Paul Skenes was bored and saw lights on at a baseball field in Wexford, so he steered off Perry Highway and into the parking lot to watch kids play. Showing the naivete of a 24-year-old, the Pittsburgh Pirates ace wondered whether he would be recognized while doing a lap.
There was no chance the kids from the Ingomar Franklin Park Little League practicing at Vestal Field in McCandless weren’t going to notice Skenes. At an imposing 6-foot-6, 260 pounds, Skenes would stand out in any crowd.
“I guess I’m not very good at staying incognito,” Skenes said, with a smile. “Should’ve worn some sunglasses and a fake mustache.”
For the next two hours, Skenes posed for photographs and signed autographs. It was reminiscent of the time when Los Angeles Angels outfielder Garrett Anderson — whom Skenes called a “legend” — visited his Little League team in Lake Forest, Calif. That’s a memory Skenes cherishes to this day.
Pirates manager Don Kelly, who lives nearby in Mars, isn’t on social media but heard second-hand about Skenes going viral for his impromptu visit.
“Knowing Paul, not surprising,” Kelly said. “Really cool for those kids and what a surprise, I’m sure. Pretty cool that he did that yesterday on a day off. … Paul has been a big part of that for the Pirates, for the city and for the community. Huge part of it for us, as a team. I think just as we all see what he does on the field every five games to start, but who he is, what he stands for and how he carries himself is maybe more impressive than that.”
It was a reminder for Skenes to stay connected to the game outside of PNC Park, where baseball is a business. The No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 MLB Draft, National League rookie of the year in 2024, NL Cy Young Award winner last season and a two-time All-Star Game starter, Skenes is always the main attraction.
“We’ve all played those sandlot fields when we were 9,” Skenes said. “The game looks different when it’s 200-foot fences and there are no ads out there, no fans out there, just playing for the love of the game.”
Skenes stressed the importance of focusing on how his unprompted visit to watch sandlot baseball was just the reminder he needed that night about his love for the game. The right-hander allowed two runs on six hits and two walks in six innings, with MVPs Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts among his seven strikeouts, in a 12-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night before 30,646 at PNC Park.
“I think everybody kind of goes through it. Not necessarily why I stopped. I went to watch some baseball, but you’ve got to remember it’s just a game,” Skenes said. “There’s a lot of things that make it a business. It’s work. It’s a job for us, for sure, on some days more than others. But you’ve got to remember you love the game and why you started playing it in the first place. So it was good for me to visit them because of that.”