This is an AP story that I thought summed up Maz's 1960 World Series winning home run very well:
PITTSBURGH (Oct 13, 1995 - 19:01 EDT) -- October 13, 1960. Ralph Terry. Bill Mazeroski. A 1-0 pitch that stayed too high. A swing of the bat that was timed just right.
Thirty-five years later, baseball still marvels at the enormity of the moment, and the upset it signaled. Mazeroski was one of the great fielders of all time, yet he'll always be remembered for one wondrous wave of the bat.
Mazeroski's home run off the New York Yankees' Terry -- still the only homer to end a Game 7 of the World Series -- is regarded with reverence by fans who reunite every Oct. 13 at the spot it happened.
They gathered there again Friday, at a center field wall that is all that remains of Forbes Field, to listen to the broadcast of the Pirates' 10-9 victory, to trade baseball cards and memories, to rejoice, to cry.
To New York Giants fans, it will always be Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round the World. To Pirates fans, Mazeroski's homer is the historical touchstone of a 109-year-old franchise that has known both unimaginable victory and incomprehensible defeat.
"It was just like this that day," said Bob Friend, who pitched in that Game 7 and returned Friday to remember. "The blue sky, everything. It's baseball weather. You could just feel it."
Or, in the case of Leonard Matty of West Newton, Pa., one could see it -- the same battered, black-and-gold "Beat 'Em, Bucs" hat he wore in Forbes Field's left-field bleachers on that Thursday afternoon so long ago.
"After Maz homered, this whole city celebrated," Matty said. "I didn't get home until 4 o'clock in the morning. A lot of people didn't."
In that wild celebration, two young Pittsburghers caught each other's eye, and they spent most of the evening together. Two years later, Renee and Enos Abel of Moon Township were married -- on Oct. 13, 1962. They celebrated their 33th anniversary Friday at -- where else? -- the center field wall.
"I don't know if they do this anywhere else in any other city to remember any other sporting event," said Jim O'Brien, who wrote a book about the '60 Pirates. "There are people here from Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo who drive here every year just for this. For Maz."
The estimated 250 fans in '60s-style caps, Roberto Clemente jerseys and Forbes Field T-shirts wouldn't admit it, but they also came to remember the '60 Yankees of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Whitey Ford. They were one of the greatest teams of all time and, only a year later, Maris would hit his record 61 home runs and Mantle would hit 54.
But in the most inconceivable World Series of them all, the Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27 and beat them by some of the most one-sided scores in World Series history: 16-3, 12-0 and 10-0. Yet they didn't win.
Bill Mazeroski wouldn't let them.
"I still remember it like it was yesterday," said Chris Pheris, 71, of Greensburg, Pa. "There were people everywhere, but when Maz swung at 3:36 p.m., there was no other sound in that ballpark. Just the ball hitting the bat, and Yogi (Berra) backing up, watching it go over the wall and then dropping to his knees."
Berra couldn't believe it. Neither could the Pirates.
"They broke all the records," outfielder Gino Cimoli said in a pandemonium-swept Pirates clubhouse. "We won the game."
The Pirates, an overachieving bunch in which nearly every single player had a career year, also broke the Yankees' hearts. Mantle, who had three hits in that Game 7, broke down crying, and later called it his worst defeat.
Now, Forbes Field is long gone, but baseball is still played on the very same spot in Schenley Park, on a small Little League baseball field just beyond that center field wall. It is unremarkable, except for its name: Mazeroski Field.
"His homer transcends them all," said Doug Snyder, 38, of suburban Chicago. "There will always be something magical about it."
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