Description

Ticket stub recently graded PSA 2 (good) from Game 7 of the 1960 World Series in which Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th inning gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 win and the World Series title. For the deciding seventh game, Bob Turley, the winning pitcher in Game 2, got the nod for the Yankees against the Pirates' Vern Law, the winning pitcher in Games 1 and 4. Turley lasted only one inning plus one batter. After retiring the first two batters, Turley walked Bob Skinner, then first baseman Rocky Nelson homered, Pittsburgh's first home run since Bill Mazeroski's in Game 1, to give the Pirates a 2–0 lead. Turley was then pulled after giving up a single to Smoky Burgess leading off the second. Don Hoak then drew a walk against Bill Stafford, and a bunt single by Mazeroski loaded the bases. Stafford appeared to get the Yankees out of trouble after inducing Law to hit into a double play, pitcher to catcher to first. But lead-off man Bill Virdon's single to right scored Hoak and Mazeroski and increased the Pirates' lead to 4–0. The Yankees got on the board in the fifth on Bill Skowron's lead-off home run, his second of the Series. In the sixth, Bobby Richardson led off with a single and Tony Kubek drew a walk. Elroy Face relieved Law and got Roger Maris to pop out to Hoak in foul territory, but Mickey Mantle singled to score Richardson. Yogi Berra followed with a three-run shot to right that gave the Yankees their first lead, 5–4. The Yankees extended their lead to 7–4 in the eighth. With two out, Berra walked, and Skowron singled when the Pirates couldn't get a force-out. Johnny Blanchard (who had replaced Elston Howard at catcher for game 7) then singled to score Berra, and Clete Boyer doubled to score Skowron. But the Pirates retook the lead with a 5-run eighth inning. Gino Cimoli (pinch-hitting for Face) led off with a single, and Virdon hit a ground ball to short for what could have been a double play. But the ball instead took a bad hop and hit Kubek in the throat, leaving everybody safe and knocking the wind out of Kubek. He eventually got up, and game footage showed him arguing with manager Stengel, seemingly insisting he was ok to stay in the game. He was eventually coaxed off the field and replaced. He was taken to a hospital and kept overnight for observation due to concerns surrounding his trachea swelling up and thus, causing difficulty breathing. Back on the field, Dick Groat then chased Bobby Shantz (who had entered the game in the third and had pitched five innings, having not pitched more than four in any game during the regular season) with a single to score Cimoli and send Virdon to second. Jim Coates relieved Shantz and got Skinner out on a sacrifice bunt, which moved the runners up. Nelson followed with a fly ball to right, and Virdon declined to challenge Maris' throwing arm. Coates then got two quick strikes on Roberto Clemente and was a strike away from getting the Yankees out of their most serious trouble of the afternoon, when Clemente hit a Baltimore chop towards first; first baseman Skowron and Coates both tried to get to the ball at the same time, and Clemente's speed forced Skowron to just hold the ball as Coates could not make it to first base in time to cover. The high chopper allowed Virdon to score, cutting the Yankee lead to 7–6. Hal Smith, who had replaced Smoky Burgess at catcher after being pinch-ran for by Joe Christopher followed with a three-run home run to give the Pirates a 9–7 lead. Game 4 loser Ralph Terry relieved Coates and got the last out. Bob Friend, an 18-game winner for the Pirates and their starter (and loser) in Games 2 and 6, came on in the ninth to try to protect the lead. Bobby Richardson and pinch-hitter Dale Long both greeted him with singles, and Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh was forced to remove the veteran pitcher in favor of Harvey Haddix. Although he got Roger Maris to foul out, Haddix gave up a key single to Mickey Mantle that scored Richardson and moved Long to third. Yogi Berra followed, hitting a sharp grounder to first, with Rocky Nelson easily getting the second out. In what, at the moment, appeared to be a monumental play, Mantle, seeing he had no chance to beat a play at second, faked a step toward second base and then dove head-first back to first, narrowly avoiding Nelson's tag (which would have been the third out) as Gil McDougald (pinch-running for Long) raced home to tie the game at 9-9.[9] Had Mantle been out on the play, the run would likely not have counted since the play happened so quickly that the runner on third might not have crossed the plate before the out was recorded. With Mantle safe, the inning continued, but ended when Bill Skowron hit into a force play. Ralph Terry returned to the mound in the bottom of the ninth. The first batter to face him was Bill Mazeroski. With a count of one ball and no strikes, the Pirates' second baseman smashed a historic long drive over the left field wall (left fielder Berra had no chance to catch it despite following it to the wall), winning the game 10–9 and crowning the Pirates as World Series champions. As the Pirates erupted, the Yankees stood across the field in stunned disbelief. The improbable champions were outscored, out-hit, and outplayed, but somehow had managed to pull out a Game 7 victory. Years later, Mickey Mantle was quoted in Ken Burns' documentary Baseball as saying that losing the 1960 series was the only loss, amateur or professional, he cried actual tears over. For Bill Mazeroski, by contrast, his Series-clinching home run was the highlight of a Hall of Fame career otherwise notable mostly for excellent defense. Mazeroski became the first player to end the World Series with a home run. Thirty-three years later, Joe Carter would become the only other player to end the World Series with a home run, doing so for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series against the Pirates' in-state rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies, albeit in Game 6. Mazeroski remains the only player to end a Game 7 of the World Series with a home run, and is one of just two players to hit a walk-off home run in a Game 7 of any postseason series (Aaron Boone is the other, doing so for the Yankees in the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox). Because of the game’s back-and-forth nature (especially in the eighth and ninth innings) and historic conclusion, the game is considered by some to be the greatest game in MLB history, as well as one of the greatest games in the history of professional sports. Although most noted for the series-ending homer, Game 7 is also the only game in all of postseason history with no strikeouts recorded by either side. The San Francisco Giants in the 2002 World Series failed to strike out an Anaheim Angels batter in Game 2, but the Angels' pitching staff struck out eight Giants.