Golden Memories of Bill Mazeroski's Home Run in Steel City

PITTSBURGH -- If an American boy loves baseball and he is not yet in his teens, he probably does not think too much about growing up to be president or making the most money or marrying the prettiest girl.

Instead, he might define ultimate fulfillment as hitting a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series.

In this fantasy, the home fans would cheer him and his teammates would hug him and he would dash around the bases waving his batting helmet as the baseball world tipped back its cap to him, forever.

Bill Mazeroski did just this almost a half-century ago for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the New York Yankees at Forbes Field in the afternoon sun and shadows on Oct. 13, 1960.

Mazeroski's home run may be, so far, the ultimate moment of triumph in the history of Major League Baseball -- and, yes, that includes the Bobby Thomson home run, too.

Mazeroski's deed will be feted again Sunday outside PNC Park, when the Pirates unveil a 14-foot, 2,000-pound bronze statue showing Mazeroski in his joyous home run trot 50 years ago.

"I can't wait to see Bill's face.'' said Susan Wagner, the sculptor. "He's thrilled. He has tears in his eyes all the time.''

The dedication will take place on Mazeroski's 74th birthday but that is not the event's most poignant backdrop. In the last month, both Thomson and Joe L. Brown died.

Thomson's home run won the National League pennant for the New York Giants over the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in 1951. Thomson's swing would likely rank either second or first on most lists of baseball's peak moments.

Brown was the general manager of the 1960 Pirates. Decades later, Brown helped get Mazeroski and his .260 career batting average inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001 through the Veterans Committee.

And the unveiling of Maz in bronze coincides with a moment of acute embarrassment for the Pirates, one of baseball's bedrock franchises. They played in the first World Series, in 1903.

With the worst record in the majors this season, the Pirates will finish their 18th consecutive year under .500, the worst streak ever in America's four major team sports.

Recent revelations about their finances, reported by The Associated Press, showed that Pirates' ownership accepted almost $70 million in revenue-sharing money from more successful teams in 2007 and 2008 while slashing payroll. The Pirates made about $34 million in profit over three seasons from 2007 through 2009, the report showed.

The leaks forced owner Bob Nutting -- who helped unveil a model of the Mazeroski statue last winter -- to discuss money recently with a group of Pittsburgh journalists.

"The presumed implication that anyone in the ownership group is lining their pockets is inappropriate,'' Nutting said. "It's not happening.''

So this Sunday -- by a breathtakingly beautiful ballpark amid water, bridges, hills and a glittering city skyline -- memories of a cherished past will flow through the team's grim present and toward its uncertain future like three rivers in confluence.

"I had my number retired, then I went into the Hall of Fame,'' Mazeroski said earlier this year at a preseason fan festival. "Then you get a street named after you. How can you get a better life than this? Now, I get a statue.''

Mazeroski said this in January when the statue was announced and a model displayed. He did not respond to multiple requests to be interviewed for this story. Although Mazeroski makes occasional public appearances, he is famously elusive.

Ralph Terry, the former Yankees pitcher who threw the home-run pitch to Mazeroski, said he wanted to talk to Mazeroski as their anniversary approached.

"I can't get ahold of Maz,'' Terry said. "I don't know what he's doing. I've called him, but he's out all the time.''

Sally O'Leary, a retired Pirates employee who works with the team's alumni, said Mazeroski is cooperative and pleasant when encountered.

"My problem is getting him to answer the phone,'' she said. "He has no cell, no voicemail, no computer.''

Mazeroski plays a lot of golf. He made American history when he was 24 years old and people have wanted to talk about it with him almost every day since.

In a 2008 interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mazeroski said he might have been so keyed up that everything seemed to slow down before Terry's pitch.

"What a feeling!'' Mazeroski said then. "It's something I've never been able to explain. I still get chills talking about it. That's the dream every kid has.''

Dick Groat, the shortstop on the 1960 Pirates, cited Mazeroski's eight Gold Gloves and said he was the best second baseman of his era and deserved enshrinement in Cooperstown.

