Walk-Off & Debate - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Walk-Off & Debate

60 years ago today, two significant events in history occurred within a few hours of each other. First was the Pirates’s Bill Mazeroski hitting a walk-off home run to beat the Yankees 10-9 in game 7 of the 1960 World Series. And later that evening the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate was held. That historic election was the first to have the debates televised. I had written about my memories of that election in this previous blogpost, so will focus this post on what I recall about the historic home run.

Maz’s blast was probably the most famous home run in history, and no, I unfortunately was not at the game nor viewed it on TV, but was listening to it on the radio at home with Dad after school while we were building a new corn crib visible just to the right and behind the barn on this 1962 aerial photo of our farm.

On the school bus home, I had heard the Yankees were ahead by a run. Fortunately, our place was the first bus stop, so made it home just in time for the last couple innings. Dad liked baseball, especially the National League, and his favorite Pirates player was outfielder and future Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, so he had the game on the radio. When I arrived, the home team Pirates were down by 3 in the 8th inning, but scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th to take the lead. The dreaded Yankees tied up the game in the top of the ninth after a Yogi Berra RBI. That set the stage for the dramatic home-run. On that bright October afternoon, Mazeroski slugged a pitch from Yankee reliever Ralph Terry over the head of left fielder Berra and beyond the ivy wall at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. It gave the Pirates a 10-9 win over New York in the seventh and deciding game of the World Series.

Today after a walk-off, the hitter typically does a majestic bat flip and trots around the bases soaking in the fans admiration (except during Covid play!), but not Mazeroski. He quickly dropped his bat and zipped around the bases in record time. Good thing, because of the lax or more likely no security in those days, the fans were quickly closing in to mob him as he rounded third. The dramatic moment is recorded for posterity on this Youtube video. After a little research, in an interview years later, Mazeroski explained that he didn’t think the ball would get out of the park because the fence was 425’ away. So he was hustling around the bases to get to third with only one out so he could possibly score the winning run on a sacrifice fly by the next batter. But as he approached second base, he heard the crowd roaring and saw Yogi turn his back on the ball, then he knew it was over the fence and the Pirates had won the World Series. From that moment on, he claims to have “floated” around the bases heading for home.

For nearly 50 years, the broadcast of the deciding game of the 1960 World Series was believed to be lost forever. However, it was discovered in a black and white, five-reel set encased in gray canisters in Bing Crosby’s wine cellar near San Francisco. Crosby, who was a part owner of the Pirates, was superstitious and too nervous to watch the Series against the Yankees, so he went to Paris with his wife Kathryn and listened to the famous game on short wave radio. However, he hired a company to record the game by filming it off a television set so he could watch it when he returned. Pittsburgh broadcaster Bob Prince called the first half of the game, and Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen the second half.

Back then, game-ending home-runs were not called walk-off’s, a baseball term conceived in 1988 by Dennis Eckersley as he was describing to the press what he did (“walked off the mound”) after the Dodger's Kirk Gibson hit a dramatic home run in the first game of the World Series between the Dodgers and A’s, which the Dodgers eventually won.

Who do you think holds the record for most walk-off homers? Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial all had 12. But the Indians Jim Thome had 13. Good company, Jim!

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