Longtime Pittsburgh Pirates usher Phil Coyne has reportedly died. He was 102.
Coyne worked at Forbes Field, Three Rivers Stadium and PNC Park for over 80 years.
He would've turned 103 later this month.
The Pirates say he worked around 6,000 games.
He quietly retired in 2018 after deciding he wouldn't come back for an 82nd season.
He told us back in 2018 that he fell around Christmas time in 2017 and that his "equilibrium is gone".
"I'm off balance school but I'm going to balancing school at a [UPMC] hospital and they're getting me back where I can walk without wobbling."
Coyne started ushering at Forbes Field for the Pirates in 1936 and only missed a few years but he had a good excuse, he was serving in World War II. Coyne grew up and Oakland.
He said "all the kids in Oakland were ushers . . . so you more or less automatically got [the job]."
2017 was his first away from Heinz Field for Steeler games so Coyne said he had an idea of what it would feel like to step away completely but "it does bother you, you're thinking you should be there and you're not but then you have to outgrow those things and that's what I'm doing."
On April 27 of 2018, the Pirates celebrated Coyne's 100th birthday and was honored by the team with members of his family by his side.
