The Pittsburgh Pirates Have Many Hidden Heroes.
There are the men who play on the field every night, whose jerseys we wear, whose names we chant, whose triumphs we celebrate, whose losses we mourn. They are a special kind of hero – the ones on the baseball cards – they are members of an elite brotherhood just 750 strong who every year captivate our minds and our hearts playing a child’s game on a very grown-up stage. But for every Major League Baseball team that takes the field each night, there is another team working behind the scenes to make sure every game goes off without a hitch – for the players and the fans. They are the Hidden Heroes of baseball – and these are their stories.
For Dr. George Zambelli Jr. and the Zambelli Fireworks family, it’s all about the magic
It is Saturday night and the Pittsburgh Pirates just dropped a 3 – 1 game against the Miami Marlins. Instead of filing out of PNC Park following the loss, maybe a little grumpy from seeing the team fall to the fish, the majority of the 30,000-plus crowd stay in their seats.
It’s Zambelli Fireworks Night at the park.
While there wasn’t much action on the field on this night, there would soon be action in the sky. And no one wanted to miss it.
New Castle-based Zambelli Fireworks is one of the nation’s premier fireworks companies, and the official fireworks provider for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Not only do they provide entertainment for the crowds at PNC Park following a number of games every year as part of the team’s promotional schedule, but they are also there for every home run and win the players and the team racks up.
“We’ve done fireworks for the Pirates forever,” said Dr. George R. Zambelli, Jr., chairman of Zambelli Fireworks. His grandfather, Antonio, “a fireworks artist” brought a dream of building a fireworks with him when he immigrated to the US in 1893 and from a very young age, his father, George, knew that he wanted to help grow that dream.
A Labor of Love
“It was very much a labor of love, the way my grandpa grew this business,” remarked Jared Zambelli, George Jrs. son and the fourth generation Zambelli to work for the company. “He had a vision to continue to grow it. His brothers, they wanted to be very local. They were all very comfortable with what they had and made a nice living. They didn’t see the value of growing the business the way and the size and the scope my grandfather did.”
And grow the business he did. From humble beginnings in New Castle, Penn., Zambelli Fireworks is now a name synonymous with celebration. The company, which now employs 35 people around the country – but grows during peak “fireworks season,” has done shows nationwide for American Presidents, national celebrations, Papal visits, rock shows and numerous sporting events.
It started with a handshake.
“Back then that’s what contracts were,” George Jr. said. “I don’t recall how the relationship got started, you’d have to ask my dad because I was pretty young when we started working with the team, but we’ve been doing shows for them forever. The Pirates are a part of our family – and hopefully, we’re a part of theirs.”
Once the team and company settle on the number of shows to do per year and when they will be, a regular system kicks in. A few weeks before the company is set to do a show for the team they receive a “soundtrack” for the show from the Pirates. This allows every show to be fresh and timely with the ability to work in cultural trends, baseball trends and just “keep up with what is going on in the season,” George Jr. said. The Pirates also share any special sorts of effects they want to include.
Once the soundtrack is received, Senior Project Manager and Head Choreographer Michael Richards gets to work creating the show. It takes approximately one to two hours per choreographed minute to produce a show for the Pirates. Shows generally range 12-15 minutes.
“Just like anything else, there is a lot more to putting together a fireworks show than people understand,” Zambelli said. “For the Pirates, Michael really tried to come up with something very different every time and to take that sky over the city and use it as a canvas.”
Pirates fans know that after every home run, and team win, fireworks also dance in the sky from over the Clemente Wall. That’s Zambelli’s doing also. A crew member is stationed at the Pittsburgh Paramedics River Rescue boathouse, which floats on the Allegheny just beyond PNC, at the base of the Clemente Bridge. It is from one of the piers there, that upon receiving a radio directive from the team, those celebratory fireworks are shot.
This perfectly timed image by noted Pittsburgh photographer Dave DiCello captures the moment Zambelli Fireworks shoots a few fireworks in the air to celebrate a Pirates home run.
On fireworks nights, home run blasts serve as a wonderful appetizer for the main course after the game.
