I’m not sure I can say anything about Bill Mazeroski that hasn’t been seen in print since his death at age 89 on Feb. 20. His humility and dignity were traits we’d like to see more of in today’s athletes.
When I was growing up in the Ohio River village of Brilliant, my father would point to our local boys when they were playing on television – Maz with the Pirates, Lou “The Toe” Groza with the Cleveland Browns, John Havlicek with the Boston Celtics, and the Niekro brothers – Phil and Joe – who pitched for various teams.
“He grew up just down the road,” Dad would say. “He didn’t have anything more than you have, maybe less.”
It was Dad’s way of telling me that dreams were obtainable if you had the grit and worked hard. He was big on making sure I was putting in the work. Every boy in the Ohio Valley knew that sports, playing collegiately or professionally, provided a ticket out of the steel mills.
I admired Groza, Havlicek and the Neikros, but Maz was my guy. He had grown up a few miles from Brilliant, played sandlot ball with my Great Uncle Paul in Rush Run and took a lot of his meals at the home of my great grandparents, Annie and Joe Barto. I listened to Brilliant grocer George Kennedy – Kennedy’s Fine Meats – tell me the story of how he gave a dirt-poor Maz his first baseball glove.
When he became the second baseman for the Pirates in 1956, every kid with a ball glove in eastern Ohio wanted to be like Maz. When I was nine and got his baseball card in a pack of Topps I’d bought at Williams’ Drug Store, it was one of the greatest days of my young life. (I’ve carried his card in my wallet my entire adult life.)
I can’t remember exactly how old I was – about 11 – when we went to the Vine Cliff Restaurant in Rayland on a Sunday evening. I was looking at the menu when Dad tapped my arm and said, “There’s your boy.”
Maz was sitting in the lounge area with some of his local buddies, eating chicken drums and enjoying a beer. My dad said, “Go over and talk to him.”
I can tell you without question that I would have sooner walked up to Jesus Christ. “No,” I said. “You can’t just walk up to Bill Mazeroski and start talking to him.”
He was the hero of the 1960 World Series, an all-star and Gold Glove winner. My 11-year-old self didn’t realize that he was also one of the most humble and approachable human beings on the planet. To me, he was simply bigger than life.
Dad walked me over and said, “There’s someone here who would like to meet you.”
He couldn’t have been nicer. He asked me if I played baseball, and I probably told him more than he wanted to hear. (I’m relatively certain that I didn’t tell him that I once tried to emulate his chewing tobacco habit with a wad of Dad’s plug tobacco. It was the equivalent of a two-hour Gravitron ride.) I still have the autograph he signed on the Vine Cliff placemat.
A few years back, I was working on a memoir about growing up in the Ohio Valley, and I included some passages about Maz taking meals with the Bartos. I certainly believed my great grandmother – She called him Muz. – but I’m a former newspaper reporter, and I wanted to confirm the facts.
I called the Pirates and spoke to the woman who was head of the team’s alumni. She politely said she would ask, but doubted he would respond. She said it was all they could do to get Maz back for events in Pittsburgh. He was private and modest and preferred to stay out of the limelight.
Maz had a great life. I thought of him often when my son was growing up and was a fan of Joe Canseco, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmaro and Pete Rose. Eventually, they all disappointed him.
Not once did Bill Mazeroski ever disappoint me. He was a class act and a humble guy his entire life. When Rick DeLuca, a former colleague of mine at the Martins Ferry Times Leader, asked Maz if it bothered him to be batting eighth in the lineup, he said he was glad just to be wearing the uniform.
I couldn’t have asked for a better boyhood idol.
RIP, Maz.
Robin Yocum 