Sunday Morning Coffee — March 1, 2026 — With One Swing Of The Bat
By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV
When Bill Mazeroski, with one swing of a baseball bat, hit the home run to beat the New York Yankees in 1960 and deliver a World Series championship to Pittsburgh, I jumped up and down and then ran around my block, arms over my head the same way Maz did a few minutes earlier in his Pirates uniform.
When Jack Hughes, with one swing of a hockey stick, scored the overtime goal last Sunday to deliver the Olympic gold medal for USA men’s hockey, I wanted to jump the same way but aerodynamically I can’t defy gravity anymore and didn’t try at the risk of an Achilles tear. When I learned that Jack Hughes is a fellow Jew, a member of the tribe, I wanted to run around but that would be a bad sight for my neighbors. So, I just raised my arms in celebration. Hughes, who plays for New Jersey in the NHL, now has an Olympic gold medal on his mantel to go with the bar mitzvah kiddish cup his rabbi gave him 11 years ago.
But I digress. Today is about Bill Mazeroski and his lifelong impact on me. Maz died a week ago Friday at age 89. He leaves behind a legacy and a video clip for the ages. Mazeroski was the first and still the only major league baseball player to hit a walk-off winning home run in a Game 7 of the World Series.
October 13, 1960, was a Thursday and I begrudgingly went to school at Meadowbrook Elementary in East Meadow, NY. It was the final game of the World Series played in the afternoon because there was no such thing as night World Series games back then. It meant way more to me than another day in the third grade but my mom didn’t see it that way. Boo. So, I neatly tucked my transistor radio and cool-for-the-day dual earpieces under the bologna sandwich, three slices of bologna between a couple of slices of Wonder Bread, and a thermos in my very trendy Zorro lunch box. Come one o’clock in the afternoon I suddenly had to use the restroom. Often. If I knew what a prostate was, or even could pronounce it, I would have played the ‘prostate acting up’ card with Miss Reich, our pretty teacher who may have been 22 years old, give or take. Instead, I just raised my hand and said I had to go. I think Miss R caught on pretty quickly. Other boys, dreaded Yankee fans no doubt, also had the same issue that afternoon. It was a urologist’s dream.
School ended at three. A short bus trip got me home by 3:20. I sprinted down to our den, turned on the black and white Admiral television set and after a prolonged and agonizing warm-up, the picture finally came on just as the Yankees scored two runs off Bob Friend to tie the slugfest at 9-9 going to the bottom of the ninth inning. Minutes later, at 3:36 pm, after the Yankees Ralph Terry threw light-hitting Maz a high fastball, the next pitch was over left fielder Yogi Berra’s head, 406 feet into a Forbes Field parking lot and a championship for my Pirates who were huge underdogs in the Series. I leaped in the air and took that run around the neighborhood wearing my cherished Pirates plastic batting helmet. After the game Yogi said, as only Yogi could say, “We made too many wrong mistakes to win.” That one swing of the bat by the 24-year-old Mazeroski, the youngest regular in the Pirates line-up, left Mickey Mantle crying at his locker and Casey Stengel, who managed the Yankees for 12 years and seven World Series championships, out of a job.
After my dash around the neighborhood, I got home winded and waited for what seemed like hours for Dad to arrive. I was a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan because my dad was. That was the way it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? As a kid, the apple should never fall very far from the tree. Dad was at work in New York City, a belt salesman back in those days, and was later than normal getting home. He missed his regular train to stand in front of E.J. Korvette’s appliance store and watch the game on a television they had in the showcase window. When Maz hit the homer, hundreds of Yankee fans just sulked away. Dad clapped, yelled “Finally,” and caught the late train. When his black 1956 Hudson Hornet finally came around the corner I met him on the driveway and gave him a great big hug like the Pirates did to Maz. “We did it Dad, we won!”
Bill Mazeroski not only became a hero for the ages to the city of Pittsburgh but he became mine as well. My Pirates interest only accelerated through the 1960s and even though Roberto Clemente became my favorite baseball player, the hero status I had for Maz was one of worship, never waning.
The years passed, life was in front of me and my daily fanaticism with baseball moved a notch toward the back burner. Sure I was excited when the Pirates won the World Series in 1971 and again in 1979 but it was nothing like the 1960 experience and my impressionable youth which still resonates today. And truth be told somewhere in the 80s I went through a conversion to a Yankees fan but the Pirates will always have a soft spot for me.
Jump ahead a half century from 1960 to 2010 and one of those bucket list items. I had heard about Major League Baseball fantasy camps. These were designed for middle aged to older guys, frustrated because they always wanted to play the game at an elevated level but never had the skill set. Say hello to me. About half the MLB teams sponsored camps featuring old time ball players as guest celebrities. They coached us and laughed at us on the field. However, baseball was only one part of the camp experience. Socialization with other campers and the ex-pros rounded out the days off the field. I had met some guys who had previously attended fantasy camps, the Dodgers and Royals, and couldn’t stop raving about it. Even though I hadn’t picked up a baseball since 1968, I wanted to go to one. My wife encouraged me. The Pirates Fantasy Camp in 2010 was going to be the 50th celebration of the 1960 team. If I ever was going to do it, this was the time.
When I found out eight members of that ‘60 World Championship team were going to be at that camp as coaches that cinched the deal. It was a week in Bradenton, Florida, at the Pirates spring training headquarters. Of course the marquee attraction of the ‘60 team was Bill Mazeroski and he was top billed on the camp brochure. I sent my check, a little over three grand, and went to a local batting cage.
