Major League Baseball Season Recap 1960
World Series – Pittsburgh Pirates NL over New York Yankees AL 4 games to 3
World Series MVP – Bobby Richardson Babe Ruth Award – Bill Mazerowski
Awards –Vern Law
MVP Awards –
NL Dick Groat AL Roger Maris
Major League Rookie of The Year – NL Rookie of The Year – Ron Hansen AL Rookie of The Year – Frank Howard
All-Star Game – July 11th Municipal Stadium AL Starter Bob Monbouquette NL Starter Bob Friend MVP
All Star Game 2 July 13th Yankee Stadium I (AL) AL Starter Whitey Ford NL Starter Vern Law
Season Recap
The events of the 1960 baseball season were really rooted in a trade the year before. Over the winter that followed the 1959 season, in which the Yankees finished third, general manager George Weiss acquired Roger Maris via Kansas City for Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern, and Marv Throneberry. Voted the Most Valuable Player, the 25-year-old left-handed hitter turned the trade into one of the century’s greatest heists.
With Mickey Mantle contributing a league-high 40 round-trippers and Maris pounding the short right field porch in Yankee Stadium for 39 homers and a loop-best 112 RBI, New York had baseball’s most devastating one-two power punch since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Another 26 homers from Bill “Moose” Skowron boosted the team to — a major league — high 193 homers.
Bill Mazeroski helped the Pirates take down the Yanks. The Yankees needed all the offense they could get, as not one pitcher won more than 15 games. Even the great Whitey Ford was limited to just a dozen triumphs. Ten different pitchers won five or more (for a pennant-winner, the Yanks had an unusually high 16 hurlers). The Yankees won their last 15 contests to take the flag.
Chuck Estrada of Baltimore, which finished 8 games behind New York, and Jim Perry of fourth-place Cleveland tied for tops in the American League with 18 wins. Ranked third, Chicago owned league ERA leader Frank Baumann, who posted a 2.68 mark. Batting champ Pete Runnels hit .320 for seventh-place Boston. Baltimore’s Ron Hansen (22 homers, 86 RBI) was voted Rookie of the Year.
The National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates had a 20-game winner in Vern Law, who took Cy Young honors, and an 18-game victor in Bob Friend. The savior of the staff, however, was reliever Elroy Face, who won ten games and saved 24 others.
On the other side of the ball, Pittsburgh shortstop Dick Groat led the league in batting with a .325 average and won the MVP title. Groat beat out some tough competition — Willie Mays (.319, 103 RBI), Hank Aaron (40 homers, a circuit-high 126 RBI), and Ernie Banks (a league-best 41 homers, 117 RBI). Budding superstar Roberto Clemente also sparked the Bucs offense with a .314 average and 16 home runs. Pittsburgh’s unsung hero was 23-year-old second baseman Bill Mazeroski, who anchored the defense with flashy fielding.
Finishing 7 games behind Pittsburgh, Milwaukee had veteran Warren Spahn, who tied with Ernie Broglio of third-place St. Louis for most wins with 21. Mike McCormick posted a league-low 2.70 ERA playing for fifth-place San Francisco. Rookie Frank Howard of Los Angeles emerged with 23 homers.
Over the first six games of the 1960 World Series, the Yankees outscored the Pirates 46-17 but couldn’t win more than three contests. Law took games one and four with relief from Face, and veteran Harvey Haddix won game five. Ford posted shutouts in games three and six.
Game seven turned out to be a classic. The Pirates blew an early 4-0 lead as the Yanks went up 7-4. The Bucs’ five-run eighth inning was highlighted by reserve catcher Hal Smith’s three-run homer. The explosive Yankee offense then notched two runs in the ninth to tie the game at nine.
Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth against Ralph Terry, who had stopped the Pirates’ rally in the eighth. Up to that point, Mazeroski (.273 with 11 homers during the season) had knocked seven hits in 24 at-bats for the 1960 World Series, hitting a game-winning two-run homer in the first contest. Maz belted Terry’s second pitch over Yogi Berra’s head and the left-field fence for the win.
The Yankees, not taking defeat well, fired manager Casey Stengel, the 71-year-old master who had engineered all those flags in the decade of the 1950s.
