1960 World Series Game 7: The Mick makes Maz's day

Mickey Mantle dives safety back into first base around the tag attempt by Rocky Nelson in the top of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Mantle's alert base running allowed the New York Yankees to score the tying run, but the Pittsburgh Pirates prevailed 10-9. On his knees telling Mantle to hit the dirt is first-base coach Wally Moses.

His Pittsburgh teammates wait to greet him as Bill Mazeroski, accompanied by ecstatic fans, heads for the plate after hitting a homer leading off the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Pirates a 10-9 victory in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Mickey Mantle's baseball greatness can be measured in hundreds of feet, by virtue of his tape-measure homers -- by thousands of feet, if those mammoth clouts were strung together. 

  And his greatness can also be measured, in at least once instance, in inches, by virtue of how close a play on the bases was that may have been about as great a play as Mantle made in his career.

  But Mantle's heads-up base running feat didn't make him a hero. Instead, it made a hero of Bill Mazeroski. And robbed Hal Smith of his hero's mantle (ahem).

  Mazeroski will be remembered forever for his solo home run off Ralph Terry leading off the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 victory over Mantle's New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field on Thursday, Oct. 13. It's the only time a ninth-inning homer has ever ended Game 7 of a World Series.

  But it wouldn't have happened if not for Mantle's alertness on the bases in the top of the ninth. With Pittsburgh leading 9-7, Mantle brought the Yankees within a run when his third single in five at-bats drove in Bobby Richardson. The switch-hitting Mantle went to the opposite field for the hit to right.

  With runners now at first and third against Harvey Haddix, Yogi Berra followed with a hard hopper toward Pirates first baseman Rocky Nelson, who speared it and tagged first for the second out of the inning. Nelson then made a move toward second to double up Mantle, assuming that Mantle would be proceeding on contact toward the next base.

  But no. Since Nelson had gone directly to first for the out instead of second, the force out was removed and Mantle wasn't required to advance. The Mick put on the brakes, dove back to first and got around the tag attempt by Nelson.

 “Nelson stepped on the bag to retire Berra but Mantle regained first base, evading Nelson’s tag with a beautiful headlong slide.” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. 

  And instead of the game being over with the Pirates winning 9-8, Mantle's keen base running kept it at two out and allowed Gil McDougald to scamper home from third with the tying run.

  Had Mantle been out, he would have been the second Yankees legend in World Series history to make the final Game 7 out on the bases in a one-run game. Babe Ruth was caught stealing to end the 1926 World Series.

  But the Yankees' new life was short-lived. Haddix got out of the inning when Bill Skowron forced Mantle with a fielder's choice grounder to Dick Groat.

  And Mazeroski ended it with a bang for the Pirates and a thud for the Yankees when he led off the bottom of the inning, on a 1-0 count, with a homer to left-center field on a high fastball, Berra gazing forlornly as the ball sailed over the wall.

   “I thought it would go over. … I was hoping it would," Mazeroski said. " But I was too happy to think."    

  So were Pittsburgh Pirates fans, some of whom had been starving for a World Series title since 1925. They hadn't seen a pennant since 1927, when the Bucs were swept by the Murderers Row Yankees.

  “Mazeroski, who must be the greatest .270 hitter in baseball – he is today, that’s for certain – went sailing around the bases waving his hat in one hand and pandemonium broke loose among the 36,683 patrons," the Post-Gazette reported. "The crowd poured down on him like a mob attacking a public enemy.” 

  Mazeroski brought finality to a wacky, topsy-turvy game in which the Pirates had forged ahead 4-0 after two innings, only to see the Yankees claim a 5-4 lead through six and 7-4 through 7 1/2.

  But you could say the Pirates had the Yankees right where they wanted them. Twenty-time times during the regular season they'd won after trailing through six innings. 

  And yet it looked like the Damn Yankees might be set to claim yet another world title, their 19th overall, with Bobby Shantz taking the hill for the bottom of the eighth. Shantz, the 1952 American League MVP now riding out his career as a reliever, had shut out the Bucs in four relief innings, facing the minimum 12 batters thanks to two double plays.

  But Shantz, who'd thrown 2/3 of an inning of shutout relief each in Game 2 and Game 4, giving him 5 1/3 innings of 0.00 ERA in the Series, hadn't completed more than three innings all season. In his first try at five he faltered. Gino Cimoli, pinch hitting for pitcher Elroy Face, led off with an opposite-field, pop-fly single to right. Bill Virdon followed with a grounder that took a high hop on the hard Forbes turf, and the ball struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the Adam's apple and knocked him to the ground, allowing Virdon to reach safely with a single. Besides ruining a potential double play, the bizarre skip knocked Kubek out of the game, the Forbes crowd giving him a standing ovation as he left the field.