On that January ‘10 opening night of fantasy camp I was star-struck. Former 1960 Pirates like Vernon Law, Bob Friend, Bill Virdon, Joe Gibbon and Bob Skinner were there, mingling and talking with fellow campers. And of course, Maz. I couldn’t fathom then, 50 years later, I would be in the same room as these guys. Less hair, a few more pounds, but who cared—that described me too. Instantly, I was that eight-year-old kid again.
However, I was really 57. By then professionally accomplished. Throughout my career I have spoken at trade shows and conferences to groups of over a thousand attendees. I testified before congressional sub-committees and state legislatures and even did a half-dozen very bad stand-up comedy gigs in front of 400 strangers. But nothing intimated me more than seeing Bill Mazeroski, then 74, right in front of me that first night of camp.
I should have gone over, introduced myself and told him what he meant to me as a kid. Instead, I was gutless. Finally on the second day, my team coached by former Pirates and Yankees manager Bill Virdon, played Maz’s team at McKechnie Field where the Pirates play their spring games. We were the home team and took the field first. I was warming up our infielders at first base, took a look over my right shoulder and here comes Maz to coach first base for the other team. Holy shit! He had a camp roster in his hand and before I could say anything to him, chomping on his trademark cigar, he said, “Hey, Alabama, what are you doing here?” Seemingly Pirates camp doesn’t have much of a following in Birmingham, Alabama, my home at the time. I guess that made me stand out. Short of bowing, I went over and shook his hand. And that started a relationship that I never would have guessed could happen. We chatted between pitches, me asking more questions than I could even think of. His ever-lit cigar blew smoke right at me. The whole situation was surreal. We blew a 6-0 lead but hung on for an 8-6 win. I also walked away with a mild case of emphysema but who cared, it was Bill Mazeroski! The win was the second most exciting thing of the day for me. I ran back to my room in the Pirates dorm to call my dad and tell him about Maz. I was eight years old again.
That night dinner was in the camp dining room. Toward the end of the evening I saw Maz walk outside. Feeling pretty full of myself after that wonderful afternoon on the ball field, I followed him and pulled a real camp rookie boner. Feeling my oats just a bit, I stopped Maz and told him about the adolescent sibling rivalry my brother Mike, three years my junior, and I used to have in the mid-1960s. I’m reasonably sure it was nothing he cared about. Mike was a Yankees fan; me of course a staunch Pirate backer. But our rivalry wasn’t necessarily about the teams; instead it was about the second basemen— Maz and the Yankees’ Bobby Richardson— two of the best in the game but who was really better?
Maz could have easily shooed me away but he didn’t. Much to my surprise he seemed amused. He said, “Get your brother on the phone for me.” I did. Fortunately, Mike answered. “I have someone who wants to talk with you,” and I handed the phone to the greatest second baseman ever.
Maz started by saying to Mike, “So you think Bobby Richardson was better than me?” I’m not sure what happened after that as I could only hear one side of the conversation. My brother was a heck of salesman during his career but I had him as a big underdog in this conversation. The call lasted maybe two minutes. Maz handed the phone back and said, “I just got him straightened out.” Mike then told me, “Well, there is no doubt in his mind now that Bobby Richardson was better.”
Ironically, though Mazeroski was the 1960 World Series hero, Richardson was voted the MVP of the Series by the sportswriters, still the only time a member of the losing World Series team has won the award. If the voting was done after the game, and not when the Yankees had a three-run lead in the eighth inning, I have no doubt that the MVP would have shifted to Maz for his heroics. While Maz was only a career .260 hitter, his defense and his walk-off notoriety propelled him to induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001. He played all 17 years of his career, 1956-72, with Pittsburgh, every game with a big hunk of chew tucked into his left cheek. He won two World Championships in ‘60 and ‘71. Maz was a 10-time All-Star and won a Gold Glove every year from 1963-70. He still holds the MLB record for most double plays turned by a second baseman with 1,706. Bobby Richardson doesn’t. Renowned baseball statistician Bill James said, “Bill Mazeroski’s defensive numbers are probably the most impressive of any player at any position in the game’s history.” As I still remind my brother—‘Bill Mazeroski is in the Hall of Fame; Bobby Richardson has to buy a ticket to get in.’ Case closed.
I was at Pirates camp for three years while Maz was still the main attraction. He was as humble as they came. He never thought the song was about him nor did he particularly relish the attention, but heads turned when he walked into a room. It was a visit from the pope. The Pirates pope. He was larger than life. Maz loved to spend evenings during camp chatting and regaling campers with baseball stories. He was uncomfortable talking about the home run but would oblige because people wanted to. In return all we had to do was always make sure his glass of Chivas Regal was never empty. Those evenings for us were what baseball dreams were made of.
In 2014 as I was writing a book about my camp experiences, I told Maz about the project and asked him if he would consider authoring the foreword and have his name on the cover. The book would ultimately become entitled The Most Wonderful Week of the Year, which perfectly described fantasy camp.
Maz told me he wasn’t much of a writer but he would be glad to share some thoughts that I might be able to use. I said wonderful. Maybe I spoke too soon.
In part Maz wrote, “I’ve played with, against, and watched some great first basemen in all my years in baseball and I can honestly tell you Roy Berger isn’t one of them.” Double ouch!
Bill Mazeroski died peacefully nine days ago on February 20. A part of my childhood died with him.
At eight years old in 1960 never did I think that one swing of a baseball bat would still resonate with me for the next sixty-six years.
Thanks, Maz.
I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger