Today is the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in baseball. On October 13, 1960 Pittsburgh Pirate Bill Mazeroski stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series.
The Yankees were the dominant team of the series with Mantel, Maris, Kubek and Richardson the star players. (It would be the only World Series where a player for the losing team (Bobby Richardson) would be selected as the MVP). The Pirates weren't supposed to last four games and the fact that they got to the seventh game was a miracle considering that during the series they were out scored 55 to 27. The seventh game went back and forth with the apparent star being Hal Smith who hit a three run homer for the Pirates in the bottom of the eighth to put the Pirates ahead. But the Yankees came back and tied it in the top of the ninth 9-9.
Mazeroski (a .260 career hitter) was the first batter in the bottom of the ninth. Yankee pitcher Ralph Terry's first pitch was a ball, but the next pitch Maz connected with and sent it over Yogi Berra's head, and the ivy covered wall, for the first World Series winning walk off home run in history. The event is so famous locally that when usher "Woo" Varratti (running behind Maz in the picture) died, it made the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
For you soccer fans out there a "walk off" home run is one that ends the game so the batter rounds the bases and walks off.
I expect everyone to pause at 3:35 today and give a moment of thanks.
2 comments:
Since coming to Pittsburgh I've met nearly 120,000 people who can describe EXACTLY where they were sitting in Forbes Field when the shot was heard. About 4 times capacity, I believe. In any case, I was sitting in my second grade classroom in Glendale, California, where we were listening to the game on a big table radio the teacher (Mrs. Helene, of blessed memory, who was a personal friend of Casey Stengel's, so the moment not a joyful one for her) had set up in the front of the room while we were doing our after-lunch art projects.
When Susy and I visited Pittsburgh (I to meet with the St. Andrew's Vestry) in early spring of 1994, Tim Cunningham and Bill Ghrist gave us a driving tour of the city, and we stopped briefly over in Oakland, behind the Mary Schenley Plaza, so I could get out of the car and stand briefly by The Wall.
A great memory indeed. (By the way, Casey retired to Glendale, and we kids used to go trick-or-treating by his house. His wife would come to the door and handout candies. Little chocolate baseballs.
BruceR
Just got back from the wall. Maz did it again!
Smaller crowd than in the past: I saw Bob Friend, Dick Groat, maybe Elroy Face and Hal Smith. Maz did not come. Someone there said he was at the 40th but not since.
Interesting folk show up for the event: I have seen some of them there since the mid 70s when I arrived in the 'burgh.
Post a Comment