But it also could be argued that, without the home run -- his second of that Series -- Mazeroski would not have been elevated to the Hall.

His 2001 induction speech was memorable only because his emotion cut it short. The trail of Mazeroski memorabilia stretches from Cooperstown back to the site of the now-demolished Forbes Field at the University of Pittsburgh.

A portion of Forbes' outfield wall still stands in a flower-filled pocket park on campus. Ivy covers some of the bricks alongside a green pole with a blue-and-white flag that says "Forbes Field.''

Next to it is "Mazeroski Field'' with a sign that shows a baseball carrying over a brick wall.

Home plate from Forbes Field is on display in a building nearby. Some other bricks from Forbes have been reconstructed in the riverwalk plaza outside PNC Park not far from the statue.

Some 420 miles away, in Cooperstown's main hall, Mazeroski's plaque says "William Stanley Mazeroski'' and "Maz.''

In a darker room on another floor is the "Autumn Glory'' exhibit with Mazeroski's bronzed bat in a glass case alongside his batting helmet and the "Official National League Rosin Bag'' used by Terry.

The display also includes a ticket stub that says ``Game 7 Rain Check'' for Second Tier Box 103, Seat 5. (Price: $11.00). A few feet away, a video monitor showed color film of Mazeroski running around the bases to make the final score 10-9 for the Pirates.

Terry said both pitching staffs were exhausted that day from a high-scoring Series. "I warmed up five times in the seventh game,'' Terry said. "I left it all in the bullpen.''

After the Yankees tied the score, 9-9, in the top of the ninth, Mazeroski led off the bottom half and Terry's first pitch was high for a ball.

Bring it down, catcher John Blanchard told Terry, warning him that Mazeroski was a high-ball hitter. "I said, 'I know, I'll try,''' Terry recalled.

His next pitch was a slider, not down enough. "About belt high, over the plate,'' Terry said. It carried over left fielder Yogi Berra.

"I thought it would hit the wall,'' Terry said. "It just cleared the wall and that was it. Pandemonium broke loose. They went crazy.''

Remaining subdued was Bill (Moose) Skowron, the Yankees' first baseman, whose last job was to watch Mazeroski's foot touch the bag.

"Yes, he did,'' Skowron said. "He didn't say nothing. He ran around the bases happy as hell.'' Despite all the runs, the game took only 2 hours and 36 minutes before 36,683 fans.

Because it was in the afternoon, fans had hours to pour into the streets for an epic civic celebration. Groat recalled police shutting down the tunnels to ease the traffic congestion.

Vernon Law, the Cy Young Award winner that season, recalled appearing on a local television station that night because "they felt I'd be the only sober one left.''

The Mazeroski moment came on the cusp of eras. It was the last year of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency; John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were debating their candidacies on television.

Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox had just completed his final season. Casey Stengel was about to be fired as manager of the Yankees.

Terry's pitch was the last of a 60-year period in which both leagues had eight teams each and played schedules of 154 games. The following year, the American League expanded by two teams and played 162 games.

Since the Mazeroski blast, the Pirates have twice played in the Series, winning it in both 1971 and 1979.

The only other Series to end with a home run came in 1993 when Joe Carter of Toronto beat pitcher Mitch Williams and the Philadelphia Phillies. But that was in Game 6, not Game 7.

Groat still lives nearby and broadcasts Pitt basketball games on radio. He often visits the old Forbes site on Oct. 13 when the radio broadcast is replayed to cheering fans, an annual event.

Of Mazeroski, Groat said the home run "changed his life completely but it didn't change his personality.'' Law described Mazeroski as "kind of an old country kid who had some success in the big leagues.''

Mazeroski, in past interviews, has reminisced about growing up in West Virginia and Ohio, not far from Pittsburgh, hitting rocks with a stick, hating the Yankees and dreaming of playing in the majors.

"And then I got to hit a home run,'' he said last January. "Here, 50 years has passed and they're still talking about it.''