Our city's been blessed by 16 big-league championships between the Steelers' six and the Penguins and Pirates with five each. A quarter of those have come in the past dozen years, to the point we're all familiar with the precise parade route through Downtown.
Maybe because of that, the one championship game that just might have represented the greatest of them all, nearly a century ago, has been all but forgotten.
A common, fun question I'm asked by readers is which single sporting event I'd cover if I could go back in time. And being a columnist, weighing what'd make the most compelling storyline, I've invariably split my answer into three categories:
• Any event at all: I'd forgo any local angle, transport myself to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and document absolutely everything I could about Jesse Owens sticking it to Adolf Hitler. If there's ever been a more transcendent sports story at any level, including the Miracle on Ice, including Jackie Robinson's breakthrough, I'm unaware of it.
• Any single moment: Pivoting back to the local perspective, and apologizing to the Immaculate Reception and Santonio Holmes' catch and Mario Lemieux splitting the North Stars and Marc-Andre Fleury denying Nicklas Lidstrom and Willie Stargell's Baltimore blast ... nothing in the history of our nation's most enduring sport touches Bill Mazeroski's home run. And having gotten to know Maz since then, it'd be that much more special to be there.
• Any full game: Yeah, that'll always be a cold and rainy Oct. 15, 1925, inside Forbes Field in Oakland.
Right here:
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1925 World Series, Forbes Field. - GETTY[/caption]
Pirates vs. Senators, Game 7.
Don't believe me?
OK, it's not like I was there, either, but I've collected every scrap available on this for years, and the story of what took place that day only gets better with each.
In the Pittsburgh Post, this was the front page the following morning:
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PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE[/caption]
"GREATEST SERIES GAME EVER PLAYED," that headline blared.
"GREATEST DRAMA IN HISTORY OF SPORT," was the one on the inside sports section.
And with zero hype.
Bear in mind, first of all, that the World Series was born -- in Pittsburgh, mind you, at the Pirates' behest -- in 1903, so only 22 years earlier. There weren't many comparison points.
Bear in mind, further, that no team had overcome a 3-1 deficit in a best-of-seven series ... never mind falling behind by four runs before coming to bat in Game 7 ... never mind trailing with two outs in the eighth inning and no one aboard ... never mind facing the dominant pitcher of his generation in Walter 'Big Train' Johnson all through that ... never mind the home team taking the field with three future Hall of Famers of its own in Pie Traynor, Max Carey and Kiki Cuyler ... never mind having the sport's commissioner blurt out in the fifth that the weather conditions were about to move him to halt the game and award the Series to Washington, only to have the Senators' owner reject that.
I'm barely clearing my throat on this. Seriously.
But I'll defer, instead, to the brilliant reporting from the scene of the New York Times' James R. Harrison:
PITTSBURGH, Oct. 15 -- In the wettest, weirdest and wildest game that fifty years of baseball have ever seen, the Pirates today proved their right to the mud-horse, twilight and all other championships of the national game. In mire and rain and fog they beat the Senators 9 to 7, and won back the title which went away from here fifteen years ago.
Water, mud, fog, mist, sawdust, fumbles, muffs, wild throws, wild pitches, one near fist fight, impossible rallies - these were mixed up to make the best and the worst game of baseball ever played in this country. Players wallowing ankle deep in mud, pitchers slipping as they delivered the ball to the plate, athletes skidding and sloshing, falling full length, dropping soaked baseballs - there you have part of the picture that was unveiled on Forbes Field this dripping afternoon.
In a grave of mud was buried Walter Johnson's ambition to join that select panel of pitchers who have won three victories in one world's series. With mud shackling his ankles and water running down his neck, the grand old man of baseball succumbed to weariness, a sore leg, wretched support and the most miserable weather conditions that ever confronted a pitcher.
Yeah, I'd be up-cupping old James like crazy in the comments. Dude could turn a phrase.
