50 years of a-Maz-ing memories

Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski was a seven-time All-Star, won a Gold Glove eight times and has a career total of 1,706 double plays -- including 161 double plays in a season. But he'll always be remembered for a home run in game seven that won the Pittsburgh Pirates the 1960 World Series.

A new statue commemorating that historic homer will be dedicated Sunday near the PNC Park Right Field Gate on Mazeroski Way before the Bucs' game with the Washington Nationals.

We spoke by phone Wednesday as preparations continued for another big Maz day.

Q: You once said that the Pirates retiring your number was the greatest thing that ever happened to you. Then you're standing there at Cooperstown, and now you are going to have this statue outside PNC Park. What do you do after this• This is going to be kind of hard to top.

A: I don't think you can top this here, these last two, anyhow. Even the street being named after you is something. Holy hell, I don't know. That's above and beyond anything I dreamed of.

Q: What were your goals when you were growing up?

A: All I wanted to do was be a major league ballplayer.

Q: Tell me about your childhood. You grew up in a one-room house in Ohio?

A: Oh yeah, down there in the valley, the Ohio Valley. ... We just didn't have much, just my sister and I and my mother, and my dad was working out in Akron, Ohio. And we lived on about $10 a week, the three of us.

It was somebody's chicken coop turned into a house. You know, a bedroom and a kitchen and that was about it. ... It was a happy childhood.

Q: You know $10 won't even buy you a lunch anymore.

A: That's for sure. I remember we did that on $10 a week, and ... you know, you had to buy clothes with that and all that. But we got by. Everything worked out.

In the summertime I did the fishing in the (Ohio) river and caught the catfish down there, and that was the only thing that lived in that river in those times, with the dirty mills ... all that stuff coming out of the mills here in Pittsburgh. ...

I wondered if I'd ever make 50 years eating so many fish out of that river.

Q: Speaking of food, I read where some of your teammates were kind of amazed at your eating habits. It's been said that you used to order two Budweisers and two kielbasa sandwiches for breakfast.

A: Oh, that's (Pirates catcher Manny) Sanguillen who brought that up. That's not true.

Q: Oh. Just part of the Maz legend, huh?

A: Yeah. He may have seen it once. That might have been it.

Q: (Former Pirates manager) Danny Murtaugh introduced you to your wife.

A: Well, yeah, pretty much. He just told me to take her out one rainy day there when we got rained out. He said, "Take that girl out." I said, "No." He said, "You're going to take her out. Ask her out." So I did and that was it.

Q: Why did you initially say no?

A: I don't know. I was scared of girls.

Q: How long have you guys been married now?

A: Oh, about 52 years.

Q: Well, something must have worked, huh?

A: Well, yeah. It was great. It worked all right.

Q: What was it like playing at Forbes?

A: I liked Forbes Field. You had to get used to that infield; it was a nasty infield. It was hard and soft. ... It wasn't consistent. In fact, most of the teams that come in, some of their players, infielders, wouldn't take ground balls on it. They didn't want to get any bad habits.

And I had to play on that every day, or we did. ... But you get used to it.

Q: How has the game changed since you played?

A: Oh, well, the pitching has changed. ... The pitching is a little more watered down than it was when there was 16 teams in both leagues. There's twice as many pitchers now as there was in those days. And they only go six innings.

And then you've got your setup man, your stopper and all kinds of stuff like that. And then the DH (designated hitter) in the American League, and that kind of stuff.

Of course the salary structure has changed a little.

Q: What were you guys paid back then?

A: If we made 50 grand we were big-time.

I think the big guys, you know the (Willie) Mayses and the (Hank) Aarons and those guys, made 100, and the (Mickey) Mantles and the (Joe) DiMaggios something like that, you know.

Q: These guys are throwing at 100 miles an hour now.

A: Well, some of them, yeah.

Q: Was there that kind of speed in your day?

A: (Sandy) Koufax had it. There were a bunch, quite a few guys that threw hard like that in our days.

Q: What are your thoughts as you look back?

A: Oh, that's fantastic. I don't have the words to explain it.

It's a lot like hitting that home run. I don't know enough words to explain how I felt. ... It's just a great, very great feeling.

And to see a statue up -- I don't know what in the world to think of that.

Q: Do you still think about that homer every once in a while?

A: Well, I have to think about it because just about every day somebody asks me about it. It hardly ever goes away, which is a good thing. It's nice.

I didn't think it would last 50 years to be a big deal. I thought I just hit a home run and it was over with and we won the game.

And here it is 50 years, and they are still talking about it.