1960 Events Sort by Search Days, Events, Players Title (A - Z) Date (Newest)
July 1, 1960
The Pirates are not big base-stealers, but aggressive baserunning is their stock in trade, as evidenced by today’s 10-inning, come-from-behind, walk-off win over Los Angeles, wherein Joe Christopher and Roberto Clemente combine to, in effect, steal the game. Los Angeles Times beat writer Frank Finch relates: “Christopher tied the score by racing in [from second] on Clemente’s infield single. Maury Wills fielded the bouncer and pegged to Gil Hodges. Clemente was safe by inches, and Christopher slid in a fraction of a second before Hodges’ peg to the plate arrived. Hitless in three previous trips and the target of boo-birds, Dick Stuart sliced a lazy fly ball down the right-field line. Clemente, of course, was off and running at the crack of the bat. Frank Howard lumbered over to pick up the ball, hesitated before throwing, and then fired wildly between third base and home as Clemente scored standing up. An accurate throw might have nailed the mercurial Puerto Rican, but the Pirates aren’t about to play this one over.”
July 3, 1960
Before 50,556 fans in New York, the Yankees sweep two from the Tigers, winning 7 – 6 and 6 – 2. In the opener, Ryne Duren fans Charlie Maxwell with the bases loaded and two outs in the 9th. Detroit is ahead, 2 – 1, in the night cap when Norm Cash argues at length about a call at first base, and finally gets tossed. When play resumes, Pete Burnside serves up a 3-run homer to Mickey Mantle, batting righty. The Yankees are 23-5 since June 5th and lead the American League by three games.
July 30, 1960
1960 – Just as he predicts, Philadelphia P Art Mahaffey, just called up from Buffalo, picks off the first batter to get a hit against him. Then, with the next batter to get a hit, he does it again. Curt Flood and Bill White are the baserunner victims, but St. Louis still wins, 6 – 3. In his next game, the first batter to get a hit off Mahaffey will be Jim Marshall, and Mahaffey will pick him off as well.
August 2, 1960
Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente is robbed on a 430-to-450-foot putout. With two on, two out and no score in the 6th, Dodgers centerfielder Duke Snider goes to considerable lengths to frustrate his favorite right fielder. Frank Finch of the Los Angeles Times reports: “Clemente clouted an ‘extra-baser’ which Snider caught with one hand near the center-field wall.” Clemente, however, has little cause for complaint. A mere two innings earlier, he himself performed a bit of “armed” robbery with Norm Larker playing the hapless victim though Larker, for his part, would claim it’s the umpire who robbed him. Frank Finch continues: “Round Four started well enough for L.A. when Tom Davis got a bad-hop single and raced to third on Norm Larker’s single to right. However, Bob Clemente’s rifle peg to Rocky Nelson nipped Larker trying to get back to first base. Larker snorted and stomped like a Brahma bull, getting the bum’s rush from umpire Ken Burkhart for throwing the tantrum. From the press box, it appeared that Larker had gotten back in time, but he had no excuse for the play even being close.” Clemente’s “lethal weapon” once again proves pivotal two innings later. George Lederer of the Long Beach Independent writes: “Stan Williams learned how costly his [7th-inning] error was when John Roseboro led off the 8th with a single. Roseboro, batting for Williams, lined Vern Law’s first pitch into the right field corner and was held to a single only by Roberto Clemente’s quick retrieve and bullet throw to second. Trailing by three runs instead of one, manager Walter Alston could not call for the bunt that otherwise would have been in order. Maury Wills, leading off in Alston’s revised lineup, promptly grounded into a double play to wipe out the Dodgers’ last serious bid.”
August 4, 1960
Believing that Chicago’s Jim Brewer is throwing at him, Reds 2B Billy Martin throws his bat toward the mound. Then, he advances to retrieve it from Brewer, who has picked it up. The two exchange words and Martin launches a hard overhand right that fractures the orbital bone of Brewer’s right eye. Both benches empty and Martin continues swinging, decking Frank Thomas. Brewer requires surgery and will be out of action for a month. The Cubs win, 5 – 3, on Ernie Banks’ homer. Martin will be fined $500 for the punch and Brewer and the Cubs will sue the combative infielder on August 22 for $1,000,000. Years later, when the courts award Brewer $100,000, Martin’s comment will be, “How can they ever collect it? I haven’t got that kind of money,”
August 24, 1960
During a dull game, Vin Scully, the play-by-play voice of the Dodgers, knowing that many fans in the stands follow the game on transistor radios, asks his listeners to help him surprise third base umpire Frank Secory. His ballpark audience responds when the veteran broadcaster tells them, “Let’s have some fun. As soon as the inning is over, I’ll count to three, and on three everybody yell, ‘Happy birthday, Frank!'”.
