Forty-seven years ago, Pirates baseball and Pittsburgh were inseparable. Although the Bucs had been bums since the 1950s (not as long as this current crop of losers, however), the team remained as much a part of the landscape as the gritty fumes from the mills.

When the Pirates beat the New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series, it was a high-water mark in the city's history, every bit the equal of a Steelers' Super Bowl win, maybe more so.

		"THE BEST GAME EVER: PIRATES VS. YANKEES OCTOBER 13, 1960" By Jim Reisler Carroll & Graf ($26)

The '60 series is unique among the Fall Classics for its extreme imbalance. When the Pirates won, they were very, very good. When they lost, they were horrid.

New York pounded out wins of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0; the Bucs' four victories were 6-4, 5-2, 3-2 and 10-9.

And that victory in the seventh game might be called the most unusual and exciting Series contest of all time, filled with heroics on both sides and bizarre plays that never happened before or since, yet it took a writer years to chronicle it for a national audience.

Too bad it was Jim Reisler.

It's not that this author of several books on the Yankees stints on research; his interviews with Bucs shortstop Dick Groat particularly add new insights into the '60 Pirates.

It's that he might be one of the most careless baseball writers since Charles Alexander. Reisler is more error-prone than the 1952 Bucs, who finished with a 42-112 season.

The miscues sully the good intentions of the book and, for fans like me, a dedicated Bucs follower who skipped two days of school for the Series, spoil the fun of recalling the memories.

Many mistakes are pure carelessness; a competent copy editor would have caught most of them and Pittsburghers would have snared the rest.

Several local examples: "... it was a quick trip straight from the ballpark to a Wilkinsburg apartment in East Pittsburgh."

They're two very different places, Jim.

Then there's the beloved Bucco radio broadcaster Rosey ROWSWELL, not Rosewell.

Aside from simple slip-ups about Forbes Field's dimensions and seating capacity, batting stances and last names, Reisler is a fount of boneheaded baseball statements.

As in:

"[Hal] Smith was playing Game 7 as an afterthought -- a defensive replacement for [Smoky] Burgess, who had been lifted for a pinch runner."

Smith was no "afterthought," but the Bucs' second catcher who usually played against left-handers. He simply replaced the slow Smoky behind the plate.

"Who would be (Stengel's) starting pitcher" for Game 7?, Reisler asks rhetorically. (It was Bob Turley).

He suggests Bobby Shantz, the well-traveled lefthander who had not started a game all year and was close to retirement. Stengel would never have started the 35-year-old journeyman in the final game of the World Series.

Does it matter that Reisler got so much wrong? Is all we need to know of that World Series is Bill Mazeroski's winning home run in the ninth inning and that Pittsburgh went crazy on a sunny fall afternoon?

The long-running gathering to celebrate the Oct. 13 win at the remaining section of the Forbes Field wall (the spot where Maz's homer cleared is long gone) was held again this year.

Because this hardy band of celebrants understands instinctively the historical milestone of that moment in Pittsburgh history, there's nothing like it in any professional sport.

Without intending it, Reisler lets that gathering and all lovers of the game down with this mistake-riddled book.