Customer Reviews

The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs Yankees: October 13, 1960

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

As a dedicated Yankees fan, I would call the 7th game of the 1960 World Series "The Most Disappointing Game Ever". The author has done a very good job re-creating the drama of that game. The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is a few annoying mistakes. For example, the author describes Yankees Yogi Berra and John Blanchard as right-handed hitters,when clearly they were both lefties. He also says Mickey Mantle was 65 at his death when in fact he was 63. Those simple errors make you wonder what else he got wrong.

Nevertheless, this is a good book and I recommend it.

Yes, I remember where I was when listening to this game. My high school economics teacher allowed me to listen on my transistor radio with my ear piece while he conducted the class. He later asked me why I looked so sad. I said, "The Pirates just won the series on a home run in the 9th inning." He and the rest of the class expressed their delight. Don't get me wrong. This book is okay, but it is not a memorable baseball book of which I have hundreds. As a previous reviewer noted, there are irritating mistakes. On page xxx author Jim Reisler states teams "such as the Dodgers and Cardinals were eager to sign black players." The Dodgers and Giants, yes, but not the Cardinals. He also states on page 32 that Early Wynn was part of the 1950's New York Yankees' veteran pitching staff along with Whitey Ford, Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, and Eddie Lopat. Wynn, as we all know, played a major role in the Cleveland Indians' big three staff of Wynn, Mike Garcia, and Bob Lemon. On page 150 the author mentions "journeyman pitcher Bobby Del Greco". Del Greco had a mediocre career as an infielder and outfielder. These were errors I caught that should have been discovered. About half of the book pertains to matters not connected with "the best game ever" and the final part of the book is devoted to the history of the Pirates and Yankees into the next several years that can be found in several other books. The best part of the book is the 8th and 9th inning, but I feel the rest of the book is pedestrian. I have read hundreds of books on baseball, and I'm sorry but I didn't find this book to be especially significant. However, I will always be thankful to my high school economics teacher who let me listen to the final three or four innings while he conducted class for the other students.

I'm only up to page 33. In addition to the errors mentioned elsewhere, Danny Murtaugh played 84% of his games at second base, and 8% at shortstop, so calling him a "smooth fielding shortstop for 9 years" is not quite correct (particularly as he only played short in two of those nine years); calling Bob Skinner a first baseman when he didn't play a game at first during the regular season or World Series (434 appearances in the field in 1958-1960; one at first base and 433 in the outfield) is also misleading. Not to mention typos - on page 9 there's a reference to the Yankees 75th triple of the Series (the word "hit" is missing after "seventy-fifth") and Ralph Terry being called a "sport" starter (as opposed to a "spot" starter) on page 13. Doesn't anyone proofread books any more? And don't even get me started on The Team-By-Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball - if there was a Hall of Fame for errors in a book, this would be the first one inducted.

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.

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

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!

Author Jim Riesler recreates Game Seven excitement as the upstart Pittsburgh Pirates won their first World Series title since 1925. Moving batter by batter, Riesler weaves in background prose about the players, City of Pittsburgh circa 1960, etc. Readers see that the Pirates felt confident in their home ballpark despite crushing losses (by 16-3, 10-0, and 12-0) in games Two, Three, and Six. In the final game, Pittsburgh staked ace Vern Law to an early 4-0 lead, but the visiting Yankees erupted for seven runs after he tired. Trailing 7-4 in the bottom 8th, the Pirates rallied after that infamous bad-hop grounder hit shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat (avoiding a double play) and Hal Smith later went deep. New York tallied twice to knot the score 9-9 in the top of the ninth, permitting Bill Mazeroski to end it minutes later. (Today, the spot where Mazeroski's homer cleared the wall in left-center is clearly marked at the University of Pittsburgh). Then we read about wild post-game celebrations in Pittsburgh's streets, plus the aftermath for both teams (Pirates faded, Yankees kept winning). I liked learning about old Forbes Field (1909-1970), and key players like Mazeroski, MVP Dick Groat, Roberto Clemente, etc., but wish the pro-Pirates author had devoted modest prose to their opponents. Those vanquished opponents watched the wild street celebrations from their airport bus; it was a new experience for a Yankee squad that won so often their fans barely yawned.

This tense, readable book suffers from several factual errors - Early Wynn never pitched for New York, the ages of Elston Howard and Mickey Mantle upon their passing are incorrect, the box score omits the ninth inning, etc. When will publishers start using baseball fans as fact checkers? Still, this is a readable, interesting look at a classic ballgame.

While the book provides an interesting look at the atmosphere and lifestyle of 1960 Pittsburgh, especially to someone like myself who is relatively new to the Pittsburgh area, the many baseball-related errors (which seem to become more common as the book nears its conclusion) detract from what is otherwise a well-written story.

In addition to the many gaffes already mentioned by other readers (describing Yogi Berra as a right-handed batter, and Bobby Del Greco as a pitcher, just to name a few), there is the one describing Dick Groat's first major league hit in 1952 off Larry Jaster of the Giants --- it should have been Larry Jansen. Larry Jaster, who never pitched for the Giants, and who didn't make the majors until 1965 (ironically, as a teammate of Dick Groat, who was then in his final year with the St. Louis Cardinals), was all of eight years old when Groat broke into the major leagues. Also obvious was the comment that "the Yankees would go on to play in every world series through 1965, winning three of them". Not quite !!! The Yanks won in '61 and '62 (that's two), but lost in '63 and '64, after which they wouldn't even make it to the series again until '76 (another loss).

Another glaring error is a reference to Harvey Haddix' "lost" perfect game of 1958 --- which actually occurred in 1959. Haddix wasn't even with Pittsburgh in 1958, as he was still pitching for Cincinnati then.

Twice, umpire Dusty Boggess is misidentified as Dusty Vargas in the description of Maxeroski's game-winning home run, the most famous photo of which (showing Mazeroski's swing from almost ground-level, with the scoreboard in the background) is curiously absent from the book.

All in all, there are far too many mistakes for it to be considered a great, or even very good book. I still have about 47 pages to read, and I'm just wondering how many more goof-ups I'll discover. At this point, I'm researching anything that even sounds suspicious.

No, I didn't see or hear the Maz homer. I did see the Kubek bad hop in school (6th grade), but when school was out, we were shooed away and by the time I'd pedaled home, it was over.

This book is a nice but not great recounting of that game. There were mistakes in the writing and proofing, I was able to get around them. I discovered things I didn't know about the game, such as that the Doctor was asked to come to the Stadium so Kubek could stay with the team. The play-by-play, many times, pitch-by-pitch accounting of the game added to my knowledge. I just wish it were better written and more accurate in it's details.