Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
99-year-old usher has best seat in the house
PITTSBURGH — Phil Coyne watched from behind the visitors’ dugout at Forbes Field as the New York Yankees came from behind to tie the Pirates, 9-9, in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.
Bill Mazeroski approached home plate. Bottom of the ninth, Oct. 13, 1960 — the day “Maz” etched his name into World Series, and Pittsburgh, his- tory. He hit a walk-off home run to left field, over Yogi Berra’s head, and the Pirates were World Series champions.
Fifty-seven years and two Pirates stadiums later, Coyne, now a 99-year-old usher at PNC Park, remembers it all.
“We were supposed to keep people off the field,” Coyne said. “I just turned around and went back. I let them go.”
He guided people to their seats that day, just like he has done at almost every Pirates home game since 1936. Before the Pirates played the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park recently, team president Frank Coonelly presented Coyne with a No. 99 Pirates jersey in a pregame ceremony on the field.
Nine years earlier, Coonelly had handed him a No. 90 jersey.
Why not wait for an even century, Coyne wondered?
“Maybe they think I’m not going to make 100,” he said with a laugh, answering his own question.
Born April 27, 1918, Coyne grew up in Oakland, the neighborhood the Pirates called home from 1909 through part of 1970. The oldest of eight children — and the only one left — he now has nieces and nephews scattered across the country. He took a few years off from ushering to fight in World War II, from 1941 to 1945. As a boy, he spent Saturdays playing in right field on kids’ days at the ballpark, a patch of grass Roberto Clemente claimed as his territory a few decades later.
After decades of ushering for the Pirates, Coyne now enjoys a view with the Roberto Clemente Bridge in the distance. His territory is Section 26 and 27, on the first level of seats down the third-base line.
Coyne has learned a lot about life and a little about baseball.
His secret to longevity — two Oreos and a glass of milk every night — is no longer a secret. Word got to Oreo itself, which sent him a case of cookies last year.