Big Lead Sports Bar

10/13/2006

A Special Anniversary

Thanks to reader Bernard for this email:
It's Friday the 13th. As in, Friday, OCTOBER 13th: A cherished date in Pirates history, one to acknowledge and celebrate forever. At 3:35 p.m. on this date in 1960, Bill Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth in the seventh game of the World Series. He launched a towering line drive that carried over Yogi Berra and the ivy-draped left-field wall at Forbes Field to lift the Pirates to a dramatic 10-9 victory over the heavily favored New York Yankees. It was arguably the most dramatic home run in baseball history and sealed the Pirates' first World Series triumph in 35 years. The portion of the wall still stands in Oakland, and it's become an annual tradition for Pirates fans to gather at the hallowed spot where Maz made baseball history. One footnote about this wild game: It was the only World Series game of the 20th century to have zero strikeouts and, depite the high score and numerous pitching changes, was concluded swiftly, in less than two-and-a-half hours.

One thing that annoys me: why does MLB always seem to give more love to The Shot Heard Round the World? That won the pennant, not the World Series. The real answer? Two New York teams were involved. Because New York is the only city that matters in sports.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree.

ESPN suffers from SEVERE New York and Boston bias when it comes to baseball.

Why does a mediocre Yankee pitcher's death get 45 bazillion hours of coverage on ESPN? Same reason. (by the way, I'm not trying to disrespect Cory Lidle in any way, just pointing out that if it hadn't been a Yankee that died right in NYC no less, it would've been a 2 minute blurb on Sportcenter).

Shit, the Carlton Fisk walk-off in the 76 (I think) World Series that merely sent the game to Game 7 (which Boston lost anyways) gets more attention than this home run.

Even the Kirk Gibson homer that only won Game 1 of the 88 Series gets more attention than Maz's. (In all fairness though, I think that one gets attention because Gibson was severely injured when he hit it. That and Maz's shot didn't have an iconic call like "I can't believe what I just saw!" to go with it.)

Either way, take away the New York bias's, and most real baseball fans will agree that Maz's homer was the biggest home run in baseball history.

Anonymous said...

No kidding. Just imagine if the Yankees, Mets or Red Sox ever win a series in Maz-like fashion. We'd never hear the end of it. Maz' homer and Joe Carter's homer to beat Philly in '93 are much more dramatic than the Thompson homer.I am so sick of New York being considered the sporting home of America. Consider Joe Namath. I know he's a Beaver Falls guy but if he would have played in St. Louis or Cincinnati or Buffalo he would have been just another quarterback. As it is, by playing in New York he made it into the Hall of Fame despite a mediocre career.