Category: History || By

Above, in a photo scanned from Jim O'Brien's book Maz and the '60 Bucs, you see Benny Benack's "Iron City Six" playing outside Forbes Field before Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.

The hand holding the upright bass belongs to my friend and mentor, the late Larry Slaugh of McKeesport. (Larry, as much as anyone, deserves credit for warping my young psyche.)

For more than 20 years, Larry taught music in the Greensburg-Salem School District, but he made a good piece of change on the side playing bass in various bands, including with Benack, a bandleader from Clairton who led several Dixieland combos, and like Larry a graduate of Carnegie Tech's music department. (One of Benack's bands was made up of music teachers such as Larry. It was called, naturally, "Benny Benack and The Schoolteachers.")

. . .

During the Pirates' run to the 1960 National League pennant, Joe Negri and Seymour Bloom wrote a raucous little novelty record called "Beat 'Em, Bucs!" Benack recorded the tune using his standard sidemen, including Larry.

(You can hear it by scrolling about halfway down this webpage devoted to Pirates sound files. The song makes "Meet The Mets" sound quiet and dignified by comparison.)

Anyway, the record took off like a rocket. And when the Bucs landed in the World Series, Benack was hired by Pittsburgh Brewing Co. to play outside Forbes Field before the home games on behalf of Iron City Beer.

Naturally, Pittsburgh Brewing wanted the band outside Forbes Field to sound like the band on "Beat 'Em, Bucs." Well, that presented a problem, since the musicians on "Beat 'Em, Bucs" were part-time musicians, like Larry, who had day jobs.

Yet who would pass up an opportunity to play outside a stadium during the World Series?

. . .

Needless to say, five suburban music teachers mysteriously got sick (cough, cough) every time the Pirates played at home. Then they donned straw hats, bow-ties and linen "Southern-style" sportcoats, and went down to Forbes Field to play Dixieland jazz on the back of a flatbed truck.

As Larry told the story, on Oct. 13, 1960, he was merrily playing away on South Bouquet Street in Oakland as 36,000 fans streamed into the gates. Then at one point he looked down into the crowd and straight into the eyes of an assistant principal from Greensburg-Salem.

But the assistant principal was playing hooky, too. So he shrugged and smiled, and wordlessly they agreed not to rat each other out.

It was the perfect crime, and Larry had gotten away with it.

. . .

Fast forward several months to the end of the school year. There was an assembly in the gym at the school where Larry was teaching, and the district had arranged for a film of highlights of the 1960 Pirates season to be shown. (I have no idea if it was "We Had 'Em All The Way" by Bill Beal, and unfortunately, I can't ask Larry, but I suspect it was.)

Everything was fine until the film started depicting the excitement outside Forbes Field during Game 7 of the World Series. And as the camera panned across Benny Benack and his "Iron City Six," it paused for what seemed like an eternity on the bass player, who was wearing what Larry remembered years later as "a big sh-t-eating grin."

The whooping and yelling by the kids in the auditorium was something like what the crowds did at Forbes Field on Oct. 13, 1960 when Mazeroski hit the homer.

. . .

For more nostalgia, click over to Pittsburgh Radio & TV Online, where today you can read about the broadcasting setup for the 1960 World Series and hear the real call (not a re-creation) of Maz's historic, game-winning shot.

And Larry, I hope I did justice to your story.