The Classic 1960 World Series

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1960 World Series Photo Gallery
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The Classic 1960 World Series

My recent post on Roberto Clemente got me to thinking about the 1960 World Series…so here’s one of my favorites photos from that classic.

This beautiful photo is from Game One, bottom of the first inning. Clemente, who reached on a single, is the runner on first. His hit drove in Bob Skinner with the third Pirates’ run of the inning. Smokey Burgess is at the plate. The first baseman is Bill “Moose” Skowron, and the catcher is Yogi Berra. The first base coach is Mickey Vernon. The home plate umpire is Dusty Boggess. Not visible is Yankee pitcher Jim Coates, who had just relieved started Art Ditmar. 

The Pirates went 95-59 (617) in the regular season under Danny Murtaugh; while the Yankees, in Casey Stengel’s final year at the helm, went 97-57 (.630). The Bucs won this game, 6-4, in route to their 4-3 World Series victory, capped by Bill Mazeroski’s historic ninth inning home run, the only time a decisive Game Seven World Series game has ended with a walk-off homer.

Here’s a few other tidbits from the 1960 World Series:

• Despite losing the series, the Yankees scored more than twice as many runs as the Pirates, winning three blowout games (16–3, 10–0, and 12–0), while the Pirates won four close games (6–4, 3–2, 5–2, and 10–9).
• The Series MVP was Yankee Bobby Richardson, the only time in World Series history that the award has been given to a member of the losing team.
• This World Series featured seven past, present, or future league Most Valuable Players: Pirates Dick Groat (1960) and Roberto Clemente (1966); Yankees Yogi Berra (1951, 1954, 1955), Bobby Shantz (1952), Mickey Mantle (1956, 1957, 1962), Roger Maris (1960, 1961), and Elston Howard (1963).
• The World Championship for the Pirates was their third overall and first since 1925.

Our older readers will recognize the names of the umpiring crew. In addition to Boggess, the others were Johnny Stevens (AL), Bill Jackowski (NL), Nestor Chylak (AL), Stan Landes (NL), Jim Honochick (AL).

There were seven future Hall-of-Famer in the series: Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, Casey Stengel (mgr.), Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, plus umpire Nestor Chylak.

Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: All from Google search

Information: Excerpts edited from the 1960 World Series Wikipedia page.