No, I wasn't there. Like a million other kids, I was on a school bus, transistor radio pressed against the window and glued to my ear. That's when Bill Mazeroski hit his home run off Ralph Terry to beat the Yankees in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series. I smiled, the same way I smiled today when Maz was finally selected by the Veterans Committee for the baseball Hall of Fame.

So an injustice is remedied, the best second baseman of his generation is acknowledged, and a nice man is made sublimely happy. Nothing against Hilton Smith, the great Negro league pitcher whose name was also called, but Cooperstown is a much more complete place today because Maz is coming.

He was a seven-time All-Star, an eight-time Gold Glove winner and a full-time genius. He started or hung in on 1,706 double plays, a record for either second basemen or shortstops. Total Baseball uses a complex but fair formula to rate fielders, and Mazeroski is not only the best ever at his position, but the best ever anywhere.

He wasn't flashy, but he was amazingly economical. He got rid of the ball so quickly that his teammates called him "No Touch." Joe Morgan, a better all-around second baseman, bows to Maz as a fielder: "Mazeroski instinctively knew where to play every hitter, including those he had never seen before."

Maz wasn't a bad hitter, either, especially in the context of his day. He hit .260 lifetime, and while his 138 career homers would be a couple of seasons for Mac or Sammy, they're enough to attest to the danger of Maz's bat back then.

The other day, when Mazeroski, working as an instructor in the Pirates' minor league camp, introduced himself to the players, he said, "Bill Mazeroski, an old infielder." That kind of modesty was not out of character. After he hit what is arguably the most famous home run in World Series history, Maz bypassed a team celebration. He and his wife took a stroll into a park in Pittsburgh, sat on a bench and watched the squirrels scurry about before the winter.

Photo: Dan Kempner/ESPN The Magazine

I'm having a hard time typing this right now -- not because I'm choked up or anything. No, it's because I've got a MacGregor G119 glove, Bill Mazeroski model, next to the keyboard. I keep reaching over to put it on. And I keep looking at the beautiful M in Mazeroski, a work of art that cuts from right to left, pivots and then turns a perfect double play.

No, I wasn't in Forbes Field on October 13, 1960. But in my office, I also have a poster of a photograph taken by George Silk. From an impossibly high vantage point in Pittsburgh, fans are rooting on the Pirates during the Series.

I like to think they're still there, cheering for Maz.

Steve Wulf is executive editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at steve.wulf@espnmag.com, but we reserve the right to refer all queries to his agent.