Sunday, September 05, 2010
By Robert Dvorchak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/?m=1
The man who shies from being the center of attention will find it impossible to have many private moments today. On the occasion of his 74th birthday, Bill Mazeroski will see himself immortalized in bronze with the public dedication and unveiling of his statue.
The thought of all the fuss makes him squirm as he did when he spoke at his Cooperstown induction and had a stage-load of Hall of Famers weeping with him.
"I don't feel right talking about myself," he said in a recent interview. "I like to stay in the background. I like to sit back and watch everybody else do their thing."
Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette
Bill Mazeroski looks at a miniature version of a statue of himself that will be outside PNC Park that was revealed during a press conference on Jan. 29, 2010. The statue will commemorate the Hall of Famer's home run that won the World Series 50 years ago.
While humility is a quaint hallmark of the former second baseman the masses know as Maz, this reluctant luminary from the most common of backgrounds sabotaged his avoidance of the spotlight by being uncommonly good at playing a game. His No. 9 has been retired, a street outside PNC Park bears his name and he is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This latest tribute captures his quintessential moment, displaying a joy both rare and unabashed during the most unequaled romp around the bases in baseball history.
"It's an image of me, but it could have been any of those guys," Maz said. "We all deserve to be up there because if I hadn't hit that home run, somebody else would have, or we'd have scored some other way and somebody else's statue might be there instead of mine.
"When I look at it, it's a statue to the 1960 World Series team. I just played a little part on that team. That's all. I just happened to get that hit at that time. If I hadn't have done it, somebody would have because we were destined to win that year."
In historical context, a statue of the game's best defensive second baseman would depict him fielding a ball or making the pivot during a double play. And while his teammates appreciate the nobility of his sentiments, they are anything but modest in talking about him.
"That's something Maz would say. That's the way he would want it, sharing the honor with all of us. But if anybody should get a statue, it's him," said pitcher Bob Friend.
"He deserves it," added relief ace ElRoy Face.
And Steve Blass will speak today about how the statuary around the ballpark is enhanced now that Maz, his teammate on the 1971 championship Pirates, joins Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Honus Wagner as a foursome of Hall of Famers.
"Never has there been a better fit for Pittsburgh than that guy," Mr. Blass said.
The statue is a freeze-frame, but it speaks to the dynamic gallop around the bases with Maz showing more emotion than he ever did in his 17-year playing career. It's a highlight that nobody in this town ever tires of seeing, and it was named as the city's greatest sports moment in a Dapper Dan vote.
In a larger sense, however, the 14-foot high monument of bronze completes a remarkable journey that began with coal and steel.
A region known as the Ohio Valley, an hour's drive from where the Monongahela and the Allegheny merge, is William Stanley Mazeroski's home. The son of Lew and Mayme Mazeroski and younger sibling of Mary Lou, he was born in Wheeling, W.Va., because that's where the hospital was. On the Ohio side of the river, he lived in spots like Little Rush Run, Turkey Point and Warrenton while playing baseball in Rayland, Tiltonsville and Yorkville. All of them proudly claim him as their own.
Baseball was taught to him by his father, a semi-pro player who, at age 18, was supposed to go to spring training with the Cleveland Indians. But while working as a coal miner, Lew Mazeroski's opportunity ended before it began. A jagged piece of slate fell from the mine roof, amputating part of his foot and ripping out his baseball heart.
The dream of playing in the major leagues was transferred from father to son, and those aspirations manifested themselves in boyhood games. Like so many kids who harbored thoughts of being big leaguers, Maz would toss a stone in the air and whack it with a broomstick handle.
"I lived a mile from the highway, and I used to go down with a bucket of stones from along the road and hit them with broomsticks, and I dreamt many times that I was Babe Ruth hitting a home run in the World Series," he said.
How he got his first glove is a story that has an only-in-America ring to it. An uncle purchased it for him for digging a hole for an outhouse. In time, he caught the attention of Al Burazio, the baseball coach at Warren Consolidated High School.
"When I was a freshman, he looked at me and said, 'I'm going to make you a major leaguer. You're going to be good.' Evidently, he knew what he was talking about," Maz said, chuckling in that self-deprecating way of his.
Guided by his coach and refined by playing against men in the coal mine leagues, he went to his first tryout camp in Pittsburgh when he was a sophomore. At 17, he signed a contract with a $4,000 bonus. At 19, in 1956, he made it to the big leagues. By 1960, he and the Pirates had completed the transition of going from worst to first.
"It was a 25-man team. Everybody did something to help us win games," Maz said. "We were good all through the lineup. Everybody did the little things because we didn't have a lot of power in those days. We won by playing baseball -- move the runner over, bunt, hit the gaps. We had good pitching. Everything went together that year. I don't care what would've happened, somehow we were going to win that World Series.
"It was a great summer for the fans. It just kept growing and growing and growing until that day in October when it all exploded. What a great time that was. We finally won, and we beat the Yankees. And the way we beat them, it just capped everything off," he added.
Although he hit an occasional home run and hit well in the clutch, he was a career .260 hitter. He was best known for preventing runs with his defense rather than driving them in with his bat. But even as a man of few words, he talks with pride about what he did in the field.
