Pirates Fans Gather At Forbes Field Wall For Annual 1960 World Series Listening Party
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Pirates fans will never forget Bill Mazeroski's home run, which beat the mighty Yankees in the 1960 World Series.
Now, 55 years later, they gather at the remains of Forbes Field wall, to hear that game, once more.
"It's the only Game 7 in World Series history which ended with a walk-off home run."
Herb Soltman and the Game 7 Gang host the annual reunion. He was in Forbes Field for that seventh game.
"I ran down the aisle, and jumped over the rail, and made a left turn past the dugout, and headed for home plate," he recalls, "and got caught up in the several hundred people in the mob."
Then-fifth grader Joe Parknavy was heading toward his school bus that day, when he heard the driver yelling.
"I said what happened? And he said, 'Maz just hit the home run'. And I went, 'Ohhh! I missed it,'" he says.
It all began when the late Saul Finkelstein came out to the wall, Oct. 13, 1985, and listened to the game on his cassette recorder. He came out year after year after that. More and more people joined him, reaching a peak of some 1,500 fans in 2010.
Former Pittsburgher Jo Cowling came all the way from Washington State.
"I'm a baseball fanatic, and here I am to listen to this," she says.
Arlene Neustein celebrates a family member.
"This is Lenny Levy," she says, pointing at his photograph. "I'm his niece. And Lenny Levy was the 1960 bullpen coach."
Irene Abel and her daughter come each year. She met her future husband in the downtown celebration.
"We started dating after that. And a year later, Oct. 13, we became engaged," she says.
"If he hadn't hit his home run, my brother and I probably wouldn't be here today," her daughter adds.
Meanwhile, the broadcast comes to an end, and the crowd cheers a memory that never grows old.
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