  " It was tailor-made to produce a shortstop-to-second-to-first double play, but not that day," wrote Dick Rosen in an article on Hal Smith for the Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project.  "On the Forbes Field infield, which was often called the Pirates’ 'secret weapon' because of its flinty surface, the ball took a crazy bounce, hit Kubek in the throat, and caused him to gag and almost lose his breath. Kubek had to be removed from the game. New York Times sports columnist Arthur Daley said of this ground ball that it was 'spitefully steered by Dame Fortune.' ”

  Groat then singled to right to score Cimoli, and Jim Coates relieved Shantz. Bob Skinner, batting in the No. 3 hole in the Pittsburgh lineup, bunted Virdon and Groat over to second and third for the first out of the inning. Nelson flied out to right and the runners held, not taking a chance on Maris' throwing arm, as he made a  'perfect no-bounce throw to the plate,” wrote Mike Huber in an article for the SABR's Games Project.

  The next batter, Roberto Clemente, hit a slow chopper to the right of Skowron at first and beat it out for a single, while Virdon scored to make it 7-6. Shantz, a seven-time Gold Glover winner, might have come in handy on this play, Rosen noted, because his replacement Coates didn't cover first on Clemente's hit.

  (Clemente was 1-for-4 in the game, hit .310 in the Series and had a .314 average during the season, only his second .300 season in six years of what became a legendary 18-year career that included a final average of .317, four batting titles and a record 12 Gold Gloves.)

  Now it was catcher Smoky Burgess' turn. Only Burgess wasn't in the game because Joe Christopher had run for him the inning before, after Burgess had gotten his second single in three at-bats.

Hal Smith celebrates with teammates after giving the Pittsburgh Pirates a 9-7 lead with a three-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. An inning later, Smith was upstaged as Bill Mazeroski's homer gave Pittsburgh a 10-9 win over the New York Yankees.

  So up came his backup Smith, who'd seen about as much action during the season as Burgess in a platoon arrangement. And Smith gave the Pirates supreme production out of their catcher spot this afternoon by uncorking a three-run homer to deep left on a 1-2 count to push the Pirates in front 9-7.

  Smith had shown some pop in his bat in '61 with 11 homers in 286 at-bats. And as Rosen pointed out, he knew the Yankees pitchers from having faced them while with Kansas City from 1956 through 1959.

  "They didn't scare me," he said.

  (Smith had a doppelganger of sorts at this time. Another Hal Smith also played catcher for nine simultaneous years. Also at about the same time, the actor Hal Smith was playing the town drunk on "The Andy Griffith Show.")  

  After the Pirates regained the lead, Terry relieved Coates, Yankees manager Casey Stengel's fourth pitching change of the day, and Don Hoak flied out to left. The Pirates were three outs away from their first world title in 35 years.

   “After Smith got us ahead, I just raced onto the field," Mazeroski said in “Maz and the ’60 Pirates: When Pittsburgh and Its Pirates Went All the Way,” by Jim O'Brien. "I just couldn’t wait to get those last three outs. Of course, we didn’t get those three outs; we didn’t get them before they scored two runs.”

  Richardson and Dale Long, pinch hitting for Kubek's replacement Joe DeMaestri, had back-to-back singles off Bob Friend on four pitches to set the table for the Yankees' game-tying rally, prompting Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh to summon Haddix, his fourth pitcher of the day. That capped a forgetful Series for Friend, one of the Pirates' most reliable pitchers ever in a 16-year career. He'd been shelled in two earlier starts, taking the loss both times, and had a 13.50 ERA in his three outings covering six innings. This was just his second relief appearance of the year.

  Haddix got Roger Maris to foul out to catcher Smith. Earlier the lefty swinging Maris had fouled out twice to Hoak at third and grounded out to the pitcher as he went 0-for-5.

  (Maris batted .267 for the Series with two homers. After the season he won the first of back-to-back American League MVPs after hitting 39 homers with 112 RBIs and a .283 average. The next season he broke Babe Ruth's single-season homer record in a .269-61-141 season.)       

  After Maris went out so mildly, Mickey came along to save the day. Momentarily. But he was crying in the locker room after Mazeroski handed the Yankees a crushing defeat. Mantle has called it the biggest disappointment of his career.

  (Mantle had a stellar Series with team highs of a .400 average and three homers to go with 11 RBIs. With his three homers he moved within one of Ruth's career Series record of 15, a mark he'd surpass with four more homers in subsequent Series. However, Richardson, with a .367 average, one homer and a record 12 RBIs, captured the Series MVP, the only player off a losing team that has been so honored.)

  Haddix, who the year before had pitched 12 perfect innings against Milwaukee only to lose the perfect game, no-hitter and the game in the 13th, was this day's winning pitcher courtesy Maz's heroics, despite blowing a save opportunity. He'd logged 6 1/3 innings in getting the Game 5 win, giving him a 2-0, 2.45 ledger in his only Series appearance.

