Pittsburgh has an incredible baseball history with great players, teams and historic moments, but few realize that Pittsburgh has often been in the lead in ballpark design and development. Mark Fatla, lifelong baseball fan and author of “Pittsburgh’s Historic Ballparks” (Arcadia Press, 2023) chronicles the nine ballparks that hosted major league baseball in Pittsburgh between 1876 and the present, including the Negro Leagues. Historic photographs illustrate design and construction phases, the major changes as parks expanded and aged, and eventually their demolition. This talk and the accompanying book provide a unique perspective on the rich history of Pittsburgh’s ballparks. 

As a young attorney, Mark authored more than 200 Federal Court opinions, including several in one of Pittsburgh’s most important civil rights cases. As Executive Director of several community development non-profits over a 25 year career, he wrote hundreds of grant proposals and reports. As a freelancer, he has written feature cover stories for the Pittsburgh City Paper, as well as alternative weekly newspapers in Baltimore and Cleveland. “Pittsburgh’s Historic Ballparks” is his first book, published in 2023 by Arcadia Press and he is currently working on the sequel, “Pittsburgh’s Historic Stadiums and Arenas”, due to publish in 2025. He has presented at national and regional conferences, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Main Street Center and others. He is a lifelong baseball fan and lives on Northside in an 1870 house just a short walk from the site of 4 of the historic ballparks he’ll discuss today.