Bill Mazeroski 1936–2026 (split from "Baseball Passings 2026")

[Frayed Knot]

HoF'er Bill Mazeroski -- 89

He of the fine hands ... plus that other moment.

[MFS62]

I remember a radio interview with Rogers Hornsby, who threw compliments around like manhole covers. He was asked best second baseman he had ever seen , and he answered “ Bill Mazeroski”. He continued, “ there used to be a magazine called the Rawlings guide. They published issues on how to play the various positions. He said the second base one would have had Maz’s picture on the cover. “

And there was that homer…

RIP

Later

[Edgy MD]

Just want to throw some writerly love out to David Margolick, writing Maz' obituary in The New York Times, which I finally got around to reading.

He does the whole thing backwards from the home run, but takes his sweet time lingering in the moment, telling the story from the Yankee point of view, the Pirates' point of view, Mazeroski's, Bill Terry's, etc., before finally starting the broader story of Mazeroski's life at what seems like 12 paragraphs in, but still find time later to circle around to the story of the boy who recovered the ball.

He also had the good sense to pull a quote from a local Pirates' reporter on the scene that day who somehow lived up to the moment when he filed his game story.

 

“With the crack of Mazeroski’s bat, the problems of the world were forgotten,” the reporter Vince Johnson wrote the next day in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Khrushchev became a noisy, little bore. Ballistic missiles didn’t have the power of a baseball bat. And the recession took a recess.”

 

Un-noted in the obit is that son Darren played a single season in the Expos' system. He was low-average/low-power hitter, but hey, in the only 13 games they have fielding records for him, he turned seven double-plays.

[MFS62]

Ralph Terry.

Later