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You wrote: "Those were the days fans could run out onto the field to celebrate with the players and not be tackled to the ground by 300-pound security guards and taken to the slammer. The good old days."
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I hear you!
That World Series was bizarre, I'm sure you know. The Yankees were a juggernaut and we (The Pirates) were basically a group of over-achieving whackos.
I didn't get to go to that game, the seventh game, but I got to go see game two --- The Pirates were murdered 16 to 3. I did see something in that game that day I guarantee few ever have seen.
My brother and I were sitting way out at HUGE old Forbes Field in the second deck of the right field stands. It was 457 at Forbes to straight away center. In our seats, we were sitting about 420 feet from home plate and about 30 feet up.
Some time around the 6th inning Mickey Mantle (BATTING RIGHT HANDED) hit a ball past us about fifty feet to our right at eye level.
So ...... we estimate that that ball, which sailed past us and landed in a Little League ball field way out past Forbes Field well over 100 feet past the outfield wall, landed around 550 to 580 feet from home plate. AND HE HIT THE BALL TO THE OPPOSITE FIELD!!!
The Mick was one mighty strong Oklahoma guy.
I swear that is true.
Anyhow that 16 to 3 loss was one memorable game to me ....... not quite as memorable as Game 7.
I'm a bit too young to remember Mantle playing so my home run story concerns Jim Rice, a Red Sox slugger from the 1970s. He had very strong arms as well and his line drives were missiles. He almost decapitated a pitcher with one of them and it was said he'd occasionally break his bat doing a check swing. Even in high school, he was hitting balls well over 400 feet.
I'm pretty sure it was the 1978 season and I was sitting in the bleachers at centerfield about 20 rows up when Rice blasted one my way. As soon as the ball was airborne, I knew it was going to land close to me as I had played in the outfield a lot and developed the skill to know where a ball was going to land. I only had to move about two seats over to put myself right in its path and the ball grazed my fingertips and struck the bench in back of me, bouncing 40 feet into the air and some other guy 10 rows back was able to get it.