Mazeroski's Home Run Wins the Series.

Mazeroski's Home Run Wins the Series. In one of the most dramatic World Series wins in baseball history, Pittsburgh Pirate Bill Mazeroski stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven and blasted a home run over the outfield wall. Pittsburgh's stunning upset of the New York Yankees is recounted here. . Mazeroski's Homer Wins 1960 Series Bill Lee of the Hartford Courant called the bedlam in the streets of Pittsburgh "the wildest since V-J Day ... It was like New Year's Eve in broad daylight." Revelers jumped into fountains, honked car horns, and heaved paper from office buildings. They shoved a trolley car off its track. They tore away pieces of Forbes Field. For 12 hours the city celebrated a ninth-inning home run by Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski that capped one of the most thrilling and improbable World Series victories ever. The historic round-tripper dispatched a mighty New York Yankees club managed by the legendary Casey Stengel and featuring superstars Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris. The Yankees were striving for their 19th world championship, the Pirates their third. Pittsburgh hadn't appeared in the World Series since 1927, when they were dusted off in four straight games by a New York team starring Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. The series began well for Pittsburgh. Mazeroski's two-run homer supplied the winning margin for the Pirates in game one at Forbes Field. Stengel's Yankees got angry, demolishing Pittsburgh by a combined tally of 26-3 in the next two contests. The Pirates responded with two straight triumphs at Yankee Stadium--although by much narrower margins, 3-2 and 5-2. Staying hot, Mazeroski stroked a two-run double in the second inning of game five. New York once again responded with a vengeance, destroying Pittsburgh 12-0 at Forbes Field to level the series at three games apiece. The winner of that seventh game would take the title in front of 36,683 people at Forbes Field, a virtual baseball shrine famous for its ivy-covered brick walls. Pittsburgh sent to the mound Vernon Law, who had already posted victories in games one and four, and who was on the verge of being named that year's Cy Young Award winner. Pitching for the Yankees was Bob Turley, winner of game two. The Pirates were the first to hasten scoreboard workers to their feet. Veteran first baseman Rocky Nelson swatted a two-run homer off Turley in the first inning. Pittsburgh added two more runs in the second inning on center fielder Bill Virdon's single off reliever Bill Stafford. New York didn't come alive until the fifth inning, when first baseman Bill Scowron deposited a Law offering into the upper deck in right field. One inning later the Yankees pieced together a four-run rally keyed by Berra's three-run homer off star reliever Elroy Face. Two insurance runs crossed the plate in the eighth inning for the Yankees, who led 7-4. With just six outs separating them from defeat, the Pirates needed more than just a rally. What followed over the next two innings stands as one of the most talkedabout series of events in baseball history. Pirate pinch-hitter Gino Cimoli led off the eighth inning with a single. Virdon followed with a tailor-made double-play grounder to second baseman Tony Kubek. As the ball sped toward Kubek, it took a bizarre hop off of Forbes Field's infamously hard infield and drilled him in the neck. Felled by the blow, Kubek was taken to a hospital. Meanwhile, the Pirates had two men on base with nobody out. Shortstop and reigning NL batting champion Dick Groat punched a single into left field, plating Cimoli. Following two successive outs Pittsburgh got another break when New York mishandled an infield grounder by Roberto Clemente, allowing Virdon to score and the Pirates to pull within one run. The next hitter, reserve catcher (and former Yankee) Hal Smith, pounded a 2-2 fastball from reliever Jim Coates over the leftfield fence for a three-run homer. Pittsburgh led 9-7. Capitalizing on a break of their own the Yankees tied the score in the top of the ninth inning. With one run in and one out, smart baserunning by Mantle robbed Pittsburgh of a double play and allowed pinch-runner Gil McDougald to score. The bottom of the ninth brought the Forbes faithful to its feet and Mazeroski to the plate. A steady but not spectacular hitter, the 24-year-old West Virginian had earned more of a reputation for his sparkling fielding. Years later a noted statistician gave Mazeroski the highest rating of any defensive player in major league history. Still, his bat did carry some punch. During a regular season interrupted by a foot injury, Maz hit .273 with 11 homers and 64 runs batted in. His career high of 19 round-trippers came two years earlier. With the crowd screaming itself into a frenzy, Mazeroski dug in. The time was 3:36 PM and Ralph Terry, the loser of game four, was on the mound. Terry's first pitch was a ball. Then Mazeroski sent his second delivery, a high fastball, far over the left-field wall and far above the 402-foot marker. "Maz didn't run around the bases," Arthur Daley wrote for the New York Times. "He danced like a man leaping from cloud to cloud." Mazeroski flailed his helmet wildly as hundreds of delirious fans rushed onto the field past a large contingency of police officers. He was barely able to reach home plate, where he was mobbed by teammates and fans. Only with help from the police could the Pirates reach their locker room. There, with the crowd cheering outside, a giddy, champagne-doused Mazeroski managed only to say, "Oh, I can't even talk, I'm so tired!" Maz's blast marked the first time since World Series play began in 1903 that a home run on the final pitch delivered a championship. "By golly, what a finish!" Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh said afterwards. "But we've been doing that all year, and I think the fans were looking forward to it." Disbelief descended on the Yankees's locker room. New York was toppled, despite outscoring the Pirates 55-27 and setting World Series records for team batting average (.338) and extra-base hits (27). Commissioner of Baseball Ford Frick said after witnessing game seven: "Well, this is my 39th [World Series], and I never saw a finish like this one--Never." Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.