1960

"It was 1927 in reverse when the Pirates and Yankees took batting practice yesterday at Forbes Field. Dick Stuart's bombs were falling all over Schenley Plaza, behind the left-field wall. The Yankees had been batting for 20 minutes before anybody hit one out of the park. There's a legend that in 1927 the Yankees shell-shocked the Pirates with their batting-practice home runs. It's a fact that they won the Series in four games. Whether the home runs they hit in batting practice made any difference is open to question."

"The unsung star of the Series? That phrase could well apply to Roberto Clemente, the Pittsburgh right fielder with the rifle arm. [...] Scores of reporters surrounded pitchers ElRoy Face and Harvey Haddix, s well as shortstop and Captain Dick Groat and Manager Danny Murtaugh. Off to one side Clemente sat in front of his locker, alone. Yet here was the player whose bullet throwing arm had stopped the Yankees from taking an extra base on hits to his territory, a feat that contributed mightily to Pittsburgh's three victories. [...] Clemente put the fear into Yankee base runners in the very first Series game in Pittsburgh. In the second inning after Yogi Berra and Moose Skowron had singled with none out, he gathered in pinch hitter Dale Long's fly and just missed doubling Berra at second with a rifle peg. [...] In Sunday's fourth game his arm again played a vital role as the Bucs squared the series. In the seventh inning of Monday's game, fear of Clemente's arm played a key role in balking the Yankees. With one down Tony Kubek singled to right, but Kubek, after rounding the bag, hustled back to second [sic—see comment #2 below]. Had he been on third when McDougald forced Lopez, he would have scored. That would have made it 4-3 Pittsburgh and who knows what would have happened after that?"

"I think it was just sheer guts against power, and the guts came through."

"It's a dilly, all right. The ball really spins around that curve, like a pill on a roulette wheel. You can't charge 'em, or they'll get past you for a home run."

"Sure, I expect trouble. Look at that sun. How can I say I don't expect trouble? I'll tell you one thing, though. It might be an experience. I know there's a good chance I'll be lousy, but the funny thing is, I'm looking forward to it."

"Can't beat the Bucs, can you? No sir, can't beat the bad Buccos, I'll tell you that. That's for sure. Yessir! Yessir! We got 'em, we got 'em. They broke all the records, but we won the game. How about that? Can't beat that."

"They've been knocking me down all season in the National League and I've still gotten my share of base hits."

"I heard him yelling too and reached up to catch it when he bumped into me. He cut my foot a little, but I told him you can cut me like that all the time if you catch the ball."

"With lineup they have, they should have won pennant in August."

"He pitches with his head, too. He mixes up his stuff—two speeds of curve ball, a slider and then whoosh, the fast ball. He's tough."

"We no good when first come home off road. All time during regular season we lose first game after come back to Forbes Field. Same thing happen now. But we get hot in second game now we back—just wait and see. We go out with fire."

"These are the best fans anywhere. They make all of this worthwhile. They are the reason I'm glad we won the World Series. They're the ones who deserve this championship."

"Every time a man steps to the plate, I consider him to be potentially dangerous. But I'm convinced I'm going to get him out. As for the Yankees, they don't worry me at all—Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, or any of them—because I know they put their pants on one leg at a time, like the rest of us. We've got some powerful hitting teams in the National League, Milwaukee and San Francisco, for instance, and Cincinnati. I don't think the Yanks are any more dangerous."

"They had a tunnel back to the clubhouse, and I took off and got into the champagne. I didn't even see him cross home plate."

"Fans will see two opposite types in managing in Danny Murtaugh and Casey Stengel. Murtaugh goes with his regulars as far as possible. He might pinch-hit for them late in a game but very, very seldom. Danny figures if a man is good enough to play regularly, he's good enough to hit. And don't think this doesn't build up the confidence of a player. Murtaugh plays good, sound baseball according to the book. From what I've heard of Stengel, he may pinch-hit as early as the second inning. Casey also shifts players frequently but his methods have worked. Who can argue with success?"

"Everybody said the same thing, and Maz would be the first one to admit it. We all said, "Get off the wall! Get off the wall!" Maz was running as hard as he could run to get that extra base."

