Kiss It Goodbye: The Mystery, the Mormon, and the Moral of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates

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In 1960, an upstart Pittsburgh Pirates team beat the highly favored New York Yankees in the World Series. Given the power of a Yankee roster that included Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and Yogi Berra, that improbably victory did more than give long-suffering Pirates fans something to cheer about; it put Pittsburgh on the map.

Though John Moody was only six years old during that magical baseball season, he was a devoted fan of the Pittsburgh team. The star pitcher for the Pirates and John's first hero was Vernon Law — an unsophisticated Idaho country boy, widely known as The Deacon, a friendly nickname derived from his strict Mormon upbringing.

Law was a relatively young man at the time and should have enjoyed several more seasons of fame and success, yet his career went into decline following that phenomenal Series. In this insightful book, John Moody explores a compelling mystery that has persisted now for nearly fifty years, revealing at last why Vernon Law was unable to continue his dominance of Major League batters.

But the book is more than just another exposé. Recalling a distant time in American sports, Kiss It Good-bye contains a universal theme: a son's affection for his father and the bond that was forged between them because of their love of baseball. It is a book that will be welcomed by fathers, sons, and baseball fans of every age.