Historians consider the 1960 World Series one of the best ever. The American League champion New York Yankees, with a regular season record of 97-57, returned to the Fall Classic after an unusual one-year hiatus. The Pittsburgh Pirates, on the other hand, with a record of 95-59, made their first Series appearance since beating the Washington Senators in 1925.
The Yankees and Pirates split the first six games, though statistically the Bronx Bombers dominated. Going into the deciding Game 7, the Yankees had outscored the Pirates 46-16 while the Pirates team ERA stood at a staggering 7.69.
Yet in the only statistic that really matters – wins – the Pirates held even with the Yankees, winning Games 1 (6-4), 4 (3-2) and 5 (5-2) while New York took Games 2 (16-3), 3 (10-0) and 6 (12-0). As Pirate Gino Cimoli famously remarked after the Series ended, “They set all the records and we won the Series. Let ‘em stuff that on their mantelpieces.”
The back-and-forth match-up was one for the ages, a classic that, if fate has a presence in baseball, should have ended in a memorable way. As it happened, the Series ending was not only memorable but legendary, thanks to the single swing of a bat by Bill Mazeroski, a player known up to that point more for his glove work than proficiency at the plate.
Mazeroski’s Hall of Fame Baseball Career
Bill Mazeroski was born September 5, 1936 in Wheeling, West Virginia. His family later moved to Ohio, where Bill graduated from Warren Consolidated School in Tiltonsville. At Warren he played basketball and baseball, and was food enough to garner attention from scouts of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who signed him to a contract in 1954. After some time in the minors, he made his major league debut on July 7, 1956 and soon established himself as one of the game’s all-time best defensive second basemen.
In a major league career that spanned from 1956 to 1972, all with the Pirates, “Maz” earned eight Gold Gloves for his remarkable defensive play while making ten All-Star games. He finished his career with a .983 fielding percentage while setting the major league record for double plays by a second baseman. Offensively, he compiled 2016 hits while batting .260. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001.
Maz joined Puerto Rican legend Roberto Clemente as the only Pirates to play on both the 1960 and 1971 World Series championship teams. The two also shared another, less traditional, honor of sorts. In the 1969 film The Odd Couple, Clemente was to have a cameo role hitting into a triple play in a game at which main characters Oscar Madison and Felix Unger attended. Clemente, not able to convincingly pull off the stunt, was replaced by Mazeroski, who realistically made the play.
For all Mazeroski’s many accomplishments, he is still remembered for the single moment in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series that resulted in a Pirates championship.
Pirates Beat Yankees in World Series Game 7, 10-9
Game 7 paralleled the entire series in that each team experienced soaring highs and devastating lows in a see-saw battle featuring five lead changes.
On October 13, 1960 36,683 fans showed up at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field on an Indian summer day. The home team took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on a two-run homer by Rocky Nelson and then added two more in the next inning on a two-run single by Bill Virdon.
The Yankees finally scored a run in the 5th on a Moose Skowron home run and then took the lead in the 6th when they plated four runs on a Mickey Mantle RBI single and a three-run homer by Yogi Berra. In the 8th inning Johnny Blanchard and Clete Boyer stroked RBI hits to expand the Yankee lead to 7-4.
However the Pirates, kings of the comeback, would not go away. In their half of the eight inning they quickly got their first two batters aboard, the second, Bill Virdon, on a hard grounder to short that took a bad bounce and hit Yankee shortstop Tony Kubeck in the throat and forced him from the game. Pittsburgh gathered three more hits in the inning, highlighted by late-inning replacement catcher Hal Smith’s dramatic three-run home run to put Pittsburgh back on top, 9-7.
But the mighty Yankees, down to their last three outs, tied the score on RBIs by Mantle and Berra and a heads-up base-running play by Mantle that kept the inning alive long enough to score the second run.
In the bottom of the 9th inning Mazeroski was first up for the Pirates. He was focused so much on the action of the eight inning that he didn’t realize he was leading off until a coach reminded him. Maz stepped to the plate and, after taking a ball from Ralph Terry, established instant heroic status when he launched a ball over the head of left-fielder Berra, past the outfield fence and into the record books.
With this one swing, Bill Mazeroski became the first player to hit a home run to end a World Series and to date the only one to do so in a Game 7.
Sources
Reisler, Jim. 2009 (2007). The Best Game Ever. Da Capo Press.
Retrosheet website.
Kevin Schindler - I have worked at scientific institutions for more than 20 years written more than 200 articles about science, history, and baseball.
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