Maz’s homer a shot for the ages

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Yankees left fielder Yogi Berra never had a chance as the homer cleared Forbes Field’s ivy-covered wall with a dozen feet to spare, releasing a pent-up jolt of excitement and a crescendo of joyful noise that Pittsburghers had saved up for more than three decades.

As the Pirates runner rounded second base, he saw jubilant fans screaming and jumping on top of the dugouts. On NBC Radio, a disbelieving Chuck Thompson’s voice rose above the mass hysteria to tell his national audience, “We have just seen and shared in one of baseball’s great moments!”

Inside that trampled-upon Pirates dugout, players still shaking off losses of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0 to a Yankees team that was setting nearly every offensive World Series record celebrated like bat boys rather than a bunch of big leaguers.

The Yankees — the vaunted, hated, dreaded, unbeatable Yankees — seemingly had been beaten by a team known as the Impossible Pirates, who were about to win Pittsburgh’s first World Series title in an agonizingly long 35 years.

Only one problem: Bill Mazeroski wouldn’t bat for another inning.

Baseball celebrates the 50th anniversary today of one of the greatest games ever played, the Pirates’ memorable 10-9 victory over Mickey Mantle’s Yankees in Game 7 of a 1960 World Series that was beyond wacky, beyond description and almost beyond belief.

What’s become lost in all the years is that Mazeroski’s solo home run in the ninth inning, one eclipsed in baseball lore perhaps only by Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard ’Round The World in 1951, might not have been the Pirates’ biggest homer of the game.

Hal Smith’s three-run shot off reliever Jim Coates put Pittsburgh ahead 9-7 and capped a five-run eighth that still ranks as the greatest late-inning comeback in World Series Game 7 history.

“I knew I’d hit it — it was the hardest ball I ever hit at Forbes Field,” said Smith, a platoon catcher who had entered the game only that inning.

Only it didn’t win the game. In the Yankees’ ninth, Mantle pulled off a gem of a baserunning move by eluding first baseman Rocky Nelson’s swipe tag on an apparent double-play grounder, allowing the tying run to score and setting the stage for the only home run to end a World Series Game 7.

Fame can be fleeting, and some of Smith’s teammates have long wondered how it eluded him.

“It’s the biggest forgotten home run in baseball history, in my opinion,” said shortstop Dick Groat, the NL MVP that season despite missing most of September with a broken wrist.

The Yankees lost Game 1 by 6-4 on Mazeroski’s two-run homer, then overpowered the Pirates 16-3 and 10-0.

The Pirates rallied to win 3-2 behind Law in Game 4 and 5-2 behind Haddix in Game 5, both at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27, outhit them .338 to .256, outhomered them 10-4, yet lost. For the only time in his major league career, Mantle cried afterward.

“We made too many wrong mistakes,” Berra said later, as only he could.