67th Annual Reuben Awards – Part 1 – The Chad Frye

THURSDAY

One week ago today on May 23, I arrived in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to celebrate cartooning with the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) at our annual Reuben Awards convention. Joining me on this trip was my good buddy Andy Heckathorne who works as an illustrator/designer at Penn State.

While the festivities at the Reuben Awards didn’t start until Friday, Andy and I got there a day early to take in a little of Pittsburgh – namely, PNC Park. We went straight from the airport to the ballpark to see the Pirates play the visiting Cubs.

Cartoonists arrive in Pittsburgh and take over the bridges!

I think this is PNC Park. If only there was some way to tell. (Quite frankly, I don’t even know what a PNC is.)

Roberto Clemente is there trying to run away from the stadium. “Good luck,” I say. He’s bolted in place.

If it hadn’t been for Andy yelling “watch out!”, I might not have seen Willie Stargell about to beam me.

Mascot McClucken with Andrew McCutchen during the pre-game warm up. It’s shameful to see that McCutchen stole his look from the parrot.

So nice to see that the National Anthem is still respected with dignity.

Living in Los Angeles, you sometimes forget the little things that most Americans face – little things like rain. Around the end of the fourth inning, the heavens opened and descended upon us like the paparazzi at a celebrity trial. It caused a two hour delay in play making this the first time I have ever attended a six-hour ball game. I heard later that there were many cartoonists there that day, but few stuck out the delay like we did.

Notice the marquee repeating over and over that “Rain is stupid!!!” In this instance, I was quick to agree.

While the infield was covered with a tarp, you can see what makes this a neat stadium – a clear view of the city skyline across the river.

Eventually the grounds crew removed the tarp so the game could get underway.

They even re-striped the field before resuming play.

Aaaaand just for good measure, out came the racing perogies, which I thought was the name of a local sandwich. Turns out they are pasta filled with potato.

After the rain delay, the stadium was pretty empty. A cameraman found a little cluster of us and put us on TV which was very exciting as you can tell by my expression.

So, the Pirates DID win that game despite all the distraction, and then we moved on to the William Penn Hotel (first opened in 1916) where we met up with fellow cartoonists from here and abroad! Despite having flown in on a red eye flight that morning, and had been mistreated by the weather, I got a second wind and was in the lobby catching up with folks until after 1am. I could tell this was going to be a GREAT weekend.

THURSDAY

More images from the 2013 Reuben weekend to come!