Former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Bill Priatko feels honored to have called the late Pirates legend Bill Mazeroski his friend.
Mazeroski, the Hall of Fame second baseman who hit the home run to win the 1960 World Series, died Friday at 89.
Priatko, 94, of North Huntingdon, became friends with Mazeroski, known affectionately as “Maz,” in the 1950s.
“Like so many people who were friends of Maz, I have so many fond memories of my friendship with him,” he told TribLive. “Everybody knows what a great baseball player Maz was — that’s a known fact — but Maz was such a humble, genuine man.”
Priatko revealed that he knows the answer to where Mazeroski went following the legendary home run.
“Nobody knows. It’s kind of a trivia question,” he said. “He went to the Lakeview lounge on Route 30 in Greensburg.”
Ferrante’s Lakeview is located at 6153 US-30.
After the World Series game ended, “everybody was after him” because of what he accomplished, Priatko said.
“He had a hard time getting away from people. Hardly anybody knows this, but I knew this because of our relationship, and he said to me, ‘I had to get out of there, Bill, everybody’s mobbing me,’ ” he said. “He went up to Greensburg.
“He had a friend of his, John Ferrante, who owned the Lakeview lounge on Route 30 in Greensburg … he said, ‘I’m going up there, and I know nobody will be there — John will have the doors locked.’ ”
And that’s what happened. Mazeroski sat with John and John’s brother, Mike, according Priatko, and the trio reminisced about life.
However, Priatko said it is true that Mazeroski sat on a bench in Schenley Park with his wife, Milene, briefly before heading to the lounge.
“It was right after the game. Maz says originally, when he left the locker room after he hit the home run to beat the Yankees, he and Milene went out in Schenley Park and sat on a bench for just a little bit,” he said, “but he said the crowd just kept after him and that’s when he said, ‘I had to get out of here and I’m going to head up to Greensburg.’ ”
Right after hitting the home run, Priatko said, Mazeroski recalled feeling relieved sitting at the lounge in Greensburg.
“He said everything sunk in then: ‘I realized the significance of what I had just done,’ and he said, ‘It was a relief for me to be sitting with two friends,’ ” Priatko said. “ ‘I got away from all the hoopla, the fans that were really hounding me.’ ”
During their friendship, Priatko and Mazeroski would go eat at the Lakeview lounge all the time, Priatko said.
Priatko said his late wife, Helen, was a friend of Mazeroski’s wife, Milene, since growing up in Braddock.
When being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., Priatko recalled sitting in the front row with Mazeroski’s wife, Milene.
“We were chatting just before the ceremony was to start, and everybody knew that Maz, he didn’t really care to get up and make speeches, he was very humble in that respect. He knows that he has to read it because he’ll get emotional, and I looked at Milene (and said), ‘I’ll bet every penny I have when Maz gets up for his acceptance speech, he’s going to start reading that speech, and he’s going to break down,’ ” Priatko said. “Lo and behold, Maz got up with his induction speech, and he started reading his prepared speech that he had in front of him on the podium, and after about 20 seconds, he threw it down and he broke down — he got emotional, he started crying, and Milene looked at me (and said), ‘You know my Maz, don’t you?’ ”
Priatko called it ironic that Mazeroski died just days away from Pittsburgh Pirates All-Star pitcher and World Series champion Elroy Face.
Face and Mazeroski were best friends and roommates, according to Priatko.
“Elroy passes away, and he’s buried this past Friday, and now, right after it, Bill Mazeroski passes away,” he said. “It’s like the Lord’s will that two friends left this earth at almost the same time.”
Priatko said Mazeroski will be remembered alongside Franco Harris as “the two greatest sports legends in the history of Pittsburgh.”
“He always gave of himself as much as he could to community work, and he never turned anybody down,” he said. “If people wanted autographs and photos, he was always so obliging. … Maz, you got that Polish humility.
“His memory will truly be eternal.”
