The Best Game Ever: Pirates Vs. Yankees: October 13, 1960

by Jim Reisler

Book Overview

October 13, 1960: The hardscrabble Pirates were a hungry squad, led by Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, and a colorful bunch of overachievers who hit singles and rode solid fielding and pitching to the franchise's first World Series appearance in 35 years. The Yankees, lordly and corporate, were making their 12th trip to the World Series in 15 years and, through the managing of Casey Stengel, power hitting, and immense talent, usually found a way...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786719435
• ISBN13: 9780786719433
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Best Game Ever-Again!

I just read Jim Reisler's book on a Florida beach on Game 7 of the 1960 7th game between the Pirates v. Yankees. It was a great reliving of every pitch and detail for me, some of which I learned for the first time from Reisler's great research. He interviewed the right people and asked the right questions. Don Hoak, Dick Groat, Bll Mazeroski, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and even Gino Cimoli, are all characters brought back to 1960 life. What is lost on everybody in big-market towns is the fact that the little Pittsburgh Pirates, now without a winning season since 1992, vanquished one of the most talented baseball teams ever in the 1960 Yankees. And I was a Yankees fan as long as they were not playing Pittsburgh. The Yankees AVERAGED 8 runs per game in the series, hit 11 home runs to the Pirates 4. But the game was a classic and probably all time best game even without Maz's homer to true baseball scholars. Leads changed many times, Hal Smith hit a 3-run homer in the 8th that we were all sure would be the winner, Tony Kubec was hit in the neck with a sharp gound ball from Bill Virdon that had double play written all over it prior to Smith's homer, Mickey Mantle somehow avoided a double play by shear athleticism that would have avoided the need for Maz's homer. The ONLY walk off homer EVER in World Series Game 7 by Bill Mazeroski was just the climax to what already was the BEST GAME EVER to me. There are many things that conspire to take away the significance of this event. The NBC announcer blew the call on Maz's homer, both on the Yankee pitcher (it was Ralph Terry not Art Ditmar) and missed the score too. NBC also inexplicably lost the tape of the game!! (Hmmm, I smell conspiracy for the NYC-based NBC; bring in the cold-case cops!). And most important, while the game thrilled the nation when it happened, it occurred in a slower time, with no replays, black and white TV, ironically quicker games. But for one professor who remembers watching the end of the game in his Wheeling WV home with my sibs, this game was epic. I still chronicle my life as BC and AD before and after that game and series. After I completed the book on the Florida beach, I was in tears. I glanced at my watch as the sun was arcing in a display of shadows. I paused, picked up my things, and left the beach at precisely 3:36 PM. That is the minute that Maz his his home run, as vividly displayed on the scoreboard clock in the picture in my home. Best Game Ever is of course in the eyes of the beholder and this game would not have a chance if it were put up to a vote where there are so many other wonderful baseball memories but not in fly-over country. But thank you to Jim Reisler for allowing me to live my best game ever twice-once on a beautiful afternoon on October 13, 1960 and once yesterday on an eerily similar afternoon on a Florida beach. William J. Mitsch, Ph.D. Columbus, Ohio

Best Game Ever----Best Baseball book ever!

This is a fantastic baseball book you MUST add to your sports library. It takes you inning by inning thru the 7th game of the 1960 World Series, but also includes a whole lot of background information about both the Pirates and Yankees....information about how each team reached the WS. It also includes some great photos like Tony Kubek lying on the infield ground after being hit in the throat by a wicked ground ball hit by Bill Virdon......This book deserves 6 stars on a 5-star scale!

The Title Says It All! Highly Recommended!

