This Sunday, October 13, Pittsburgh Pirates fans will once again gather at the remains of the Forbes Field outfield wall. It will be the 64th anniversary of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, won by the Pirates over the mighty New York Yankees, 10-9, on Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, setting off the biggest party ever seen in Pittsburgh.
Pirates Fans to Celebrate 1960 World Series at Forbes Field Wall
“They broke all the records, and we won the game!” exclaimed outfielder Gino Cimoli during the postgame interview in the Pirates’ raucous clubhouse. Indeed, the Yankees flexed their muscles and hit .338/.383/.528 in the Series to the Pirates’ .256/.301/.355. The Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27. The Yankees won their games by scores of 16-3, 10-0, and 12-0. Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson went 11-for-30 in the seven games, with a grand slam and 12 RBI. That performance earned him the World Series Most Valuable Player Award. It’s still the only time the Series MVP came from the losing team. (Mazeroski wouldn’t have been a bad choice. He was 8-for-25 with two home runs and five RBI. His RBI was the margin of victory in three of the four Pirates victories.)
Game 7 and a Dead Cat
Game 7 was one wild game. The Pirates led, 4-1, after five innings with Vern Law, a 20-game winner and the National League Cy Young Award winner in 1960, on the mound. However, the first two Yankees reached base in the sixth. Manager Danny Murtaugh then turned the game over to his bullpen ace, Roy Face. The Yankees got four runs against Face in the sixth, the big blow being a three-run homer by Yogi Berra.
Saul Finkelstein had given up hope at that point. The seventh grader from Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood skipped school to watch the game on television. He figured it was a good time to bury his cat, who died the night before, in the backyard.
After the Yankees added two more in the eighth, their 7-4 lead seemed insurmountable. But the Bucs roared back in the eighth inning as Finkelstein resumed watching the game. The inning began with a pinch-hit single by Cimoli. Then Pittsburgh got a break. Bill Virdon’s apparent double-play grounder took a bad hop and struck Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek in the Adam’s apple. Two runs and two outs later, catcher Hal Smith’s three-run homer capped off a five-run rally. The Pirates were ahead, 9-7. Finkelstein always credited his cat for the rally. Hey, whatever works.
Alas, the Yankees, being the Yankees, stormed back with two ninth-inning runs, setting the stage for Mazeroski’s heroics.
“Forbes Field, the World’s Finest Baseball Grounds”
In 1903, Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss purchased the land for Forbes Field in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section, near Schenley Park and the Carnegie Library. He wanted a better alternative to the Pirates’ then-current ballpark, Exposition Park, situated on Pittsburgh’s North Side. He began to push for its completion in 1909, anticipating that his Pirates would compete in that year’s World Series. Forbes Field officially opened on June 30, 1909. “Forbes Field, the World’s Finest Baseball Grounds,” trumpeted the headline in the June 27, 1909 edition of The Pittsburgh Post. “An Athletic Park, Far in Advance of Anything of Its Kind, to Be Opened to the Pittsburgh Fans This Week,” said the subheading.
Dreyfuss was a better baseball handicapper than he was an architect. The Pirates did indeed win the 1909 World Series over the Detroit Tigers. But Dreyfuss had a bad survey. Part of the outfield wall was constructed on part of Schenley Park, land that Dreyfuss didn’t own. City officials decided to let it go, rather than have Dreyfuss tear down and redo that section.
“There Wasn’t Much Flubdubbery”
“The park is located in one of the most accessible spots in the city, being in a position that can be reached by many car lines,” said The Pittsburgh Press on April 18, 1909. “This fact will greatly augment its popularity and the great crowds will be cared for with a minimum of inconvenience.” Present-day Pittsburghers, frustrated while driving around the Oakland section looking for parking, will find those statements amusing. The Pirates’ subsequent homes, Three Rivers Stadium and PNC Park, were built on the North Side, a short walk from the site of old Exposition Park.
“There wasn’t much flubdubbery,” said longtime Pirates public address announcer Art McKennan, describing Forbes Field to John McCollister, author of The Bucs! The Story of the Pittsburgh Pirates. That had to have been a huge relief to haters of flubdubbery throughout the Pittsburgh area.
History was Made There
Dreyfuss hated cheap home runs. Thus, Forbes Field measured 457 feet to dead center field, 406 and 408 feet to the left and right field power alleys, and 365 and 375 feet down the left and right field lines. The batting cages were stored at the center field wall during play because batters rarely hit balls that far. Oddly, despite being a pitcher’s ballpark, Forbes Field never saw a no-hitter.
The Pirates won Game 7 of the World Series at Forbes Field in 1925 and 1960. Babe Ruth, playing for the Boston Braves, hit the final three home runs of his career there in 1935. Forbes Field hosted other events as well.
The Pittsburgh Steelers divided their home games between Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium until 1963. Forbes Field was the site of perhaps the greatest upset in college football history. That’s when Carnegie Tech beat undefeated Notre Dame, 19-0, on November 27, 1926. Notre Dame’s legendary coach Knute Rockne felt so assured of a victory that he skipped the game. Instead, he opted to attend the Army-Navy game. (Today the former Carnegie Institute of Technology is known as Carnegie Mellon University. They still play football, competing in Division III.)
