Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero (21 page)

Thompson’s voice quickened. “He swings . . . ground ball . . . slowly hit off the first base side. Charging is Skowron. He makes the pickup. There’ll be no play and the run scores!” A thunderous roar filled Forbes Field, and Thompson waited for the decibels to lower slightly before continuing. “Clemente hit a slow roller down the first-base way, wide of the bag, about ten or twelve feet to the right, or to the second-base side. Skowron came charging in, made the pickup on the ball.
Had no chance of a play at the plate because Virdon broke with the crack of the bat. And then realized that he couldn’t get over there in time to get Clemente at first base. So the infield hit by Clemente has driven in the sixth Pirate run. Down to third base goes Groat. Two outs. It’s the Yankees seven, the Pirates six. And the batter will be catcher Hal Smith.”

The New York writers went into a tizzy over this play. Where was Coates? they wanted to know. He should have been at the bag to take Skowron’s throw, complained Arthur Daley, but “was probably so busy trying to figure out what his share of the winners’ purse would be that he forgot to cover the bag.” Clemente, racing down the line, was certain that he would have beaten any throw to the bag, and many observers agreed. Coates did not delay leaving the mound, but had to circle around Skowron on his way to the bag. In any case, the Pirates were still alive, sending up Hal Smith, the backup catcher who had replaced Burgess in the seventh. “Smith steps in with two down, runners at first and third, and this ballpark is going crazy,” Thompson reported. An electric current seemed to run through the stands of Forbes Field, every fan plugged in, wired, lit up, a sensation that only late-inning October baseball could create. In downtown Pittsburgh, crowds bubbled on the sidewalks outside department stores showing the game on televisions in their display windows. All work stopped. Thompson returned to the microphone . . .

“Coates into the set . . . he throws . . . takes a strike right down the pike. And Smitty was giving it a good look. One strike to the right-hand batting Hal Smith. Clemente hit a little dribbler off the first-base side, wide of the bag at first and legged it out for a base hit. And Virdon was able to score the sixth run. Now the one-strike pitch coming to Smith. It’s high, a ball. One ball, one strike. Well, the Pirate opportunity in this inning came about on the bad-hop ball that hit Kubek in the throat and knocked him out of the ball game. Now the one-one pitch to Smith. There it is. Swing and a miss, strike two. He really pulled the trigger. One ball, two strikes to Hal Smith. He gave it the big ripple, the Sunday punch, and couldn’t find it. The tying run is at third base in the person of Dick Groat. The go-ahead run is at first base in the person of Roberto Clemente. And now the set, the one-two pitch to Hal Smith.”

On the mound, Coates had decided to climb the ladder, hoping that Smith would swing at a high hard one. “Coates throws,” announced Thompson. “He started to swing and held back. And took it high for a ball. A checked swing. Ball two. Two and two now. And for just a split-second every move in the Pirate dugout came to a stop on that call out there at the plate. It was a high pitch and Smith held back on the swing. So the count at two and two.”

At the plate, Smith stood ready, whispering a quiet mantra to himself.
Meet the ball. Meet the ball.
“Coates into the stretch. He sets. And the two-two to Smith. He swings.” Anyone listening on the radio could hear the sharp crack of the bat. “A long fly ball deep to left. I don’t know, it might go out of here! It is going . . . going . . . gone! Forbes Field at this moment is an outdoor insane asylum! We have shared in one of baseball’s great moments!”

Smith liked to golf low pitches and could tell by the “feel” that he had connected. Coates could tell, too, and threw his glove in the air in disgust. As Smith rounded first base and saw Berra and Mantle stop in their tracks and the ball soar over the 406 sign and far beyond into Schenley Park, he had to fight off the urge to turn a celebratory somersault. Stengel had crab-walked out of the dugout by then and was signaling in Ralph Terry from the bullpen. Coates departed, head down, and Stengel followed behind, his team now losing 9–7. Hoak flied to left, and the Yankees came in for their last at-bat.

