For a six-year-old watching the San Francisco Giants play the New York Yankees in the 1962 World Series, it was important that the National League win the Series since that was the league the St. Louis Cardinals were in.
My first World Series memory was Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Though I was only 4, I can remember Bill Mazeroski hitting a walk-off home run (though they didn't call them that at the time) off the Yankees' Ralph Terry to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 win and the world championship.
For some reason, I don't remember watching the next year when the Yankees beat the Reds.
But the 1962 series, just like in 1960, came down to the seventh inning and once again Ralph Terry was on the mound for the world champions.
The Giants had runners on second and third with two outs in the ninth, one of the Alou brothers, probably Felipe, and Willie Mays, if I recall and future first ballot Hall-of-Famer Willie McCovey was at the plate, one of the most feared sluggers to ever play the game.
When McCovey hit Terry's pitch, a vicious line drive that seemed destined to make Terry the World Series goat for a second time, somehow Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson caught it and the World Series was over.
It was on the earliest of many disappointments baseball has brought me over the years, but what a great game and what great memories it leaves us.
That was the first thing I thought about a few minutes ago when I read that Willie McCovey died earlier today at age 80.
He was only in the fourth year of a 22-year major leage career and it was long before people began hitting home runs into McCovey Cove. Sadly, it was also the last time McCovey played in a World Series.
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