Once upon a time in Forbes Field, a ball cleared a wall

That story repeats each fall

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
By Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/


Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette

Best seat in the house: Eleanor Taylor (right) was 8 months pregnant with her daughter Tracey (left) on that great baseball day, Oct. 13, 1960. They were among the many who gathered yesterday in Oakland to commemorate Mazeroski's World Series-winning home run.

It happened yesterday afternoon, as it does every Oct. 13 at almost exactly the same time. Bill Mazeroski led off the ninth inning with a home run and a raucous crowd of Pirates die-hards erupted rapturously.

There are no turnstiles at the remnants of Forbes Field's brick center field wall, and so no accurate crowd count. Call it 300 or 400 fans. They came to listen to every pitch of the deciding seventh game of the 1960 World Series because they wanted to relive a 48-year-old memory some were too young to have even had.

Saul Finkelstein began this tradition in 1985, "just a man who decided to eat his lunch one day at the wall" and listen to his favorite game once more. Herb Soltman, a member of the Game 7 Gang, was telling that story, remembering how he heard about the tradition on Doug Hoerth's radio program in October 1992 or '93, and popped a U-ey on Freeport Road around Fox Chapel to speed down and join the dozens who brought lawn chairs and beer coolers for this cherished rite of autumn.

A handful of former Pirates -- Dick Groat, Elroy Face, Bob Friend, Nellie King, Frank Thomas and Dave Giusti -- were there, and old baseball stories were told well. But this was a day for fans, not players, and youthful stories passed back and forth on a day as perfectly sunny as the one back when.

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Eleanor Taylor was 19 and eight months pregnant with her first child in October 1960, parking cars in her mother-in-law's backyard on Parkview Avenue. That was practically Forbes Field's backyard, too. You could squeeze in as many as five cars if you did it right, and with World Series fans paying something like $3 or $5 per car, it was a nice little payday.

The baby girl born about six weeks later, now Tracey Taylor Perles, brought her mom and dad, Ron, back to the wall yesterday. For Ms. Perles and her dad, this was their second "Wall Day," but her mom had never been and they were all joking that Mom had cried only three or four times before the first replayed pitch was thrown.

Mrs. Taylor is a retired teacher, having put in 23 years at Brookline Elementary. She's also a grandmother of five.

But, for a few hours, she could be a teenager again, remembering the thrill of her father-in-law driving her and her husband Downtown for a celebration that Pittsburgh still hasn't topped.

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Dick Jones of Ross was a ninth-grade student at North Catholic and, the night before the game, he practiced a kind of espionage. He hid a transistor radio under his shirt and threaded an earpiece through his sleeve, hiding it by holding his head up with his palm against that ear.

"It looked beautiful in the mirror," he said.

All went well until Latin class when he was startled to have classmates muttering that he was being called to the blackboard. As he stood before the board, his plan literally fell apart. Brother Verbasey asked him what was hanging from his sleeve.

When told it was a radio, Brother Verbasey ordered him to put in on the desk. "Turn it up so we all can hear," he said.

Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette

Baseball fans cheer while listening to a replay of Bill Mazeroski's ninth-inning, game-winning home run during the annual celebration of the Pirates' 1960 World Series victory over the New York Yankees yesterday along Roberto Clemente Drive in Oakland.

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Nick DeMao of New Kensington had lugged over what he claimed had been first base in the big game. If you didn't believe the well-worn canvas was genuine, he also had a framed front page from the New Kensington Daily Dispatch in October 1960 detailing how his dad, Alex DeMao, had grabbed the base and carried it off in the post-game celebration. So there.

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The Pirates have lost for 16 consecutive seasons, and the man hired last year to right the ship, team President Frank Coonelly, was walking among the crowd, thinking not of what was, but of what might be.

"It reaffirms for me the passion this town has for the Pirates and the passion that is waiting to be tapped again."

The Pirates of the 1950s were woeful, losing for nine consecutive seasons starting in 1949, but "they started to show life in 1958," Mr. Coonelly said. Two years later they won the Series.

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The Pirates won two Series in the 1970s. So why is this one held in such esteem? Maybe it's because the Pirates beat the Yankees, or because they'd gone 35 years between Series championships, because the ending was so memorable, or the celebrations so innocent and instantaneous, or because Pittsburgh was still a big city then.

Whatever. Nita Cullison of Scott was thinking out loud that a statue of Maz hitting the homer should be erected in time for the 50-year celebration in 2010. Not at PNC Park, but right there.

"It just sort of seems like it would fit out here, don't you think?"


Brian O'Neill can be reached at boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947.
First published on October 14, 2008 at 12:00 am