October 13, 1960 Revisited

While I'm still on semi-hiatus, let's enjoy a posting from last year that people seemed to enjoy.  I posted it a day early this year, just as a reminder that they'll be gathering at the wall again tomorrow -- if you've never gone, it's worth a trip.

-----

Every year, they gather.

Every year, the heads are a little bit grayer. Every year, there are a few more absent friends. But every year, the old comrades come together in reverence.

It's the same story every year. Same scratchy recording of an ancient radio broadcast. Same commercials. Same broadcasters. Same fall nip in the air in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. Same everything.

The gather at the foot of a wall. An ordinary, red brick wall to you, maybe, but not to anyone who was alive in Pittsburgh in 1960. You can see it in their eyes -- October 13, 1960 means something to them. Something that no one who follows the best team that $180 million can buy will EVER understand.

Same early 4-0 Pirate lead, followed by a Yankee rally to take a 7-5 lead going into the bottom of the eighth.

Every year, the Bucs scratch out one run in the eighth -- followed by three more as unlikely hero Hal Smith hits a three-run homer. Every year, the jubilation going into the top of the ninth gets deflated as the Yankees -- the hated, heavily favored Yankees -- score twice to tie the score.

Every year, precisely at 3:36 p.m., Yankee pitcher Ralph Terry goes into his windup with a 1-0 count on second baseman Bill Mazeroski. Maz swings....

To truly appreciate what 1960 meant to this town, you have to understand how hungry Pittsburgh was for a winner. In 1960, the Pirates were 33 years removed from their most recent trip to the World Series -- a series they lost in four straight to the 1927 Yankees, who are to this day widely regarded as the best team of all time. (The 1960 Yankees, with Maris, Mantle, Ford, and Berra were widely considered to be the second-best -- right up until 3:36 p.m. on October 13.)

Elsewhere in Pittsburgh sports in 1960, the Steelers were jokingly referred to as "S.O.S." -- most people read that as "Same Old Steelers," but you could substitute a different s-word for that second "s" and it would mean pretty much the same thing. In 1960, we were still 12 years away from the Immaculate Reception, and 12 years away from Clemente making the heroic, tragic mistake of boarding an overloaded airplane in an attempt to ease the suffering of Nicaraguan earthquake victims. (Those two seemingly unrelated incidents, the Immaculate Reception and Roberto's death, marked the beginning of the shift of the city's sports passions away from the Bucs and towards the Steelers.)

In 1960, the Penguins were still nine years away from hatching. Pitt football, a national power in the 20's and 30's, had a few mediocre seasons scattered amongst a lot of really bad ones. By 1960, Pittsburgh sports were a joke -- especially tough to stomach for a city that prided itself on its muscular, masculine image.

When the 1960 Bucs, with their promising young right fielder and a handful of scrappers and castaways, won the National League pennant, the city was thrilled. Nationally, and probably even here in Pittsburgh, though, the World Series was considered a foregone conclusion.

Yankees in four.

Even when the Pirates scratched out a tough, 6-4 win in game 1, nobody batted an eye. When the Yanks won games two and three by a combined score of 26-3, the Bucs were written off. But the Pirates managed to squeak out wins in games four and five. When the Yankees rolled to a 12-0 win in game six, everyone just assumed that the Bucs luck and pluck had finally run out.

You can have your "Shot Heard Round the World," or your Carlton Fisk game 6 home run, or whatever other event that gets more press because it happened in a bigger city. Maz's shot was the Shot Heard 'Round Western Pennsylvania, and that, my friends, is good enough. It's good enough.

We live in a world where the big guys -- the ones with the money and the muscle and the clout -- usually get the glory. But every now and then, my friends, David eyes up that Philistine and reaches for his sling...

"There's a swing and a high fly ball going deep to left. This may do it! Back to the wall goes Berra! It is . . . over the fence, home run, the Pirates win! Ladies and gentlemen, Mazeroski has hit a one-nothing pitch over the left field fence at Forbes Field to win the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates!"

Comments

[Smokey]

Nice post. I'm going to forward it to my dad. He goes to the wall every few years to relive the glory.

It's a shame that Mazeroski is now (or at least was) a spokesman for Thermo Twin Windows. Remember those awful commercials?
Window Guy: "Mr. Mazeroski, your new Thermo Twin Windows are here."

B. Mazeroski: "I've been waiting all my life for a bay window!"

It makes me sad, and I don't even care about baseball.