PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Phil Coyne, a 90-years-young PNC Park usher, was working Game 7 during the 1960 World Series at Forbes Field between the Pirates and New York Yankees.Chaz Palla/Tribune-Review
Phil Coyne celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this spring, but he flashed a youthful smile when asked about Bill Mazeroski's home run.
"We were all caught up in it," he said. "We couldn't believe it had happened. We were all jumping around. My section was practically cleared. They just jumped right out on the field."
Coyne is among a handful of men who still work as ushers for the Pirates, nearly a half-century after witnessing Game 7 of the 1960 World Series against the New York Yankees at Forbes Field.
Whether they were seated in a fold-out chair along the third-base line or stationed in a section behind home plate, their memories of Mazeroski's game-winning home run -- and the mayhem it touched off -- remain vivid.
"It's something that you've read about and seen," said Buddy Diulus, 76, of Greenfield, an usher along the third-base line at the neighborhood park in Oakland when Maz hit the only Game 7 walk-off home run in MLB history, "but it was truly exciting."
Those visions will be rekindled tonight when the Yankees play the Pirates at PNC Park in their first visit to Pittsburgh since the 1960 World Series.
These days, Diulus works along the first-base line at Pirates' games. Coyne, of Oakland, greets ticket holders in Section 26-27 on the third-base line, in much the same way he has for the past 72 years.
Coyne was sitting in a small metal chair on the third-base line at Forbes Field. He said the atmosphere for Game 7 was different than the previous games. The Pirates had been blown out by the Yankees at Forbes Field twice in the previous week -- including a 12-0 blowout one day earlier in Game 6 -- in front of 38,580 fans.
"The whole series, we were so far behind people started to leave and were grouching," he said. "But that day it seemed like everybody stayed, like they had the premonition that something was going to happen."
While Coyne showed the optimistic fans their seats before Game 7, he couldn't keep them there after the ball cleared the ivy-lined wall in left field, and the Pirates had secured one of the more unlikely World Series championships. Fans streamed onto the field as Mazeroski, waving his helmet in the air, circled the bases.
"I stayed in my place," Coyne said. "There was nothing you could do as far as keeping them off the field."
Tony Delvecchio, 88, of Greenfield was working behind home plate and didn't have to worry about fans rushing the diamond because of the protective screen. He had attended the 1935 game at Forbes Field when Babe Ruth smacked the final three home runs of his career, but he said nothing compared to the 1960 World Series.
"It was crazy," Delvecchio, in his 70th year as an usher, said while standing along the first-base line before a Blue Jays-Pirates game last week. "They were hollering with joy. ... Oakland was a madhouse."
Said Coyne, "We've seen the Pirates in the 1970s with some great baseball teams, but nothing was as exciting as that. This was the first thing that ever happened to Pittsburgh, let's put it that way,"
Coyne lived down the street from Forbes Field and went home as the town celebrated its first World Series title -- or any championship of note -- since 1925.
"I didn't know what was going on downtown and even in Oakland," he said. "I went to work the next day and found out they tore up the town."
Said Diulus, "It was wild. We got out of there. I walked home, but I never came back to Oakland that night. It was too much."
There was a sense of disbelief. The Yankees had hit a record .338 as a team, yet somehow failed to win their ninth World Series in 14 years.
Coyne recalled how spirits were so low when the Yankees beat the Pirates, 16-3, at Forbes Field in Game 2. Coyne had invited his mom, using the free ticket in right field that each usher received for one World Series game. It was her first baseball game at nearby Forbes Field.
"The Pirates got killed and she left in the seventh inning," Coyne said. "She came over and saw me and said, 'How can you put up with this? Do they do this all the time?' ''
John Grupp can be reached at jgrupp@tribweb.com or 412-320-7930.
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