  Terry, meanwhile, went 0-2 in the Series, having also lost Game 4.

In happier times, Ralph Terry is hoisted on his teammate' shoulders after completing a 1-0 victory for the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 1962 World Series over San Francisco. Two years earlier, Terry had been the Game 7 loser after giving up Bill Mazeroski's ninth-inning homer in a 10-9 loss to Pittsburgh.

 He was redeemed two years later when he went 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA, including a 1-0 Game 7 win, as the Yankees prevailed over San Francisco in the 1962 Fall Classic with Terry winning MVP.

  Pirates starter Vernon Law was also 2-0 in the 1960 Series and appeared headed toward becoming the second pitcher in four years (Lew Burdette in '57) to go 3-0. He retired the first eight batters he faced and 12 of the first 14 before Skowron broke up his shutout with a leadoff homer in the fifth. Still, Law held a 4-1 advantage thanks to Nelson's two-run homer in the first, deep into the right-field seats, and Virdon's two-run single in the second.

  Stengel gave notice of a quick hook on this do-or-die afternoon when he came and got starter Bob Turley after Burgess' single leading off the second. Bill Stafford relieved and walked Hoak. Mazeroski, with an early small-ball contribution way before his big blow later, loaded the bases with a bunt single down the third-base line. Law grounded into a pitcher-catcher-first double play, but Virdon's hit to right made it 4-0.

  Murtaugh likewise didn't waste much time going to the bullpen with a 4-1 lead when Law ran into a bit of trouble with a single by Richardson and a walk to Kubek leading off the sixth. Elroy Face came in and got Maris to pop out, but Mantle cut the margin to 4-2 with a single plating Richardson.

  Berra then gave the Yankees their first lead of the day at 5-4 with a three-run homer, his 11th career Series four-bagger, tying him with Duke Snider for third all time. (He passed Duke next year and finished with 12, behind Mantle's 18 and Ruth's 12). Berra deposited an 0-1 pitch into the right-field seats down the line. 

  The Yanks extended the lead to 7-4 in the top of the eighth against Face on an RBI single by John Blanchard and an RBI double down the left-field line by Clete Boyer, after a walk to Berra on a full count and an infield single by Skowron with two out. Skowron was safe on a bouncer to third after Hoak threw too late trying to force out Berra. That gave "Moose" 12 hits in the Series, at that time tying him with five others for the record. 

  Shantz lined out to right after Boyer's hit, but that was it for Face, whose final line was 3 runs, all earned, over 4 innings, giving him a 5.23 ERA over 4 games and 10 innings in the Series.

  (Face was coming off a season for the ages in 1959 in which he went 18-1, all out of the bullpen, for an all-time record .947 winning percentage to go with 10 saves and a 2.70 ERA. He wasn't so lucky in the win-loss department in 1960, going 10-8, but was otherwise plenty solid with 24 saves, second in the NL, a 2.90 ERA and a league-leading 68 appearances.)

  So it was onto the fateful times at bat for Pittsburgh and New York, and all the twists and turns and heroic homers and bad hops. And a savvy stop and slide by Mickey Mantle. All overshadowed by the Magic of Maz.

  “Maz is eighth in the batting order, a spot that doesn’t exactly rank him as the greatest hitter of all time," Hoak said, "yet he comes up after the Yanks have tied the score in the ninth, and bam! I said, ‘Get out of here, you rotten, stinking, beautiful baseball.' ”

Just win, baby

  Maz's game-winner capped a bizarre Series in which the Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27, including a combined margin of  38-3 in their three victories.

  But it was fitting that when it got close at the end, Pittsburgh should prevail. The Pirates were a model of efficiency all season, going 26-22 in one-run games, winning 15 in their final at-bat, 12 of those with two out. So efficient were the Pirates in Game 7 that they left only one runner on base. And on a do-what-it-takes team with no true superstars -- Clemente hadn't risen to that status yet -- Mazeroski was as good a hero as any.

   "All year we’ve been a fighting, come-from-behind ballclub," he said. "We always felt we could pull it out – even after the Yankees tied it in the ninth."

   Afterward, the Yankees were as much stunned as disappointed.

  “What happened to us, for cryin’ out loud, what happened?” Maris asked.
  Answered Yogi: “We just got beat, Roger, by the damnedest baseball team that me or you or anybody else ever played against.”
                                                            

Sources:

  Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1960/B10130PIT1960.htm , with additional detail from https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-13-1960-mazeroskis-heroic-homer-brings-championship-pittsburgh,  https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/a5cc0d05, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ffabc630, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/490011-50-years-ago-today-bill-mazeroski-shocked-the-world  and  "Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates," edited by Clinton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin

  Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.