On Oct. 13, 1960, Tom Richards missed one of the most iconic moments in Pittsburgh sports history.

Monday afternoon, the retired police officer tried to make things right.

Richards joined more than 100 Pittsburgh Pirates fans at what remains of Forbes Field in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood to listen to radio announcers broadcast an old baseball game play by play, then celebrate when Bill Mazeroski’s home run clinched the 1960 World Series pennant for “The Battlin’ Bucs.”

It was a joyous moment for the fans gathered Monday.

It was a different story for Richards 65 years ago.

“I was 9 years old and baseball was the world to me, so when the Yankees tied it up in the top of the ninth, I just went out to the front porch and started bawling my eyes out,” said Richards, now 74, of Jefferson Hills as he nursed a blue can of Stroh’s beer.

At 3:36 p.m. that day, when Mazeroski walloped a fastball deep into left-center field — and deeper into history, as the shot remains the only home run to end a World Series Game 7 — Richards was crying outside his West Mifflin home.

“Then, I heard all this commotion inside — I came into the room (and said) ‘What happened?,” Richards said. “Maz had already rounded the bases. I missed the greatest home run of all time.”

Pirates fans with stories like Richards’ have been gathering every Oct. 13 for more than a generation at Forbes Field’s preserved, brick outfield wall to relive a moment when Pittsburgh’s baseball team reigned. A fan named Saul Finklestein started the ritual in 1985. In 2010, on the 50th anniversary of one of baseball’s most memorable home runs, more than 1,000 people made the pilgrimage to Forbes Field.

About 100 @Pirates fans celebrate as a radio broadcast airs Bill Mazeroski hitting the game-winning HR in the 1960 World Series — the blast turned 65 today @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/aw4Ohy0X4p

— Justin Vellucci (@JVTheTrib) October 13, 2025

David Unkovic and his siblings caught the game in 1960 via transistor radio while they sat under a tree in Ross.

On Monday, the retired lawyer left his Philadelphia home at 4:30 a.m. to ensure he could pick up his sister, Jane, in Greensburg and join the Pirates loyalists at Forbes Field before the first pitch. Dozens of fans followed the game while sitting in beach chairs as the Pirate Parrot and the team’s color-coordinated Pierogies fired up the crowd.

Unkovic and others told TribLive that Monday’s reprise was one way to actually take part in an exciting Pirates game in October, especially as the team, which finished its 2025 season in last place in the NL Central Division with a 71-91 record, was nowhere near playoff contention.

“I think the Pirates ownership needs to pay for some hitters — I think they could get into the playoffs again if they did,” said Unkovic, 71. “But I’m a fan, whether they win or not.”

“The fact that we haven’t been to a World Series since 1979, people want to relive that, they want to feel the intensity of a win again,” added Dan Schultz, 61, of Washington City, whose “Game 7 Gang” organizes the annual event.

“Every year is a losing season,” Schultz laughed. “I believe this is a consolation prize.”

Age has faded some Maz memories for Bob Recker, who was 17 when he worked as the Pirates’ batboy in 1960. But, on Monday, as Recker displayed team photos where he sat next to Pirates legend Roberto Clemente, his enthusiasm was anything but watered down.

“We’ve got to keep this going!” said Recker, now 82, of Warrendale.

“Today’s the 65th anniversary,” added Tom Rooney, 75, of Franklin Park, the nephew of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, as he celebrated Monday at Forbes Field. “So Maz’s hit is on Medicare now.”

Others on Monday tried to get the details right. Some sported jerseys with Mazeroski’s No. 9. Others made sure to grab a stadium-style hot dog from vendor David Becki.

Becki has been setting up shop during the Forbes Field celebration for three years now. On Monday, he ran out of hot dogs more than an hour before Maz even stepped to the plate in the ninth inning.

“When I came here for the first time, there were a dozen people before the game started,” said Vince Altieri, 70, of Greensburg as he munched on a well-dressed hot dog. “By the ninth inning, there were 150.”

“Spoiler alert — they’re gonna win it,” Jeannine Westlock said with a laugh at 3:19 p.m., holding a Mazeroski bobblehead distributed Monday just minutes before the radio captured Forbes Field exploding with Maz’s legendary home run.

The Collier Township woman would trek to PNC Park and Three Rivers Stadium to watch Pirates games with her father, Russell, who died just weeks before the team clinched a playoff berth in 2013.

“This is personal,” she said. “I would’ve liked to have taken my dad.”

After the celebration waned Monday and the crowd thinned, University of Pittsburgh sports history professor Rob Ruck visited a new exhibit lauding Pittsburgh sports in Pitt’s Posvar Hall.

A black-and-white Life magazine photo of Pittsburghers cheering on the Pirates from the nearby Cathedral of Learning was mounted just feet from the spot where Forbes Field’s home plate once stood.

“After steel collapsed, what I think kept the city together in many ways is we had this — we were the City of Champions,” said Ruck, who moved to Pittsburgh shortly before the 1960 World Series and started grad school at Pitt in 1975.

“I think we look at sports today as something to consume — we’re spectators. But, for a good part of the 20th century, it was a way for people who work hard and play harder to create a sense of who they are. Sports is what Pittsburgh has used to tell its story to the world.”

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