Found this great article from some years back by Allan Barra that appeared in Sports Illustrated. Spoke to the artist Thom Ross and suggested he contact NYC Parks Department to get his work displayed at the redidcation of the Brush Stairway. Enjoy!!

-It has been said that baseball is the only thread that ties America together over three centuries. If so, as artist Thom Ross has discovered, it is a slender and fragile thread.

Ross, who lives in Seattle, came to New York five years ago to commemorate the most famous defensive play in baseball history, on its 50th anniversary. As every baseball fan knows, on Sept. 29, 1954, in Game 1 of the World Series, the Cleveland Indians’ Vic Wertz slammed a ball deep into the Polo Grounds center field, traveling an estimated 450-460 feet from home plate. There it landed in the glove of the Giants’ young phenom Willie Mays, who, running furiously with his back to home plate, caught the ball, wheeled around and fired it back into the infield to complete a play that, in the words of Birmingham News sports editor Alf Van Hoose (who had covered Mays since he played for the Birmingham Black Barons), “you had to see not to believe.”

It may have been true, as Mays later insisted, that he made better catches during his career, but no one has ever argued that no greater play has been made in all of World Series history.
Continue reading →