PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Even as he approaches the age of 72, Bill Mazeroski can still see the ball flying over Yogi Berra's head toward the left-field fence. He can still hear the crowd at Forbes Field roaring as he rounded first. And he can still feel like he was floating around the bases with hat in hand over the excitement of beating the New York Yankees.
Never did the man known as "Maz" imagine that his leadoff home run in the ninth inning of Game 7 leading the Pirates to the 1960 World Series championship -- at 3:36 p.m. on Oct. 13, to be precise -- would last a lifetime.
"Here we are, 48 years later, still talking about it," Mazeroski said. "Gee whiz. I never dreamed anything like that would last this long."
Or that it would be revived with such frequency this past week, as the Yankees return here for the first time since that dramatic defeat for a three-game series against the Pirates starting Tuesday at PNC Park.
It only increases the magnitude of his magical moment.
"It's such a great memory for all of Pittsburgh, the way we beat them," Mazeroski said. "If they came back (to Pittsburgh) all the time, it wouldn't mean much."
Nearly five decades later, it remains the only walk-off home run to win the seventh game of a World Series, a fact that astonishes Mazeroski. As a kid, he imagined such heroics while swinging a broomstick in Skunk Hollow, his home in the backwoods of Ohio. He reflected on that just before smacking Ralph Terry's 1-0 pitch over the 406-foot mark of the wall for a 10-9 victory that delivered Pittsburgh its first World Series title in 35 years.
Mazeroski will sign autographs today at the Parade of Champions fan festival at the Sen. John Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum in the Strip District, and will throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the opener of the Yankees series.
"I got to live a dream. It was the dream just about every kid who plays baseball has," Mazeroski said. "I used to throw stones and hit them, and I was always Babe Ruth who hit the home run to win the World Series. To really live that moment, it's something I can't explain."
A World Series to remember
As clear as his memory of the series-winning home run is Mazeroski's recollection of ElRoy Face walking in from the bullpen to save three games, of shortstop Dick Groat returning after missing a month with a broken wrist, of outfielder Bill Virdon's catch in left-center.
Like Mazeroski, other former Pirates have perfect recall, perhaps more so than any other moment of their career. Groat was later traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, and knocked in a run with a groundout in Game 7 of the 1964 World Series win. Yet he can't describe it in the same detail.
"We beat the Yankees in '64 with the Cardinals, and I can't remember much of that seventh game," Groat said. "The Yankees series here in Pittsburgh was just unique."
What is perhaps best remembered about the series, save Mazeroski's final homer, is that the Yankees set club and World Series records with 91 hits and won their three games by a combined total of 38-3, while the Pirates won by scores of 6-4, 3-2 and 5-2 before the decisive seventh game. Those outcomes apparently affected the Yankees much more.
"There were so many ups and downs," Groat said. "People overlook this: When you lose 16-3, 10-0, 12-0 -- all those scores are vivid in my mind -- there's no second-guessing in the clubhouse. We got our (butts) kicked. We'd been around for a while, and we'd been in defeats like that before. You shower and go home. If you've never been in that position, you don't realize getting beat that badly there's no embarrassment. The Yankees were a great team. I slept well at night, as well as I could in a World Series."
It started with Mazeroski's first home run of the series, long since forgotten. In the fourth inning of Game 1, with the Pirates clinging to a 3-2 lead, he smashed a two-run homer over the scoreboard in left field. The Pirates won, 6-4.
"That home run is never, ever mentioned," Mazeroski said. "If I tell somebody that I hit a home run in the first game, they say, 'You did?' "
1960 Topps
Forgotten hero
Even more overshadowed than Mazeroski's first home run was Hal Smith's three-run blast in the bottom of the eighth in Game 7, which gave the Pirates a 9-7 lead.
"That's the biggest forgotten home run," Groat said, "in the history of baseball."
Smith, who replaced Smokey Burgess at catcher, stepped to the plate with Groat on third and Roberto Clemente on first. Jim Coates fired a fastball that caused Smith to leave his feet while swinging and missing. The second pitch, to the same spot, was a 420-foot shot that cleared the left wall.
