The 1960 World Series: Mazeroski's Home Run and a Series Decided Against the Numbers
The Pirates beat the Yankees in seven games despite being outscored 55 to 27, and Bill Mazeroski ended it with a home run. A game-by-game account with the arithmetic of how a team can win a Series while losing the run count.
On October 13, 1960, Bill Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, with the score tied at 9 and the New York Yankees' Ralph Terry on the mound. Mazeroski hit the second pitch he saw over the left-field wall. The Pirates had beaten the Yankees, 10 to 9, and won the World Series four games to three. Through the 2025 season, it remains the only time a World Series ended with a home run in a seventh game.
What makes the 1960 Series unusual is not the ending but the arithmetic. Across seven games the Yankees scored 55 runs and the Pirates scored 27. New York won three games by scores of 16 to 3, 10 to 0 and 12 to 0. Pittsburgh won four games by a combined total of seven runs. If you add up every run, you would think the Yankees dominated. If you count the games, as baseball does, the Pirates won.
This article tells the Series game by game, explains how a team can be outscored by twenty-eight runs and still win, and puts the result in the context of the 1960 season. For other championships decided in a seventh game or a famous inning, see the 1975 World Series, the 1986 World Series and the 1954 World Series and the Catch.
Two pennant winners in a sixteen-team sport
In 1960 there were sixteen major-league clubs, eight in each league, and no divisions: the team with the best record in each league went to the World Series. Teams played about 154 games, and the season produced 4.31 runs per team per game and 0.86 home runs per team per game, according to the historical record. Those numbers are a useful baseline, because 1960 was the last season before the American League expanded.
The Yankees won the American League at 97 wins and 57 losses, finishing eight games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles (89-65) and ten ahead of the Chicago White Sox (87-67). Roger Maris was the American League's Most Valuable Player, and Mickey Mantle hit 40 home runs, tied for second in the major leagues behind Ernie Banks's 41. The Pirates won the National League at 95-59, seven games ahead of the Milwaukee Braves (88-66) and nine ahead of the Cardinals (86-68). Their shortstop Dick Groat won the batting title at .325 and the league's Most Valuable Player Award, and their pitcher Vern Law won the Cy Young Award, which in 1960 was given to one pitcher for both leagues.
On paper the Yankees were the favorite. They were the Yankees, they had won the pennant easily, and they came into the Series with a lineup that had put up bigger offensive numbers. Pittsburgh had not won a pennant since 1927, when, as it happens, a Yankees team had swept them. The result of the 1960 meeting was widely seen as an upset, and the box scores explain both why that was fair and why it was not.
Game by game
The Series used the 2-3-2 format that is still familiar: Games 1 and 2 in Pittsburgh, Games 3, 4 and 5 at Yankee Stadium, and Games 6 and 7 back in Pittsburgh. The results, as documented in the standard Series records, were:
| Game | Winner | Score | Site |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pirates | 6 to 4 | Forbes Field |
| 2 | Yankees | 16 to 3 | Forbes Field |
| 3 | Yankees | 10 to 0 | Yankee Stadium |
| 4 | Pirates | 3 to 2 | Yankee Stadium |
| 5 | Pirates | 5 to 2 | Yankee Stadium |
| 6 | Yankees | 12 to 0 | Forbes Field |
| 7 | Pirates | 10 to 9 | Forbes Field |
The pattern is plain. The Yankees' wins came by 13, 10 and 12 runs. The Pirates' wins came by 2, 1, 3 and 1. In four of the seven games the margin was three runs or fewer, and in three it was ten or more. Baseball counts wins, not margins, so the Pirates' four close victories counted for more than the Yankees' three blowouts.
The early games: Pittsburgh holds, New York explodes
Game 1 went to the Pirates, 6 to 4, behind Vern Law and the closer Roy Face. Manager Casey Stengel had started Art Ditmar rather than his best pitcher, Whitey Ford, a decision that was criticized then and has been ever since. Ford did not pitch until Game 3, and he shut out the Pirates in that game and again in Game 6. Critics argued that an ace started in Game 1 could have pitched three times in the Series; Ford, who threw a shutout in each of his two starts, pitched twice.
Game 2 and Game 3 were the Yankees' explosion. The 16-to-3 win at Forbes Field was followed by a 10-to-0 win at Yankee Stadium, in which second baseman Bobby Richardson hit a grand slam and drove in six runs, then a single-game record for a World Series. Mantle hit three home runs in the Series as a whole. After three games the Yankees led the Series two games to one, and the run totals were 30 to 9 in their favor.
The Pirates then won Games 4 and 5 by scores of 3 to 2 and 5 to 2 in the Bronx. Roy Face, the Pirates' closer, saved Games 1, 4 and 5. The Yankees answered with a 12-to-0 win in Game 6, again behind Ford, to tie the Series at three games each and force a decisive game in Pittsburgh.
Game 7: a 4-0 lead, a 7-4 deficit and a tie
The seventh game is among the most dramatic in the sport's history, and it is worth following inning by inning because the lead changed hands twice before the tie.
- Pittsburgh leads, 4 to 0. The Pirates scored early, with Rocky Nelson's home run in the first inning and two more runs in the second.
- New York leads, 5 to 4. Bill Skowron homered in the fifth. In the sixth Yogi Berra hit a three-run home run that gave the Yankees their first lead of the game.
- New York leads, 7 to 4. The Yankees added two runs in the eighth and, with six outs to go, looked like the team that had scored 16 and 10 and 12 in the earlier games.
