Ah, how sweet it was. I think it was Bob Prince, one of the radio announcers for the Pittsburgh Pirates who said that when the "Bucs" got a home run? It was more than just sweet. Sweet was getting a pink sweater with a kitten on it for your birthday. This, the 1960 World Series, was the cataclysmic moment in time when you were ten years old and you loved the Bucs so much that it brought tears to your eyes. Wikipedia says: The 1960 World Series was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees from October 5-13, 1960. It is most notable for the Game 7, ninth-inning home run by Bill Mazeroski (Maz), winning the game for the Pirates 10-9 and winning them their third Championship, their first since 1925.

There have been whole books written about that game. In Pittsburgh, people still gather on the site of the long-gone Forbes Field on October 13 to keep the memory alive. There are also lots of people who say they can still hear that solid crack as Maz's bat hit the ball squarely and "kissed it goodbye," as Bob Prince said.

It was the perfect time to be 10 years old. Younger than ten and you are confused about what baseball and the World Series means, older than that--teenagers--didn't think it was cool to get all worked up over it. But the best part of it was the adults. My father, a tall serious man who worked as a scientist, and my grandfather, an Orthodox Jew who kept all the kosher laws screamed and laughed for three days. It was glorious to be 10 and see these people who ran your world and laid down laws, losing control of their emotions. It gave you hope; the world really and truly was not black/white, right/wrong. There was breathing room, where all who loved Maz and Dick Groat and their team mates could be united and hysterical and sleepless after the Pirates won the World Series.