Haddix and Friend had been warming up in the bullpen for the Pirates. “You’re the one,” Haddix said, and Friend hitched his pants and marched to the mound. He had been the loser in games two and six, but here was his chance to make amends. He had a rubber arm and wasn’t feeling tired. You can rest all winter, Murtaugh had told him. It was all happening so fast now, and here he was, facing the top of the order. Four pitches later, there he went, heading toward the dugout, distraught, having given up singles to Richardson and pinch hitter Dale Long. Now Haddix was the one. Hoak looked over from third and thought Haddix looked “as cool as fish on ice.” Lefty against lefty, he got Maris to pop up to the catcher. But Mantle, batting right-handed, smashed a line drive to right-center, sending Richardson home and Long to third. The stadium fell silent. Gil McDougald went in to run
for Long, representing the tying run at third. Berra, the feared clutch hitter, slashed a sharp drive to the first-base side. Rocky Nelson, never known for his fielding, snared the ball on a short hop, saving a double, and made a split second decision. Should he throw to second to try for a first-short-first double play or step on the bag for a sure out and then throw to second to try to get Mantle on a tag play? Step on the bag, Nelson said to himself, and as he touched the bag and turned to make the play, where was Mantle? Not heading toward second but sliding back into first. Nelson was frozen in surprise. Mantle swerved to avoid the tag in a brilliant bit of base running. In retrospect, it was apparent that Nelson could have tagged Mantle first and then stepped on the bag for an easy, game-ending double play, but both players were reacting on instinct, and Mantle’s instincts were superior. The tying run scored from third and the game was still on. The next batter, Skowron, hit into a force play at second, and the Pirates raced to their dugout. Nine-nine, bottom of the ninth.

Mazeroski was first up for Pittsburgh.

That was the brilliant last line of Red Smith’s column the next day.

Maz was made for Pittsburgh. He grew up nearby, in Wheeling, West Virginia, and was tough, quiet, modest, ethnic, the son of a coal miner who had lost a foot in a mining accident and died young of lung cancer. For five seasons, since he came up at age nineteen, Maz had struggled to fulfill his potential as a boy wonder. He was up one year, down the next, but had rebounded from a dismal 1959 season to help lead the Pirates to the pennant this year, at age twenty-four, fielding brilliantly and hitting .273 with eleven home runs and sixty-four runs batted in. Like his counterpart on the Yankees, Bobby Richardson, he could seem lost in the lineup until a tense moment arose, and then his teammates were encouraged to see him walk to the plate.

Now here he stood, No. 9, waiting for Ralph Terry, his jaw working a wad of tobacco. Dick Stuart, the slumping but dangerous slugger, had lumbered out to the on-deck circle, ready to pinch-hit for the pitcher. Stuart was certain that he would hit a home run to win the game. In the dugout, Bob Friend stared down at his spikes, swearing at himself, brooding about his pitching and not getting the job done. Vern Law was hoping, even praying, that all would turn out right. Clemente
sat nearby. He was scheduled to be the fifth batter that inning. He was preparing himself mentally for the possibility of coming to bat with two outs and two on. In the radio booth, Chuck Thompson had almost exhausted his superlatives with all the dramatic plays he had called in the last twenty minutes.

“The last half of the ninth inning,” Thompson began prosaically. “Changes made by the Yankees: McDougald goes to third base. Cletus Boyer moves over to play shortstop. And Ralph Terry of course on the mound will be facing Mazeroski. . . . Here’s a ball one, too high now to Mazeroski. The Yankees have tied the game in the top of the ninth inning. A little while ago, we mentioned that this one in typical fashion was going right down to the wire. Little did we know. Terry throws . . . here’s a high fly ball going deep to left. This may do it. Back to the wall goes Berra . . .”

Third baseman McDougald is still looking toward home plate as the ball sails over his head. The third-base and left-field umpires, neatly aligned along the line, are also looking in. This clout does not have the towering parabola of Hal Smith’s, but the ball keeps going. Murtaugh thinks it will be caught. So does Bob Friend. Mazeroski is not sure, barely looking, sprinting hard to first, no easy home-run trot. From the Pirates dugout, Ducky Schofield, the reserve infielder, watches Berra retreat to the wall and look up, ready to play the ball off the wall. Then Yogi turns and bends and slumps, his knees almost buckling. And it is over.