"I thought I could turn a double play better than anybody that's played. I thought I could catch a ground ball as well as anybody who's ever caught one," he said.
Still, he will be forever remembered for a swing of the bat at 3:36 p.m. Oct. 13, 1960, with the score tied in the bottom of the ninth inning in the seventh game of the World Series. He took the first pitch for a ball before Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry delivered a high slider that didn't slide. Maz jumped on the pitch, and left fielder Yogi Berra never had a chance to make a play on it.
It's a moment best told in his own words.
"My mind-set walking up there is, I have to hit the ball hard somewhere. Hit a line drive, get on base, get something started," Maz said. "I knew I hit it good. I knew Yogi Berra wasn't going to catch it, but I wasn't sure it was going out. I knew it was going to be off the wall if it didn't go over."
His first steps out of the batter's box were more like a mad dash than a home run trot.
"I'm busting my tail around first, and I want to be on third if he misplays it off the wall. But then, the crowd started yelling when I was about three-quarters of the way down there to second," Maz said. "All hell broke loose after that."
An umpire gave the signal for a home run to validate the roar. The ball had disappeared over the red brick wall near the 406-foot mark, ending the game and the Series with a jolt that endures the test of time.
"From second to home, I never touched the ground," Maz said. "I just floated around there."
It was and is the only World Series Game 7 decided by a home run, but it hardly mattered in the bedlam of the moment.
"I just figured it was another home run to win a ball game. But here we are 50 years later, and it's bigger now than it was then. The longer and longer it went, the bigger and bigger it got," Maz said.
When asked if he realizes how much that home run meant to a city that had waited 35 years for a reason to whoop it up, his eyes left the room and locked onto memories of his father.
"I know of a lot of fathers who were at that game with their sons, and now those fathers are passed away. Those sons look at me with tears in their eyes," he said, halting briefly to check his emotions, "because they remember that."
It's funny how life works. He was not voted as the Series MVP, but the boy who once hit rocks and pretended to be Babe Ruth was given the Babe Ruth Award in 1960 by the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
As the youngest player on the 1960 team, Maz had 12 years of a career to complete. But the journey has continued.
"I wanted to play in the major leagues. Then once you get there, you want to get in an All-Star game. Then you want to play in a World Series and things like that," he said. "When they retired my number, I thought that was the greatest thing that ever happened. Then I got into the Hall of Fame. Jiminy Christmas, does it get any better than that? Then how can you ever dream of having a statue? That's for presidents and people who have done something great.
"All I ever wanted was to be a good major league baseball player," Maz added. "I don't know if I was that good a player, but the fans have been great to me. I don't know how to thank them. Pittsburgh has been wonderful."
It gets even better.
On Monday, the Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum will unveil a lifelike figure of him to open the 50th anniversary exhibit of Beat 'Em Bucs -- The Story of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates.
On one hand, he is a living link from Forbes Field to Three Rivers Stadium to PNC Park, where his statue has its place of honor. On the other, he's a doting grandfather and golfer who still loves the solitude of fishing when he's not tending his tomato plants at the modest Westmoreland County home he has lived in for decades.
"Lots of people have asked me what would you like to come back as. I want to come back as me again," he said. "I want to do it all over again. I got to live my dream."
Of such dreams are statues made. Touch 'em all, Maz. Again.
It was a great summer for the fans. It just kept growing and growing and growing until that day in October when it all exploded. What a great time that was."
-- Bill Mazeroski
on the web
Our multimedia chronicle of the Pirates' magical 1960 season continues online today with a look at second baseman Bill Mazeroski. Visit www.post-gazette.com
Honoring Maz
Schedule of events involving Bill Mazeroski today and Monday:
• Today -- At 12:45 p.m., the Mazeroski statue will be unveiled and dedicated on Mazeroski Way outside the right field gate. He will be joined by his wife, Milene, sons Darren and David, their wives Jill and Kelly, and grandchildren Bill, Sara and Tommy. Also taking part will be Pirates chairman Bob Nutting, team president Frank Coonelly and former teammates Bob Friend, Dick Groat, ElRoy Face and Bill Virdon, with Steve Blass scheduled to speak. Then Maz will be driven around the ballpark warning track in a 1960 Bentley convertible while highlights of his career are shown on the videoboard. He will also throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
• Monday -- At 11 a.m., the Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum will unveil a lifelike figure of Maz, which is the centerpiece of the exhibit "Beat 'Em Bucs -- The Story of the 1960 Pirates." The event will also feature the release of a new children's book titled "Maz, You're Up!" Author Kelly Mazeroski will join her father-in-law for an exclusive book signing from 11 a.m. to noon. The Mazeroskis will only sign copies of the $12.95 book. No other memorabilia or photos brought in by museum visitors will be autographed.
Except to him. In his heart, the statue is the exclamation point of the 1960 season and a World Series triumph by the Pirates. If he had his druthers, his teammates would share his pedestal.
Robert Dvorchak can be reached at bdvorchak@post-gazette.com
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10248/1085218-63.stm#ixzz0yiC3Sczv
No comments:
Post a Comment