Anyway, that's all I'm giving you here. Sorry, but I refuse to encapsulate this event. It doesn't deserve that. None of us was there to experience it, but historical accounts at least allow us to relive it.
Here's a detailed retelling I did for the Post-Gazette in 2005, marking the 80th anniversary as well as the modern Pirates' first game in Washington since that Series.
Here's a colorful compilation of written reports from the scene that day, compiled by Gary A. Sarnoff of the Society of American Baseball Research just two years ago.
And here's an invigorating inning-by-inning recap put together by Golden Baseball Magazine, for a feature appropriately entitled, 'The Ultimate Game.' If you pick only one, forget mine and the other one, and choose this.
And here, if only for ambiance, is a collection of silent-film footage from the Series:
I've never been able to interview participants, obviously, or even witnesses. But I've spoken with authors, and their assessment's been universal: This game's both a treasure and, within that, one that'll always be unfairly buried.
As one of those authors, John McCollister, once told me, "How many fans are still around who can recall the 1925 team and explain in detail why Pie Traynor was the greatest third baseman of all time?"
Yep, and especially since 1960 offers its own treasure, arguably superior.
"That still is what people want to talk about in our area," another author, Jim O'Brien, told me. "As great as it was, what Max Carey and company did, it's tough to top what Maz did. And with the time difference, it's even harder. You don't meet those people anymore."
____________________
Why bother sharing any of this?
Partly, out of respect for the franchise's own storied history, a recurring theme all through my criticisms of the current ownership and the previous front office and all the our-team-not-his stuff. The Pirates are a civic institution, as I kept repeating.
But also partly because it feels like there's a trend toward shifting away from sports' early years when doing all-time rankings of any kind. During this shutdown, it seems, there are more such lists than ever, as we're all scrambling for material in this line of work. And of those, it's common to see comments like, 'Well, that was too long ago,' or 'Nobody ever saw that guy play,' or 'Honus Wagner wouldn't be able to hit a Stephen Strasburg fastball.'
To which I'll reply every time: OK, and what would you hope fans say a century from now about Mario or Sidney Crosby or Roberto Clemente or Joe Greene? Would you want or expect them to be similarly dismissed? Would you find it fair to compare their footage to something far into the future after conditioning, equipment and human evolution itself alter the framework of the actual competitions?
I compare players and teams within their own eras, never deviating. Wagner's the greatest player in the Pirates' history because he was the greatest of his National League peers over a decade-long stretch, a claim no one else since can claim. Mario will forever be the greatest overall athlete we'll witness in Pittsburgh because he was the most gifted hockey player since the sport's inception.
Neither of those two things changes because the times change or the circumstances change. That's why I get as defensive as I do about history that dramatically predates me. Because it happened. It counted. It mattered. And it always should.
A Twitter poll this week, conducted by Adam Berry of MLB.com, asked participants to pick the Pirates' greatest center fielder, and this was the final result after 380 votes:
• Andrew McCutchen, 73.7%
• Andy Van Slyke, 16.6%
• Max Carey, 7.9%
Berry's own choice, in an accompanying article, was Cutch.
Wow, no. They aren't close. No one's close to Carey in this category. He's the most accomplished center fielder the Pirates have ever had in regular-season play, and on top of that -- don't dare discount this -- he batted .458 in that Series I describe above and rapped out four hits in Game 7 alone, while Cutch and Van Slyke both bombed in three consecutive playoff appearances here. And Carey was 35 years old for that Series!
What disqualifies Carey? That he was born in 1890? That the common fan doesn't know of him?
This was a real person, a real player who really existed, as the more precious photos from the past can remind us:
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Max Carey, Honus Wagner in Hot Springs, Ark., 1913. - GETTY[/caption]
Check out those spikes. Those socks. Those pinstripes. Two ballplayers, just chilling in spring training.
Whatever. If this sounds like I'm doing early lobbying to become the 1925 Pirates' official historian at their centennial in five years, so be it. Someone's got to do it.
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