Mazeroski Day takes Pirates fans back to 1960

Green Tree native Herbert Soltman remembers Oct. 13, 1960, like it was yesterday.

It’s the bottom of the ninth, score tied at nine all. A batter takes the plate with tension thick in the air.

The pitch. The swing. The ball sailing high over the left outfield wall.

With second baseman Bill Mazeroski’s historic home run, the Pirates won the World Series with a 10-9 victory over the New York Yankees.

“People were jumping, hugging, kissing — and that was with complete strangers,” said Soltman, who recalled leaping from his $7.70 first-baseline seats to storm Forbes Field in celebration. “It was just absolutely crazy. Absolute bedlam.”

Forty-nine years later, the Pitt alumnus is still a Pirates fan: He’s the leader of the Game 7 Gang, a group which annually commemorates the victory with Mazeroski Day.

Each year, the gang plays the original radio broadcast of the 1960 game, playing it so that Mazeroski’s game-winning homerun comes at 3:36 p.m., just as it did in the 1960 World Series game.

The gang of seven organizers celebrated the 14th-annual Mazeroski Day yesterday afternoon — along with a crowd of about 125 fans — along Roberto Clemente Drive in Oakland, where a portion of the old Forbes Field outfield wall still stands.

It was there that fans, parked in lawn chairs and sporting throwback Pirates jerseys, enjoyed free food and cheered along with the original radio broadcast.

And for many Pirates enthusiasts, the broadcast brought back fond memories of the unforgettable World Series win.

The series had been tied, with the Pirates and Yankees winning three games each.

But while the Yankees wins had been decisive — 16-2, 10-0, 12-0 — the Pirates never managed more than a three-run score advantage.

Game 7 of the series, however, was a back-and-forth game that saw zero strikeouts — a rare statistic — with Mazeroski deciding the victory with a soaring homerun in the final Pirates at bat.

Though the Pirates would go on to win another World Series in 1979, the 1960 victory was historic for fans.

Dick Jones, a ‘68 Pitt alumnus from North Hills, attended Mazeroski Day with a group of his fraternity brothers.

“I can remember this like it was yesterday, honest to God,” he said, over the crowd.

Jones said the radio broadcast reminded him of ninth grade, when he sneaked a transistor radio into class to listen to the game. His plan was foiled when the teacher spotted the radio and confiscated it.

But instead of keeping the radio, Jones said, the teacher did the unthinkable.

“He said, ‘Jones — come back here and turn it up so we can all hear it,’” he said. “I would have died had they not won this game, I think.”

Also among those gathered at Mazeroski Day were Enos and Irene Abel of Moon Township.

For the couple, Oct. 13, 1960, is more than the date of a historicbaseball game — it was also the day they met.

After work, the then-27-year-old Enos was in a car with his friends, heading to an Oakland bar to celebrate the baseball win.

He wasn’t pleased when the car stopped to pick up Irene, then 24.

“I said, ‘We have enough! We don’t need any more people in the car,’” he recalled with a laugh. “Was it love at first sight? No.”

The couple, who married in 1963, said baseball is still an important part of their lives.

They celebrated their 35th anniversary at Three Rivers Stadium and have been celebrating Mazeroski Day each year since 1995.

“We still are a baseball family,” Irene said. “We still laugh about that.”

During the event, Oakland native Illa Jean Boggs snapped a photo of a model Forbes Field on her pink cell phone.

She said in 1960, she listened to the game on a radio while on the Allegheny River with her husband.

And the victory, she said, was unexpected.

“First of all, we didn’t think we were gonna win,” Boggs said. “Then, in the ninth inning, it was over.”

“Boy, what a wild time it was,” she said.

George Skornickel, a member of the Game 7 Gang, said Mazeroski Day has grown throughout the years.

The first celebration was an informal one, he recalls: Just a casual fan club with one member sporting a boom box and the broadcast tape.

“We just showed up,” he said. “We decided we want to make sure to keep it going.”

Fourteen years later, Skornickel said the planning process remains informal.

But the long-time Pirates fan — who owns more than 250 autographs from members of the 1960 team — said the event is so meaningful that he takes personal days from work to attend.

“It really doesn’t take that much to get it together, but it always turns out as a nice event,” he said.

Soltman said that members of the Game 7 Gang annually organize the event through informal e-mail and telephone meetings.

The planning process, which begins in July, involves booking the tent at Schenley Plaza and a speaker system from the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, organizing food sponsorship from the Katz School of Business and contacting former Pirates with invitations to the event.

While a few members of the Pirates 1960 World Series team — including pitcher Bob Friend — attended the event, headliner Mazeroski did not.

Soltman said he hopes Mazeroski will make an appearance next year to mark the 50th anniversary of the game, as he did in 1990 for the 40th anniversary celebration.

But he was not surprised by Mazeroski’s absence yesterday.

“He’s just that humble,” he said. “Very low-key.”