Mazeroski’s Game 7 homer against Yankees still favorite

The mound had not yet been lowered, there were no playoffs and the term “walkoff” would not be coined for another 40 years or so.

We were deep into the Cold War, Dwight Eisenhower was in the final months of his presidency and John Kennedy and Richard Nixon were in a neck-and-neck campaign to succeed him.

So the World Series, contested in 1960 by the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates, served as it often had — and continues to do — as a welcome respite from the trials of the day.

It also provided the most enduring vision of the Fall Classic for a third grader at Marcus Whitman Elementary School in Cowiche.

Thursday, Oct. 13 of that year was much more than just another school day. It was the occasion of Game 7, with New York’s Bob Turley matched opposite Pittsburgh’s Vernon Law.

I wasn’t aware of such particulars. But I wanted the Pirates to win, mostly for the same reason that others did — many tended to root for the underdog or were just plain tired of the Yankees’ dominance.

Besides, my Dad was pulling for Pittsburgh, so I did too.

Since the game started at 10 a.m. Pacific time, we waited until noon recess to huddle around transistor radios. And the events were riveting, as relayed by Chuck Thompson, then voice of Baltimore’s Orioles and Colts.

First the Pirates led 4-0, only to have the Yankees, powered by homers from Bill Skowron and Yogi Berra, go ahead with a run in the fifth and four in the sixth.

That’s all I knew when school ended at 3 p.m., and I ran to get on the bus and sit in the seat directly behind the driver, who also was my father.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Pirates won, 10-9,” Dad said, smiling. “They were ahead 9-7 going into the ninth, the Yankees tied it in their half of the inning but then Bill Mazeroski won it in the bottom of the ninth. Led off with a homer over Yogi’s head in left.”

“Wow,” I thought, sitting back in the seat. “I wonder what it was like?”

I would later learn, thanks to Walter Cronkite.

In those days sports had no regular segment on local or network TV, but on the CBS Evening News that night Cronkite gave an account of the game and narrated its dramatic ending as black-and-white film showed Mazeroski swinging, Berra in futile chase to the ivy-covered wall in old Forbes Field, and then a jubilant Mazeroski bounding around the bases, waving his hat as fans flooded the field.

His homer had come on the second pitch from Ralph Terry, a one-ball, no-strikes offering of which Terry later said, “I don’t know what the pitch was. All I know is it was the wrong one.”

Some 40 years later I met Terry under what for him were much happier circumstances.

After ending his baseball career in 1967 (he had a 107-99 record, a 3.62 ERA and 1,000 strikeouts), Terry played professional golf.

During a Senior PGA Tour stop at Inglewood Country Club in Kenmore, near Seattle, I noticed that Terry was among the early-round leaders and waited for him to complete his round. After he signed his scorecard, I introduced myself.

Terry seemed happy that someone wanted to interview him, and a fascinating conversation of some 30 minutes followed.

Knowing that I worked for The Bremerton Sun, he happily told me that while visiting a Navy buddy there during his early big league days, he and his friend had been thrown out of at least seven taverns on one celebratory evening.

We also discussed baseball, though I had neither the nerve nor inclination to mention the Mazeroski homer. Terry had, after all, won Game 7 against the San Francisco Giants in 1962 was named Series MVP.

He spoke of the good old days with Berra, Mickey Mantle and other Yankee legends, and said Mantle could hit a golf ball farther than anyone he’d ever seen.

“And he’d really let it fly,” Terry said in a pleasant Oklahoma drawl, “if you ever got him mad.”

Following was a recollection of a round including himself, Mantle, Berra and Skowron on a hot day near Dallas, when Mantle became infuriated after missing a short birdie putt. On the next hole, a 368-yard par 4, Terry said Mantle drove the ball past the green, through a fence and out of bounds.

“None of us said a word,” Terry recalled. “He’d have killed us if we had.”

While shaking his hand at the conclusion of the interview, I was asked to bring a copy of my story to the tournament the next day, and was happy to oblige.

“Thank you, son,” Terry said when I handed him the paper, smiling at the headline. “Maybe one day I’ll get to Bremerton again and you and I can hit a few of the taverns I haven’t been thrown out of.”

He never did, of course, but it didn’t matter.

And if the experience didn’t reverse my feeling about the 1960 homer, it at least has been softened.

I’m still glad Mazeroski hit it, but wish Terry hadn’t thrown it.

• Roger Underwood can be reached at 577-7694 or runderwood@yakimaherald.com