Joseph Sabino Mistick: Saying goodbye to Phil Coyne, the Prince of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh buried its own Prince Phillip last week. But Phillip A. Coyne Jr. was simply called Phil or Philly by everybody around here. Phil Coyne had seen a lot, laughed a lot and put a lot of smiles on other people’s faces. And his life was a master class in kindness. He died April 9, just weeks before his 103rd birthday.

Surely the most famous ballpark usher ever, Phil started leading fans to their seats at Pittsburgh Pirates ballgames in 1936. Phil referred to it as the same year that Social Security became law, giving struggling folks a much-needed break. Phil kept that usher’s job — the “greatest job ever” he called it — until he retired in 2017 at age 99.

Phil had a whole life outside of baseball, too. He went off to war, serving in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. He worked as a machinist at the Westinghouse Air Brake plant in Wilmerding until his retirement there in 1980. And his large family, here and in Ireland, was always at the center of his life.

Phil had that easy Irish smile and quick wit that let you know he had big room in his heart for everybody. He was a member of two legendary clubs in Oakland — the Irish Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Italian San Lorenzo di Gamberale Club.

Tonia Caruso, a former host and producer for WQED-TV, and the daughter of another Oakland Pirates usher, knew Phil all her life. In 2013, she wrote and produced “Stories from the Stands,” a documentary featuring Phil and a few fellow ushers whom she calls “the other boys of summer.”

“I adored him,” Caruso said last week. “Phil never said a cross word about anyone, and I never heard a bad word said about him. Oakland people always figured that Phil was ours, but we also knew that we had to share him.”

Phil made the best of every moment in life. In the time it took to check your ticket and wipe down your seat, he made a new friend. And he proudly held onto his old friends, saying, “I’ve had people for 40 years that I’ve attended to.”

When asked if he ever gets tired of it all, Phil said, “Instead of taking a pill, I guess something else happens. Once the people come in and start talking to you, you forget about whatever it is. The Lord’s been good to me.”

At the funeral home, friends and family got to see Phil one last time in his Pirates usher’s uniform. His life was celebrated at Mass at St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland, where he had lit a candle for the Pirates every week, in good times and bad.

Then his family and friends gathered at Mullaney’s Harp & Fiddle Irish pub, where Jim Lamb, the honorary consul of Ireland and Pittsburgh’s Irish balladeer, gave Phil a proper musical send-off. Lamb posted this message: “Thanks Philly Coyne, for sharing a life well lived.”

And everybody who knew Phil Coyne, this prince of Pittsburgh, knows that he moved on to the next big game just as he showed up for all of them here — with a smile on his face, ready to make new friends.