August 25, 1960
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Glen Hobbie concludes his pitching duel with Vinegar Bend Mizell in dramatic fashion by launching Mizell’s first pitch into the left field bleachers – barely: “A great roar went up from the 11,701 fans when Hobbie connected,” reports Les Biederman of the Pittsburgh Press, “and they were hoping the ball would carry to the bleachers. It went down the line and as Gino Cimoli watched, the ball barely got over the left-field railing into home-run territory.” Hobbie has had the Bucs off-balance all afternoon, striking out nine, six of them looking. Pittsburgh’s only run comes on Roberto Clemente’s 1st-inning RBI single, but Ernie Banks ties it with one swing leading off the bottom of the second. Clemente’s most memorable cut of the game comes later, in the 8th: even though he doesn’t make contact, the handle of his bat breaks off.
August 30, 1960
In Los Angeles, Roberto Clemente takes Sandy Koufax very, very deep, the ball carrying far beyond the 375-foot mark in right field (which, as the Dodgers will later acknowledge, is incorrectly marked and actually 394 feet from home plate). This puts Pittsburgh up, 4 – 0, bringing the pitcher’s evening to an early end. Koufax will later describe it as the longest ball he’s ever seen hit to the opposite field, a fastball on the outside corner that Clemente drives out of the park – “not just over the fence,” according to Koufax, “but way out.” Apart from the Dodgers’ Frank Howard, who accomplishes the feat three times, Clemente is the only right-handed batter to hit an opposite field home run at the Coliseum this season.
August 31, 1960
1960 – The World Series-bound Pirates come from behind yet again, trumping the Giants, 7 – 4. Roberto Clemente hits a two-out, two-run homer and Roy Face closes the game. For the Giants, Willie Mays does his best with a single, double and near-homer his first time up, but falls victim to Face in his final at-bat, a 7th-inning strikeout, representing the tying run at the plate. Later, Les Biederman will elicit Willie’s post-game prognosis: “The Pirates sure are impressive. Nothing seems to bother them. You’re behind 3 – 0, then a couple of hits, a couple of errors and boom! They have confidence and they show it. It’s a good team and should go all the way without too much trouble. Everybody carries the load. No one man is doing it all alone. They can hit up and down the lineup.”
September 13, 1960
Thanks to one of Giants starter Mike McCormick’s strongest performances of the year, plus a St. Louis 6 – 5 squeaker over Milwaukee, Pittsburgh’s pennant run stalls briefly, their magic number frozen at 11. Struck out 13 times by the 6′ 2″ southpaw, the Pirates’ only genuine threat, reports Giants beat writer Bob Stevens, is “a momentarily frightening blast over the left-field wall by Roberto Clemente in the 7th.” It comes off a low and inside McCormick change-up, according to Jack Hernon of the Post-Gazette, and goes “a mile high, far over the left-field fence at the 406 mark with Gino Cimoli on the hassocks.” Clemente’s clout brings the Bucs back to within one shortly after Willie Mays’ audacious base-running and the ensuing Mazeroski miscue have sparked a tie-breaking, three-run 6th. Unfortunately for the Bucs, the usually reliable Elroy Face allows two 9th-inning add-on runs, making McCormick’s final frame a relatively ho-hum affair.
October 8, 1960
1960 – Branch Rickey once again rewrites the history of his involvement with Roberto Clemente. Just as he did in the March 20, 1957 issue of The Sporting News, in the wake of Clemente’s dramatically improved sophomore season, the one-time Pirate GM once again proves an unreliable witness with regard to the level of his involvement in Pittsburgh’s acquisition of its emerging superstar. Rickey is quoted by the Baltimore Afro-American as follows: “I was with the Dodgers when we acquired Clemente after scouting him in Puerto Rico.” In fact, Rickey was long gone from Brooklyn and safely ensconced in Pittsburgh long before Clemente was seen, much less signed. Having left Brooklyn after the 1950 season, Rickey was promptly picked up by Pittsburgh, where he labored for five years. Clemente, by contrast, was discovered in Puerto Rico by the Dodgers’ Al Campanis in August 1952 and signed with Brooklyn on February 19, 1954. Rickey continues: “So I was thoroughly acquainted with the boy when the major league draft came up in the winter of 1954, after I had come to Pittsburgh from Brooklyn.” In point of fact, Rickey’s only acquaintance with Clemente as of the 1954 Winter Meetings came second-hand, via rave reviews from his staff, chief among them Clyde Sukeforth.
October 22, 1960
“But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.” – JOHN UPDIKE, author of Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu published in the New Yorker, The New Yorker magazine publishes Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, an article by 28 year-old John Updike which chronicles Ted Williams’ last game in the major leagues. The future Pulitzer Prize-winning author, among the 10,000 fans to watch the fabled game in Boston, ends the much-celebrated baseball essay with, “Gods do not answer letters,” as an explanation of why the 41 year-old superstar did not acknowledge the Fenway faithful after homering in his final major league at-bat.
