Maz, You’re Up

In 2010, The Heinz History Center published Maz, You’re Up, a children’s book written by Kelly Mazeroski, Bill Mazeroski’s daughter-in-law. When Kelly was writing the book, Sally O’Leary, a good friend and, at that time, the Alumni Liaison for the Pittsburgh Pirates Alumni Association, told me that Kelly had never done anything like this before and asked if I ‘d be willing to help her. I told Sally I’d be more than happy to help.

Kelly’s book tells the heart-warming story of a grandfather whose grandson’s team has just lost a baseball game. When the boy’s grandfather, his “Pap Pap,” asks the boy if “he will step up to the plate tomorrow,” his grandson says he doesn’t know: ”I just want to hear the crowd cheer. I want to make a great catch, hit a home run, win a big game.”

When his Pap Pap tells his grandson that “I think all of us baseball players have had those big dreams,” the boy asks if “those big dreams ever come true.” His grandfather, with “a slight twinkle in his eyes,” tells the boy, “every once in a while they do.”

What follows in Kelly Mazeroski’s book is the story, enhanced by photos provided by the Pirates organization, and drawings by Pittsburgh artist Judy Lauso, of “one of those little boys with big dreams.” It follows Bill Mazeroski through his childhood days using a stick for a bat and a stone for a ball and working for his uncle to earn money to buy his first baseball glove, while dreaming of playing big league baseball. It follows him into

the minor leagues and the day he put on a Pirates uniform: “Then came 1960. It was a year to dream some more.”

At that point, the story moves forward to the bottom of the ninth of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and the Yankees and the score tied at 9-9. When he comes off the field, Bill Mazeroski at first doesn’t realize that he is up to bat. What happened next is the stuff baseball history. When he hit the dramatic World Series winning home run, “he felt like he was carrying the entire ballpark on his shoulders. A ballpark filled with dreams. Big dreams.”

Hearing Pap Pap’s story, his excited grandson declares that he wants to hit “a home run to win it all,” but his grandfather tells him that, in order to do that, he’ll have to play the game. When the boy says, he’ll step up to the plate tomorrow, his Pap Pap tells him, “And remember. Bring those big baseball dreams with you when the coach shouts, MAZ, YOU’RE UP NEXT.”

A few weeks after Kelly’s book was published, an odd oblong package arrived in the mail. Inside was a Louisville Slugger bat autographed by Bill Mazeroski. There was also a note, written on Hall of Fame stationery, from Bill and Milene Mazeroski, thanking me “for helping to make Kelly’s dream come true.”

A few years later, I received another letter from Bill and Milene Mazeroski after I’d sent them a copy of my Willie Stargell biography. Bill, with a nudge from Sally O’Leary, had provided a foreword (likely ghosted by Sally) for the biography and I wanted to thank him. In the letter, they wrote some nice things about the book (“wish Willie was here to read all the nice things inside”), but what stood out in the letter is what they wrote about

Kelly’s book: “Maz, You’re Up is on our coffee table and it warms our heart to look through it, again and again!”

The most celebrated photo of Bill Mazeroski captures the moment, when waving his cap in the air, he is circling the bases after hitting his World Series winning home run. That moment of pure athletic joy is also celebrated by his statue outside PNC Park.

There is another photo, however, in Maz, You’re Up, of Bill Mazeroski walking with his grandson, who is wearing a number nine Maz jersey. That photo captures the humility and the caring that made Bill Mazeroski the most beloved of Pittsburgh’s sports heroes