Forget the complaints in prior reviews concerning a few minor errors in this book. They don't take away a bit from the story which is a very fascinating pitch by pitch chronology of one of the greatest World Series game ever played. We all know the outcome but the highlights include a biographical sketch of the participants with information most baseball fans have never heard. (For example: before game #1 Harvey Haddix told the Pirate's radio announcer that the hero of the series would be Bill Mazeroski. When asked why, he said of the light hitting 2nd baseman "Because they'll pitch to him!". Also the author provides an inside look at the strategies of both Stengel and Murtaugh in a game that had enough twists and turns to qualify for a roller coaster ride. Enjoy!

the best for Bucs fan but most disheartening for Yankee fan's

I guess this is a great game to relive on tape. It seesawed back and forth. The Yanks were in control until the easy DP ball hit Kubek in the adam's apple. He had to leave and Hal Smith followed with a three run home run to turn the game around. In the top of the ninth the Yanks scored and they were trailing 9-8 with runners on first and third. Mantle was on first and Berra was at the plate. Yogi hit a hard line drive to frist the Rocky Nelson scooped up and was going to turn into a game ending and series winning double play. He was so close to the bag that he stepped on the bag first and Mantle was frozen just a few feet off the bag because he thought Nelson would catch it on a fly and double him off the bag. After Nelson made the play at first he whirled around to throw to the shortstop to get Mantle out. Well in was no longer a force play and if they didn't tag Mantle out quickly the tying run was coming in from third base. Mantle reacted by diving back safely into first to tie the game. That was all they could muster but it looked like if they could get the Pirates out in the 9th they would surely win in extra innings even though they were in Pittsburgh. I was in my 8th gade social studies class and my teacher let me listen on the radio. I got so excited that I dropped the radio. I couldn't get the game back and I thought I had broke it. When we finally got it back on the game was over. Mazeroski was the first batter in the bottom of the ninth and he hit Terry's second pitch (I think) over Berra's head in left field and the ivy cover wall for the game winning home run. It took me a while to figure out what happened but it was the greatest let down of my life. This may have been the best World Series game ever because each team got breaks and capitalized on them. Neither team gave up and it went right down to the bottom of the ninth with all the drama left in the hands of Mazeroski and Terry. As I never really saw the game it is neat to see it for the first time. The Mazeroski home run I had seen manu times and the ground ball to Kubek was shown often too. But the rest of the game I only heard on radio and only for the late innings of the game. This was also Casey Stengel's last game as a Yankee manager. Ralph Houk took the helm in 1961 and that Yankee team was dominant and brought the World Championship back to the Bronx where Yankee fans felt it belonged. Even Mantle said that this was a series they should have won! Others have pointed to error made in the commentary about the series. I can overlook that because I know most of the facts behind the game. But the shear drama and scoring make it great anyway.

Must Read for Every Pittsburgher and Baseball Fan

As the author, baseball writer Jim Reisler, notes in the introduction it's a wonder this book hadn't ever been written before. Not only was the 1960 Series one of the great David v. Goliath match-ups (scrappy no-name steel town Pirates vs. effete Yankee perennials) and one of the most lopsided series of all time, but the actual game 7 itself defies all description. Oh yeah, and on top of that that it's the only Series ever decided by a walkoff home run. Case closed -- best game of all time. Reisler brings a fan's eye and a fluid conversational writing style to the drama. He nicely alternates color commentary (about Pittsburgh and its charming dialect and traditions, about the Yankees and their farm team in Kansas City, Casey Stengel's inscrutable managing) with great play by play and pitch by pitch accounts of the actual game. All along, he sprinkles the mixture with well-researched tidbits for the fan who knows everything (Pirate announcer Bob "the Gunner" Prince dropped out of Stanford AND Harvard Law School? Lenny Bruce attended game seven at Forbes Field? Mazeroski's home run ball was never found?). Like the best storytelling, his writing builds the drama carefully and slowly until the improbable and electrifying conclusion. Coming from someone who's got shelves full of baseball books of all sorts, this one is a must for anybody with even the least connection to the great 'burgh and its lovable and unforgettable 1960 Pirates. Come to think of it, the book ranks with the best of the "snapshot in time sports in the context of their times" genre.