- Pittsburgh leads, 9 to 7. In the bottom of the eighth, a ground ball by Bill Virdon took a bad hop and struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat. What should have been an inning-ending double play became a rally. The Pirates scored five times in the inning, the last three on a home run by the reserve catcher Hal Smith.
- Tied, 9 to 9. In the top of the ninth the Yankees scored twice, on a single by Mantle and a ground ball by Berra, to tie it.
That set up the last half-inning. Mazeroski led off for the Pirates, took ball one, and then hit the next pitch over the left-field wall. With the score tied and nobody on base, a single swing ended both the game and the Series, and Terry became the pitcher who threw the pitch.
The bad hop and the decisions that shaped it
The eighth inning of Game 7 is the part of the story that gets less attention than the final swing, and it is more instructive. Before the ball struck Kubek, the Yankees had a three-run lead and a pitcher at work who had been getting outs. After it, the Pirates had runners on and the Yankees' infield had lost a starter, who left for the hospital. Those two events are tied up with the choice of which pitchers to use in the late innings, and that is where fans have second-guessed Stengel for decades.
These are matters of judgment, and a reader should treat second-guessing with caution. A ground ball that bounces wrong is not a managerial error, and a bad-hop double play that turns into a five-run inning is the kind of event that shows up in any large sample of games. What the inning does illustrate is something the final score cannot show: in a short series, one unlucky bounce can be worth more than a large lead built over five other games.
How a team wins while being outscored by twenty-eight runs
The simplest tool for judging a team's run record is the Pythagorean expectation, an old formula that estimates a winning percentage from runs scored and allowed: runs scored squared, divided by the sum of runs scored squared and runs allowed squared. For the Yankees in this Series, that is 55 squared (3,025) over 3,025 plus 27 squared (729), which is about 0.81. A team that scores and allows runs at that ratio would be expected to win roughly 81 percent of its games, or between five and six of seven.
The Yankees won three. The gap between the expectation and the result comes from how the runs were distributed. A run scored in a 12-to-0 game does nothing to help a team win that game, because it was already won, and a run allowed in a 10-to-9 game decides everything. When a team scores most of its runs in a few blowouts, it piles up a run differential that does not translate into wins. The Yankees spent 35 runs of margin in their three wins and gave up 7 net runs in their four losses, and the Series ended 4 to 3 the other way.
Over a 154-game season this kind of unevenness averages out. Over seven games it does not, and that is the main reason a short series can produce a result that runs counter to the box-score totals. The same lesson applies to the standings and to magic numbers: wins are the unit that counts, and margin is an indicator, not a result.
Richardson, the unusual Most Valuable Player
The Series Most Valuable Player was Bobby Richardson of the Yankees, the only player from a losing team ever to receive the World Series Most Valuable Player Award. He drove in 12 runs in the seven games, a Series record (Freddie Freeman tied it in 2024), including the six in Game 3. He was not known as a home run hitter, which is why the numbers stand out: a second baseman who rarely hit the ball over the fence hit a grand slam in October.
The fact that the award went to a player on the losing side is as telling as anything in the Series. The Pirates won four close games without a single overwhelming individual performance, while Richardson's totals were beyond anything on the winning side. Mazeroski's home run is the moment the Series is remembered for, but the box scores belong to Richardson.
What happened next
The Yankees let Stengel go after the Series. He was seventy years old, and the club pointed to his age, though the decision came days after the loss and was widely linked to it. Ralph Houk replaced him. Mazeroski went on to a long career as one of the best defensive second basemen the sport has seen, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001, long after his playing career ended.
The broadcast of Game 7 was thought to be lost for decades. A kinescope of the game was found in late 2009, and announced in 2010, in the wine cellar of the singer Bing Crosby, who had been a minority owner of the Pirates. Until then, fans had mostly seen the home run in highlights or heard it described. For the same Yankees franchise at an earlier peak, see the 1927 Yankees by the numbers.
How 1960 compares with other seventh games
Seventh games have a special place in baseball, and not all are alike. The 1960 game is notable for its scoring (nineteen total runs, an extraordinary number for a decisive game) and for its swings in lead, which meant that every strategic decision came under pressure. Many Game 7s are tight pitching duels. This one was an offensive free-for-all in which the winner was the team that got the last at-bat.
The setting mattered. Forbes Field had a reputation as a roomy ballpark, and a home run over its left-field wall was never a given. How far a fly ball carries always depends on the park and the conditions, a subject covered in weather, wind and baseball totals.
Common questions
Who won the 1960 World Series? The Pittsburgh Pirates, four games to three over the New York Yankees. They clinched with a 10-to-9 win in Game 7.
Did the Yankees outscore the Pirates? Yes, 55 runs to 27. They won Games 2, 3 and 6 by 13, 10 and 12 runs, while the Pirates won their four games by 2, 1, 3 and 1.
Who was the Series Most Valuable Player? Bobby Richardson of the Yankees, who drove in 12 runs. He is the only player from a losing team to win the award.
Who hit the winning home run? Bill Mazeroski, the Pirates' second baseman, who led off the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 with the score tied at 9.
Why did the Yankees part with Casey Stengel? The club pointed to his age, seventy. The timing, right after the Series, led most observers to link the two.
Where to go next
Today's league tables are on the standings page, and the full range of postseason history is on the history and Hall of Fame topic page. To see how the Yankees' dominance looked in its earlier form, read the 1927 Yankees by the numbers, and for a later seventh-game classic see the 1991 World Series.