The retro feel, complete with asymmetrical fences, a real grass field and the city’s architecturally pleasing skyline in the background, is a remarkable testament to vision and execution.

It's Pittsburgh, which actually has a stadium a short walk from downtown and a City Paper with a luxury box -- both things we'll never have here in Philly.

It's about newspapers. Specifically, the future thereof, particularly the alternative newspaper industry, which is what brought me to Pittsburgh in the first place, for the annual confab of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN).

That an alternative newspaper has a luxury suite says a lot about where we have come since our seminal days. That the likes of me had to sneak into the suite -- scamming my way past security guards despite the warning of an elevator operator who doubted my ability to do so -- says that, fortunately, we haven't come too far.

The future of our organization and its member papers -- somewhere between hippie grunge and lampoonishly hip -- was a prime topic in the official meetings and the more informal, booze-drenched after-hours bull sessions that took place in bars, on a boat and yes, in the Pittsburgh City Paper's luxury suite at PNC Park.

The hottest buzz, by far, concerned the democracy-killing deal, later undone by the Justice Department, in which the New Times and Village Voice conglomerates agreed to shutter their papers in Los Angeles and Cleveland, respectively, in return for market exclusivity.

Nearly everyone I talked to -- except for the throng of New Timesers and Voiceniks gathered around the ironically named Scene bar at the Hilton Hotel (ironic because one of the papers involved in the antitrust shenanigans is the Cleveland Scene) -- felt like me; disgusted with that deal and grudgingly appreciative for the Justice Department's ruling that ordered both chains to sell the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains so that the shuttered papers could re-emerge.

In a contentious pre-convention meeting, AAN's board debated whether one of those papers, the Cleveland Free Times -- closed seven months ago by the Voice in return for New Times' 86-ing of its LA paper -- should be allowed back into AAN.

The official sanctioning of alternativeness is a huge deal, says Rich Karpel, AAN's executive director and one of my luxury suitemates (albeit one who did not have to sneak past security guards).

The Free Times/Voice flap "indicated how much people do care," says Karpel. "We are a niche organization and have to define what it means to be an alternative, which is why we have such a rigorous admissions process. It's one of the better things about this organization."

Ultimately, the board opted not to oppose the Free Times' request to be allowed back into AAN. But a much more important issue is looming, adds Karpel.

One of the concerns in the Free Times debate is that it is owned by a daily newspaper company, which is verboten under AAN bylaws unless a daily buys an existing weekly. The board debated the thorny issue of whether the Free Times was new or existing, ultimately opting to "thoroughly review the bylaws in time for a potential amendment to be adopted at the annual meeting at the 2004 convention in San Antonio."

The review process is key, says Karpel, because an even greater concern is what to do about the day when Clear Channel, or AOL Time Warner -- or some as-yet-to-be-determined monolithic media monster created thanks to a recent FCC ruling -- purchases a weekly.

"There is no way to prevent them from being allowed in the association under the current bylaws," he says.

"You can't do that," he says, laughing. "Truthfully, you can't [define] an evil conglomerate in a way that will pass antitrust muster."

The trick, he says, will be for the bylaws committee to come up with something tenable by next year.

The future success of so-called alternative newspapers is not just about fending off threats from outside.

It's about avoiding complacency. And moving away from some of the clichés that have come to define us. Clichés that were humorously tweaked by author Neal Pollack -- the emcee of this year's AAN awards ceremony.

Aside from announcing the winners and tossing out packets of Smarties candies, Pollack introduced a few categories of his own designed to poke fun at some of the hoary staples of alternative journalism, including, according to the AAN website, "best story about a local librarian and/or bookstore owner who is heroically combating the evils of the Patriot Act; most egregious use of a Bruce Springsteen reference in a headline or editor's column; most passive-aggressive review of an ex-girlfriend's or boyfriend's band and/or art opening and most sentimental article about an old restaurant and/or retail establishment that best represents the true character of the city."

But working at an alternative, I know that the thrust of his punch lines -- that we are verging on the old and irrelevant -- is something we should be keenly aware of.