium history, just the fourth homer of his 10-year career and first in a starting role. It was about bringing back the good times in the 1970s and early ‘90s and forgetting an eighth consecutive losing season, the longest dry spell in franchise history since the late 1940s.

But it also was about a manager losing his job. Lamont knew weeks ago that this day would be his last as an employee of the Pirates.

“I don't want to talk about it now,” Lamont said after the game. “But I have enjoyed my stay here.”

Lamont decided when he got to the stadium yesterday that he didn't want to participate in the post-game ceremony.

“My duty is over when the game is over,” he said.

Lamont said he would probably watch the festivities on the television in his office.

“I don't know what I'll do,” he said. “If this was just about closing Three Rivers ... but that's not what it's all about.

“It's about other things, too.”

It was suggested when he took the job after the 1996 season that Lamont would never attain the same cozy relationship with the fans that predecessors Jim Leyland and Chuck Tanner enjoyed.

Four losing seasons didn't alter that theory, but one never would have guessed Lamont had a distant rapport with the fans by the reception he received during pre-game introductions.

Fans stood on their feet and cheered Lamont, giving him an ovation that exceeded a minute.

Lamont appeared to be embarrassed by the unexpectedly warm reception. After doffing his cap and waving it at the crowd, he gestured for the public address announcer to introduce the players.

“Here I was hoping I wouldn't get booed, and I get a big ovation,” Lamont said. “I'd like to think the fans appreciate what I tried to get done here. We just didn't get it done.

“That's something I won't forget.”

The players didn't forget, either. Lamont received hugs by the starting eight players introduced after him.

“They're like your kids,” he said. “During the season, your whole life is built around them. You think they appreciate you, but you don't really know.”

Now, he does.

Sister Sledge followed the introductions by singing the national anthem, then belting out a few bars of “We Are Family” to the delight of the crowd.

Lamont joined Leyland, Tanner and Bill Virdon, another former manager, in presenting the lineup card.

Once the game started, it looked like another long day for a Pirates team that finished with a 69-93 record. The Cubs jumped to a 4-1 lead after 2 ¹⁄₂ innings.

But the Pirates came back in the third on Adrian Brown's solo homer and Warren Morris' two-run double. The Cubs took a 5-4 lead in the fifth, but the Pirates answered with four runs, capped by Wehner's two-run homer over the left-field wall.

The 8-5 lead didn't last, though, as the Cubs scored the next five runs off the Pirates bullpen.

In the middle of the seventh inning, with the Pirates protecting an 8-7 lead, Steve Blass climbed atop the first dugout to lead the crowd in one last rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

“What a wonderful hostess this grand old lady of a ballpark has been,” Blass said as he addressed the crowd. “This is one last chance to sing a love song to her and three of her friends outside — Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente and Art Rooney.

“Let's sing it loud, and let's sing it clear.”

Blass and company did.

Unfortunately for the Pirates, the Cubs scored three times in the eighth to take a 10-8 lead.

After missing a chance to pull closer in their half of the eighth, the Pirates scored once in the ninth and had runners on second and third with two outs.

Fitting, the game was put into Wehner's hands. Someone asked Lamont if he considered a pinch-hitter for Wehner, a lifetime .249 hitter entering his third tour with the Pirates this season.

“If I did that, I should be booed out of town,” Lamont said.

That Wehner grounded out to end the game was inconsequential to those inside the Pirates clubhouse.

“I'll always have great memories about this day,” Wehner said.

The memories weren't finished.

After a 20-minute video tribute was given, the Pirates dug up home plate and sent it to PNC Park via someone called Rocket Man, who transported the plate out of the stadium in a jet-propelled backpack.

While home plate was being shuttled across the North Side to its new home, the Pirates saluted 25 former players and managers. A video tribute was afforded each player who entered the stadium through a lighted runway in center field. Included was a posthumous tribute to Roberto Clemente. Appropriately, he was the 21st player honored.

The current Pirates players walked onto the field one last time to join the former players in the ceremony. They watched on the scoreboard as home plate was placed at PNC Park.

Lastly, it was time for the ceremonial final pitch. Catcher Jason Kendall walked to the plate while emcee Lanny Frattare announced Kent Tekulve, the Pirates' all-time leader in saves.

Tekulve walked in from the left-field bullpen and took his station on the mound as “Rubber Band Man” by The Spinners played.

But Tekulve was merely a decoy. Let him explain.

“I feel honored to stand on this very mound and to have thrown the final pitch in more games than any pitcher in the history of Three Rivers Stadium,” he began. “But tonight the honor of throwing the final pitch ever belongs to only one man.”

That man, of course, was Stargell.

“He has meant more to his Pirate teammates and more to the Pirate organization than any man who could wear a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform here at Three Rivers Stadium,” Tekulve said.

A recording from the late Art McKennan, the Pirates' longtime PA announcer, was used to introduce Stargell. He slowly made his way from the Pirates dugout to the mound, where he and Tekulve embraced.

Players past and present took the cue and converged on the mound to greet Stargell.

At 8:53 p.m., Stargell gazed at Kendall and uncorked his pitch. With it, 31 years of baseball at Three Rivers Stadium came to an end.