Gorman: Maz's moment was doubly magical

The story, as my father told it, was that the baby would have been named William Mazeroski Gorman if it were a boy because it was born Oct. 13, 1960, just five hours after Maz hit his historic home run off Ralph Terry in the bottom of the ninth to beat the New York Yankees, 10-9, in Game 7 of the World Series and set off a celebration this city had never before seen.

"That's not true," says my Uncle Gene. "It would have been Danny Murtaugh. I thought he was an underrated manager, and I liked the name Danny. I was looking for an Irish name and it caught my ear back then." His wife, my Aunt Mary K, disputes this: "That's what he says. I never would have given in that easily."

I tell them I like my Dad's version better.

"I think I heard him say that, but we just look at each other and laugh," Gene says. "There was very little chance it was going to be a 'Billy Maz' — and he was one of my favorites. He's one of the most humble athletes ever."

Today is the 50th birthday of that child, my cousin Mary Jean Gorman, and the golden anniversary of the most memorable moment in Pittsburgh sports history. That's saying something, considering the Steelers have since won six Super Bowls, the Penguins three Stanley Cup championships, the Pirates two more World Series titles and Pitt football a national championship.

What separates Maz's homer is that it ended the city's 35-year championship drought, illuminating a town shrouded by the soot of its steel mills with a euphoric eruption that covered the streets in white paper like a snowstorm.

"I grew up believing I was so special," Mary Jean says. "I have always felt that all of Pittsburgh was celebrating my arrival."

Every Pittsburgher has a story about where they were at 3:36 p.m. that day, when Maz's shot sailed over the 406-foot marker of the left-field wall. It's only the greatest home run in baseball history, Bobby Thomson or not, because of what it meant to this city and the stories it left us to tell.

My father, the late Paul "Ace" Gorman — who would have celebrated his 76th birthday yesterday — told me he and a female friend hopped a trolley to Oakland to join the revelry. He ran into buddies, lost his date in the crowd of thousands and left the poor girl to find her own way home.

Safe to say, she never spoke to him again. Not that he cared. Maz was his favorite player for those Pirates, so much that he insisted I wear No. 9 and play second base my first year of Little League some 20 years later.

At Mercy Hospital, Mary K and Gene Gorman were awaiting the arrival of their first child, the family's first grandchild. When Mary K went into labor around noon, an hour before the first pitch, Gene left his teaching job at Central Catholic High School to meet her at Mercy.

But the baby wouldn't arrive until 9 o'clock, so Gene and his mother-in-law, the late Anne O'Toole, watched the game at a shop in the lobby. They took the elevator up and down between innings, checking on Mary K's condition and delivering updates on how the Pirates were faring.

"I couldn't have cared less," Mary K says. "There was a lot more action going on in my room. I went in way too early. I was young, it was my first child. I didn't know any better. It was good, though, because women were coming in and saying they were stuck on the parkway. Traffic was insane."

Even more insane was them spotting a fellow Greenfield kid and Central student, Dick Farrell, on the field trying to congratulate Maz as he rounded third base and following him to home plate. To this day, whenever video of Maz's famous hands-to-the-sky home run trot is replayed, Greenfielders point to their televisions and shout, "There's Dickie Farrell!"

Mazeroski once told me that after touching second and seeing the ball clear the fence, he felt like he was floating the rest of the way. Gene Gorman can relate, as the birth of his daughter made him feel the same way. As far as he is concerned, the cheers outside the hospital room were for his family.

"Little did I know," Gene says, "the whole town was celebrating the birth of my first child."

Never mind that they were cheering for Maz and the Beat 'Em Bucs.

I like Uncle Gene's version better.