Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates is the joint product of 44
authors and editors from the Society for American Baseball Research
(SABR) who have pooled their efforts to create a portrait of the 1960
team which pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the last 60 years.
Game Seven of the 1960 World Series between the Pirates and the Yankees
swung back and forth. Heading into the bottom of the eighth inning at
Forbes Field, the Yankees had outscored the Pirates, 53-21, and held a
7–4 lead in the deciding game. The Pirates hadn’t won a World
Championship since 1925, while the Yanks had won 17 of them in the same
stretch of time, seven of the preceding 11 years. The Pirates scored
five times in the bottom of the eighth and took the lead, only to cough
it up in the top of the ninth. The game was tied 9–9 in the bottom of
the ninth. At 3:36, Bill Mazeroski swung at Ralph Terry’s slider. As
Curt Smith writes in these pages: “There goes a long drive hit deep to
left field!” said Gunner. “Going back is Yogi Berra! Going back! You can
kiss it good-bye!” No smooch was ever lovelier. “How did we do it,
Possum? How did we do it?” Prince said finally, din all around. Woods
didn’t know—only that, “I’m looking at the wildest thing since I was on
Hollywood Boulevard the night World War II ended.” David had toppled
Goliath. It was a blow that awakened a generation, one that millions of
people saw on television, one of TV’s first iconic World Series moments.