Safety First
The fireworks industry is one associated with an inherent danger. That doesn’t mean that it is unsafe – the industry as a whole makes the safety of their crews, crowds they entertain and their communities their highest priorities. It is an industry that is very highly regulated from the way the factories are cleaned to the way they transport “packed shows” to the size of fireworks “shells” they can use to the way they set them up, the way they are fired and the distance crews and crowds must be. Zambelli Fireworks goes a step beyond.
“At all times we’re trying to limit exposure to risk,” Jared said, explaining that Zambelli works to consistently supercede regulations on safety zones other limits put on size and caliber of shells used in shows among other things to ensure they are always working two steps ahead of the industry. This enables the company to operate at its safest and to cut off issues that might impact a show’s outcome. “Safety is our biggest priority. By staying ahead, by doing more to operate safety we feel it reduces our risk and sets us up well for the future and future regulatory changes.”
It is for this reason that on Zambelli fireworks nights at PNC Park, pedestrian traffic is limited to the walking paths on the Clemente Bridge instead of the full bridge deck leading up to game time. The bridge closes to all pedestrian traffic after the seventh inning of games (those wishing to leave before the show must take the Warhol Bridge if they need to cross the Allegheny) and does not reopen until the Zambelli crew and other regulatory officials onsite determine that every tube containing a shell has fired and the entire system has been disarmed.
The First Family of Fireworks
George Zambelli Sr. wasn’t allowed to “play with fireworks when he was young,” according to the book Zambelli – The First Family of Fireworks by Gianni DeVincent Hayes, Ph.D. He had to work to convince his father to let him join the business, which he was allowed to do after going to college. As a teen, he helped his father roll firecracker tubes and started “shooting” shows when he was 16.
George Jr. shot shows as well – but not in the way they are done now. “When I shot shows for my family, back in the 50’s and 60’s we used every safety precaution available to us at the time. But there were no electronic firing systems back then, everything was hand-fired and loaded during the show,” he said. Likening the process to the realities of wars still in recent memory during those mid-century times he jested, “It was a thrill to be firing mortars and not have anyone firing back at you.”
He is extremely thankful for the technology that exists today that enables his industry to operate much safer than in years past.
“Would I let my sons hand fire a show like I used to? The answer is no. For me, that’s just the way things were back then. But we are very fortunate to have so much technology today that reduces the risk everyone in this industry faces. Fireworks are a different, more technologically-advanced and safer industry now than they ever have been.”
His family was on the forefront in helping make practices safer and more entertaining industry-wide. They were among the first companies to use reel-to-reel tape and choreograph shows to music and they were the early guinea pigs for the creation of the Fire One system, which creates the fireboxes used to electronically fire shows. As a result, fireworks shows using the system, no matter by which company, are set up according to the early methods George Sr. developed.
The elder George also wanted his son to go to college, but had different plans for his namesake.
“From an early age it was just known that I would be a doctor,” George Jr. said. “From the age of three, I was always the one putting band-aids on everyone, I was almost programmed to be a doctor.” That, as well as witnessing firsthand the focus and commitment it took to go into medicine by watching his neighbors who were doctors treating patients, drove him to follow that dream. After graduating from Case Western Reserve, Zambelli went to medical school at St. Louis University School of Medicine and followed that up with residency at Ohio State University. Now a renowned opthamologist and cataracts specialist, Zambelli Jr. owns and operates a practice in Rochester, Penn. with his daughter Alison, who followed in his footsteps. Just as he did in his father’s fireworks company. And Jared is in his.
It is a lot of work, having two career passions and heading up two busy and completely different businesses, Zambelli admitted, but he would not change a thing.
“I love my life. Zambelli Fireworks was a labor of love for my father,” he said. “My job is to carry on his dream.”
Click the arrows on the left and right hand sides of the photos to scroll through a typical fireworks night for the Zambelli team
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*Recently, Zambelli fireworks was invited to represent the United States in the International Fireworks Festival during GlobalFest in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They won the competition, bringing home honors to the US and adding just one more accomplishment to their long list.
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