Forbes Field was also the venue on July 18, 1951, when Jersey Joe Walcott knocked out Ezzard Charles to take the world heavyweight championship. Boxing was big at the time. On June 18, 1941, the game between the Pirates and New York Giants was delayed in the middle of the fourth inning so that fans could listen to Joe Louis and Billy Conn fight for the heavyweight championship over the Forbes Field public address system.
At the Wall with Saul
Forbes Field was sold to the University of Pittsburgh in 1958. The Pirates leased it from Pitt until the final game on June 28, 1970. As Pitt went about demolishing the venerable old ballpark, its survey revealed that it didn’t own the entire outfield wall. Thus, the wall covering center and right field remains in place, part of Schenley Park. Pitt had no right to demolish it. It was dedicated as a historic landmark in 2006.
Meanwhile, on October 13, 1985, Finkelstein decided to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. He visited “The Wall,” as it’s now known, with a boom box, a Pirates seat cushion, and a hot dog. He sat at the center field flagpole and listened to a tape of the entire radio broadcast. Finkelstein turned that into an annual tradition. At Pirates Fest in 1993, Finkelstein told author Jim O’Brien of his cat and the yearly trek to The Wall. O’Brien published it in his book, Maz and the ’60 Bucs.
Center field, where the 457-foot marker is still intact.
The Event
That’s where I read about Saul. On October 13, 1994, I took a day off work and a leap of faith and trekked to The Wall, hoping Saul wouldn’t mind a stranger hanging out with him and listening to the game. It turned out that another 30 people, give or take, read the same book and had the same idea. The event has since grown. Today several hundred people show up. Former Pirates would attend. Bob Friend, a pitcher on the 1960 team, was a regular attendee until his passing. Face and 1960 National League batting champion and Most Valuable Player Dick Groat sometimes attended. “Maz” himself was there for the 40th and 50th anniversaries.
Today we no longer get former players in attendance. Mazeroski, at 24, was the youngest player on either of the World Series combatants in 1960. That tells you how old the few surviving players are. We still gather every year on the anniversary to listen to the game. A boom box no longer suffices. We use a big sound system provided by the city. The broadcast starts at 1:00 PM sharp. The game ends with Maz’s blast at 3:36 PM. It’s never rained during the event. As I write this, the forecast for Sunday calls for sun and a high of 68 degrees.
Fans are bundled up as they take in the broadcast on October 13, 2022.
The Game 7 Gang
Today the event is organized by a group of men that call themselves The Game 7 Gang. Full disclosure: I’m one of them. In alphabetical order, the others are Ken Blackburn, the newest member, who constructed a replica scoreboard that he dutifully updates as the game rolls along, Steve Neumeyer, gang leader Dan Schultz, George Skornickel, gang leader emeritus Herb Soltman, and John Urso.
We invited our friend Joe from The GAME 7 GANG onstage to tell the crowd about the next Game 7 Gang gathering Oct 13 @ Forbes Field wall @Pirates @BillMazeroski @PGuggenheimer @scotttady @RobPratte @guyovernight @DVERandy @scottmervis_pg Ain’t no other place to be! #LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/MqyISpyysP
— The Forty Nineteens (@FortyNineteens) August 30, 2022
I’ve been there every year since 1994. In 2010, I got there straight from the dentist’s office, where I’d just had a root canal. In 2017, I was there the day before my daughter’s wedding. On that day, I stayed for the first inning to keep my streak alive. Then I headed home to get ready for her rehearsal dinner. COVID-19 canceled the event in 2020. The Pirates graciously stepped in and allowed the Game 7 Gang, along with a small group of invitees of our choice, to hold the event on the outfield warning track at PNC Park. Meanwhile, at The Wall, a group of a couple hundred anarchists held their own event.
Replica scoreboard created by Game 7 Gang member Ken Blackburn.
“Too Happy to Think”
The right-handed batting Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth inning against the Yankees’ right-hander Ralph Terry. After taking a ball high and outside, Mazeroski belted Terry’s high fastball over the left field wall. Left fielder Berra could only look up helplessly. Seeing the ball clear the high wall, Maz began to twirl his right arm, cap in hand, as he circled the bases. Fans, including the usher who was responsible for crowd control, rushed the field and ran the bases alongside Maz. Players and fans, including Soltman, were there to greet him at home plate. As Pittsburgh partied, the Yankees were shocked. Mickey Mantle wept openly in the Yankees clubhouse.
Never a man of words, Mazeroski told Ray Kienzl of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “I was too happy to think. I was really happy. I don’t know what I thought.”
“We kept telling each other we could do it,” continued Maz. “All year we’ve been a fighting, come-from-behind ball club. We always felt we could pull it out, even after the Yankees tied it up in the ninth, but I didn’t think I’d be the guy to do it.”
Editor’s Note: The three photos included in the article were taken by its author, Joe Landolina. They, along with a few others (all taken by Joe), can be found in this compilation.
Main Photo Credit: © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
