Mazeroski's Walk-Off and the Game 7 They Found in a Wine Cellar

On October 13, 1960, Bill Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees were tied 9-9. Mazeroski swung at the second pitch from Ralph Terry and hit it over the left field wall at Forbes Field. It was the first and only walk-off home run in a Game 7 in World Series history.

The game was insane. The Yankees had outscored the Pirates 55-27 across the seven games. They had won Games 2, 3, and 6 by a combined score of 38-3. In Game 7, they trailed 4-0 after two innings, came back to lead 7-4, then watched the Pirates score five runs in the bottom of the eighth to go ahead 9-7. The Yankees tied it 9-9 in the top of the ninth on a Mickey Mantle RBI single and a Yogi Berra groundout that scored the tying run. Then Mazeroski ended it.

The NBC television broadcast of the game was lost for decades. The network had reused the tape. In 2010, a copy was discovered in the wine cellar of Bing Crosby's former home in Hillsborough, California. Crosby, a part-owner of the Pirates who was too nervous to watch the game in person, had arranged for a kinescope recording to be made so he could watch it later. The recording was stored with his wine and forgotten until his estate was reviewed.

The footage was donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Watching it decades later, the game looks even more improbable than the box score suggests. The lead changes hands repeatedly. Defensive mishaps and lucky bounces determine runs. The final score, 10-9 in a Game 7, has never been approached in a World Series.

Mazeroski was a second baseman whose fame rests almost entirely on one swing. He was a brilliant fielder who won eight Gold Gloves, but his offensive statistics (.260 career average, 138 home runs) were modest. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, largely on the strength of his defense and the single most dramatic moment in World Series history.