On the second pitch, he launched a drive that cleared the 408-foot marker in left-center field to end the game with not so much a walk-off homer as it was a dance-off blast-windmilling his arms in celebration as he rounded the bases, gradually joined by ecstatic teammates and fans who began to litter onto the field. Leading off the bottom of the ninth against Ralph Terry-the fifth Yankee pitcher of the day-Bill Mazeroski didn’t take long to end the classic.
The first two Yankees singled, and they both scored after the Pirates blew their own double play opportunity as first baseman Rocky Nelson fielded Yogi Berra’s sharp grounder hit right at him near the bag-but he couldn’t tag out an elusive Mickey Mantle, who never broke for second and alertly made it back to the first after Nelson retired Berra. With the rally jumpstarted, the Pirates piled up three more singles for two runs-and then took the lead when part-time catcher Hal Smith, an original Yankee who was too far down the depth chart to stay in New York, sailed a three-run shot over the left-field fence to give the Pirates a 9-7 lead.Įighteen-game winner Bob Friend, who had relieved just one game in the past three years, was asked to come into the ninth inning to close out the Yankees. Gino Cimoli singled to lead off, and Bill Virdon’s sharp grounder to Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek seemed destined to result in a double play-but the last hop took on a bit of extra energy and struck Kubek in the throat, leaving everyone safe but Kubek (who was taken to the hospital with a bruised larynx). In the bottom of the eighth came a remarkable rally that almost never happened. New York added two more in the eighth to up the lead to 7-4, and now the lively sellout Forbes Field throng was beginning to sense a resignation of impending loss. The Yankees at first trickled back with a run in the fifth, then deluged the Pirates with four in the sixth off bruised starter Vern Law (sore ankle) and star reliever Roy Face to take a 5-4 lead. The Pirates stormed out to a 4-0 lead with two runs in each of the first two innings-all scoring after two were out-signaling that, finally, a rout might be on in their favor. What lay ahead would be one of the greatest games ever played-decided by, quite possibly, baseball’s most memorable home run ever hit. Winning tight three times and being blown out in their three losses, the Pirates entered the deciding Game Seven having thus far been outscored 46-17.
Few teams have been dominated in the World Series the way the Pirates were by the New York Yankees in 1960-and still won.
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