"That World Series was the highlight of my baseball career," Smith said. "Very seldom do you get to play in a World Series, much less hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth in your own ballpark to put you two runs ahead."
The lead dissolved when the Yankees scored two runs in the top of the ninth. Mickey Mantle singled in Bobby Richardson, and Berra scored Gil McDougald on a fielder's choice to tie the score, 9-9. A dejected Smith said to Bob Skinner, "I guess I wasn't destined to be a hero."
That destiny belonged to Mazeroski, whose thoughts drifted back to how the Yankees always seemed to come back and beat his childhood favorites, the Cleveland Indians.
"Hal Smith's home run was a big, big, big home run," Mazeroski said. "I thought that won the game for us. I was all set for the celebration after he hit that. All we had to do was get them out. When they tied it, I was kind of in shock. I was thinking, 'How in the world did they come back?' All that stuff was going through my mind."
Man of the moment
Somebody finally snapped Mazeroski out of that trance, telling him he was batting next. He was set to lead off the ninth, and to this day doesn't know if it made a difference in whether he was more relaxed under the circumstances.
"I know when I went to the plate, I was not trying to hit a home run," Mazeroski said. "I was just trying to hit it hard somewhere."
Mazeroski smacked Terry's pitch toward left field and knew right away that Berra wasn't going to catch it on the fly. With his back to the infield, Berra was preparing to play the carom off the wall.
"I had a feeling it was going to at least hit off the wall, and I'm going to bust my tail and try to end up on third if Yogi misplays it," Mazeroski said, "until I rounded the base and heard the crowd. Then I knew it was gone. I was just about to second base, and I just about floated in. I was thinking, 'We beat the Yankees! We beat the Yankees!' "
Mazeroski has played golf with Terry -- who redeemed himself with a 1-0 Game 7 victory over San Francisco to win MVP honors in the '62 World Series -- and sees Berra at the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, N.Y.
"I always tease him and say that ball cleared the fence by 20 yards," Mazeroski said. "He always says it scraped the wall and just barely got over."
That was no matter to veterans like Groat and pitcher Bob Friend, who were with the Pirates when they set a major-league record with 112 losses in '52. Thanks to Maz's homer, they had reached the pinnacle. Groat, of Swissvale, called it the "greatest thrill I ever had in sports."
"I was a Pirates fan all my life," Groat said, "so you can say I went from the bottom all the way to the top in my hometown, which meant all the more. We were a team of destiny that year, in every way. To beat the Yankees means more than beating anyone else."
To this day, Mazeroski is constantly recognized by strangers because of the '60 World Series game-winning home run. He even tells a tale about a gambling addict from Cincinnati, who bet so heavily on the favored Yankees that he quit cold turkey afterward. Maz's homer didn't just win a World Series, it saved a marriage and family.
Yet Mazeroski has become so synonymous with the shot that some believe it detracted from his reputation as the best defensive second baseman in history. He wasn't inducted in the Hall of Fame until 2001, almost 30 years after he retired.
"Forget the home run. Bill Mazeroski was the greatest second baseman the game has ever seen," said Groat, who spent seven years turning double plays with Maz. "I can say that with a lot of authority because I played with him for many years. When I look back on my baseball career, I can never recall him giving me a throw at second where I was going to get killed. It was just a pleasure to go out and play next to him every day.
"I don't care what he hit. The runs he saved and the things he did defensively speak for themselves. He's a Hall of Famer even if he never swung a bat, just for what he did on defense."
Yet that swing of a bat -- and the unforgettable home run trot with the rejoicing hero wildly waving his cap that followed -- immortalized Mazeroski and the '60 Pirates.
"Seeing Maz waving his cap and going around the bases, it's probably one of the greatest moments in World Series history," Friend said. "A walk-off home run to win the Series in the seventh game, it's never been done again. That thing will last forever."
Kevin Gorman can be reached at kgorman@tribweb.com or 412-320-7812.
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