Behind the ivy wall, the square Longines clock reads 3:37
P.M.
Murtaugh wants to kiss his wife. Unbelievable, thinks Friend. “It is . . . over the fence, home run, the Pirates win!” shouts Chuck Thompson. A staggering roar shakes the stands. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mazeroski has hit a one-nothing pitch over the left-field fence at Forbes Field to win the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates . . .” Ralph Terry throws his glove and stalks from the mound. He has no idea what kind of pitch it was, he will say later, only that it was the wrong one. Maz is dancing, leaping high, like he’s riding an imaginary bronco, waving his helmet instead of a cowboy hat; now prancing around second and taking the joyous homeward turn at third. The diamond is madness, fans rushing forward, a raving, wild-eyed convoy, a boy reaches out, and
then another, men in suits and shirtsleeves scramble into the action, city cops and state troopers with billy clubs race-waddle in from the left-field side, the Pirate dugout empties and forms a buzzing, delirious hive, bobbing behind the plate, waiting, fortunes changed in a second; and now the final steps, the crew-cut hero arriving with all of Pittsburgh in loving pursuit, and the ump clears the way, arms out, and Maz takes a final leap on the plate and disappears, everyone grabbing, pounding, like going fifteen rounds with Floyd Patterson, he thinks, but he’s too happy to feel the pain, and Clemente and a few teammates try to protect him as they bounce back to the dugout and through the underground dimness to the dressing room.

The field is left to the fans, hundreds of them, running aimlessly, singing endless choruses of what Red Smith now calls “the tinny horror entitled ‘The Bucs Are Going All the Way.’” A man in a brown suit brings out a spade and literally digs up home plate and walks away with it. Life is a series of sensations, and here is an unforgettable one for all Pirates fans. For the rest of the afternoon and late into the night, the streets belong to the people. Everything upside down, an act of rebellion at the dawn of the sixties, the establishment losing a first round.

•   •   •

Bob Prince, working the television broadcast with Mel Allen, missed calling Maz’s home run. The Gunner had left the booth early to reach the dressing room in time for postgame interviews. There was a noisy, bustling traffic jam inside the clubhouse door, making it almost impossible to get through. John Galbreath and his son Danny needed an eight-man police wedge to join the celebration. Cimoli, Stuart, Hoak, Face, Mizell, all drenched in champagne, came rushing over to douse the owner. Prince groped around for interviews.

“Beat ’em, Bucs!” Cimoli shouted into the microphone. “Can’t beat our Buccos, tell you that. Yes, sir, we got ’em, we got ’em. They broke all the records and we won the game.”

“Here’s the president of the ball club, Mr. John Galbreath,” Prince said.

“I just want to ask you one question that you asked me,” Galbreath
said, his voice urgent and hoarse. “Have we paid our debt to this city, the people of Pittsburgh?”

“I think you have,” Prince said. “And you’ve given your voice to it, too, haven’t you?”

“I’ll give it all I’ve got,” Galbreath said.

“You wouldn’t trade a Kentucky Derby for this, John,” Prince added, referring to the owner’s obsession with thoroughbred racing.

“You, you’re trying to get me where I’m vulnerable,” Galbreath responded.

By the time Bill Nunn Jr. reached the dressing room, his friend Clemente was sitting alone in the corner, “happy but unconcerned with all the fanfare.” He had been the only player to get a hit in all seven games. He had performed flawlessly in the field. His dribbling hit and dash to first base in the eighth inning had kept Pirate hopes alive. Now he said he planned to use his World Series money to buy a house for his mother in Carolina. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do for her after all she’s done for me,” he said. “I can’t wait to see the joy on her face the first time she sees her new home.”
Nunn noticed that Clemente had showered and was packing his large duffel bag as champagne flew around him.

“What’s the hurry?” the
Courier
editor asked.

Clemente was slipping a glove into the bag. “I catch plane at six o’clock for New York,” he answered. “I stay there tonight and then I head for home.”

“What about the victory party they’re holding for the team? You certainly belong in that group,” Nunn said.

“I don’t like those kind of things,” Clemente said. “There is not fun for me. Last one I went to all I did was stand in a corner.”

A teammate handed Clemente a cup of champagne. He smiled and took a sip, then gestured to his friend Diomedes Antonio Olivo, the forty-one-year-old Latin pitcher, a legend in the Dominican Republic, who did not make the World Series roster but threw batting practice for the Pirates. Olivo, who spoke no English, would accompany Clemente to New York and back to the Caribbean. Nunn noticed that Clemente “paid special attention to a box he had next to him. In it was
a trophy voted to him by Pirates fans as the most popular of all Pittsburgh players.”

Olivo was ready to go. Clemente turned to Nunn and asked if he could give them a ride to the airport. On the way out, Clemente shook hands with Gene Baker, then slipped from the clubhouse and took a side exit, hoping to avoid the crowds. In an earlier conversation, he had told Nunn that he was worried the Pirates would not reward his excellent year with a sufficient raise. “It looks like everything is going to be all right next season,” he said now. He had talked to Joe Brown the day before, and Brown had told him there would be no contract trouble. The general manager also asked him not to play winter ball when he got home to Puerto Rico.