Maz Forever!

Posted By Cliff Tuttle | October 10, 2010

No. 517

For those of you who don’t live in Western Pennsylvania, an interesting story has developed here.  Fifty years ago this week, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the 1960 World Series by defeating the heavily favored New York Yankees in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game when second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a towing home run over the scoreboard.  In this town, we’ve all seen the grainy film of the pitch, the hit, the sight of the ball clearing the scoreboard and Maz dancing around the bases while the crowd surged onto the field.

But for decades, that’s all we saw.  In that era, nobody kept the film.  It was a live broadcast and nobody had a film of the game.  At least until now.

Bing Crosby, a minority owner of the Pirates, left the country because he was sure that he would jinx the Pirates by watching the game.  He ordered a film of the game to be made for him to watch later.  Amazingly, that film turned up recently in Crosby’s basement.  It is the only copy of what many call the “greatest World Series Game of all times” known to be in existence.

So Pittsburghers, whose baseball team just set the all time record for consecutive last place seasons, are going to the World Series this year.  The 1960 World Series, that is.

Which brings me to an observation about Pittsburgh and its sports teams.  Some national sports publication, can’t remember the name, recently declared Pittsburgh to be the No. 1 sports town in America.  While the award-givers were undoubtedly thinking of fan support for the current winning football and hockey teams, it might be observed that its easy to support a winner.  Pittsburgh supported a perennial loser in baseball for two decades and, before it came alive in 1959, for the better part of five decades before that.  They did the same thing for the Steelers during the decades before they started winning championships in the 70’s.

In fact, if anybody ever made a study of attendance records for last place major league teams, Pittsburghwould probably win hands down. Such loyalty speaks of a shared sense of community that can’t be found in any other large city in America.  That’s something to cheer about.

CLT

Welcome

CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

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