"I guess the Western Union telegram boys will be busy carrying me telegrams until game time today. In New York, after we'd been shellacked by the Yanks, I got about 100 telegrams. About 75 of them told me what a lousy club we were and that we had no business playing in a World Series. When we won the next two games, the telegrams stopped pouring in. The only thing I can conclude from this is that people who own stock in Western Union ought to be rooting for the Yanks to pin our ears back again today. But if it comes down to that, my advice to them consists of one word: Sell."

"I wasn't too worried at the start when Bob Cerv singled and Tony Kubek doubled. I knew I was in trouble, but felt that if I could get Roger Maris out, we'd walk Mickey Mantle and then try for the double play. And that's exactly how it worked out—Don Hoak took Yogi Berra's grounder and started the double play. Both Cerv and Kubek hit my best pitches, too. Cerv hit a ball in on him and Kubek hit a low, outside pitch into left field. But after the first inning, I made a change on Kubek. He had been batting .500 with seven hits and our "book" on him was to keep the ball outside and low. I decided to pitch him inside and he didn't get a ball out of the infield after that."

"We didn't have time to go to church before the game but Mrs. Law and I prayed in our room. We prayed that no one on either side would get hurt and that everyone would would do as well as they possibly could. We didn't pray for victory because that would be a selfish prayer."

"Bill Skowron impressed me as the best Yankee hitter in the Series and he hit that home run off me yesterday in the fifth inning on actually a waste pitch. I tried to waste a side-arm fast ball by throwing it a foot outside but it nicked the corner and Skowron hit it into the right-field seats."

"I had the utmost confidence in the Pirates all the way because I knew we were the better team. I thought the Yankees were playing over their heads. I didn't think they were that good."

"To name names for the unfortunate horseplay really has no purpose at this time. I suppose many were to blame and not just one person. The person who twisted my foot has had enough disappointments in his own life. All of us were a close-knit bunch of players, and I believe all the players would lose a great deal of respect for me if this person was named. The players involved literally picked me up and tried ripping my shirt off, but because I resisted so, it might have been my fault as well. , our TV and radio announcer, probably was more of an instigator than anyone, as he was in front of me, leading the pack on. There were about five or six of them, and it could have been any of them. Certainly Bob could have stopped the whole thing if he wanted to. There never were any hard feelings toward anyone for putting me through three years of misery. The important thing is, I was able to continue my career. I loved what I was doing and I wanted to go out of the game on my own terms."

"I was very nervous at the start of the game but after the first out, I was normal again. I was rounding first base when I saw the ball disappear over the scoreboard in the fourth inning and I was as happy as a fellow can get. This was a dream come true."

"That homer was one I'll always remember. The only one comparable was one off Taylor Phillips of the Cubs. That broke the home run record for a Pittsburgh second baseman. A small thrill compared to today's."

"Dad would have loved it—I only wish he could have been here today. Dad always wanted to play big league baseball. He was considered a great prospect. Once he was ready to sign with the Cleveland Indians and then he had a foot cut off in a mine accident. From then on, all his hopes and ambitions were wrapped up in me, because I was an only son. Dad had to work hard in the mines, but whenever he could he always would try to catch me in a ball game or two. Then a year and a half ago he died of lung cancer."

"You keep it. The memory's good enough for me."

"When I walked up to the plate, all I thought about was getting on base. But deep in my mind, I just knew we were going to lose. I thought, "Well, you can't feel too bad taking the Yankees into the seventh game of the World Series and losing in extra innings.""

"I was almost at second base when it finally went over. I was running so hard, just trying to make sure I'd get to third. Then it took moment or two to realize what happened. It was gone. You know, all I could think about was, "We beat the Yankeesǃ We beat themǃ We beat the damn Yankeesǃ""

"I get people coming up to me and talking about that home run all of the time. But you know, for once I'd like someone to say, "You were a damn good defensive second baseman. You were one of the best I ever saw." To tell you the truth, that's what I'm most proud of, that I could turn the double play as well as anyone who ever played the game. But no one remembers that. No one cares. It's kind of funny, isn't it? Thirty years later and people are still talking bout it. Who would have ever figured?"

"It hasn't been said very often, but I think it was one of the greatest games ever played in a World Series, especially a Game 7."

"There was so much going on after the game, so many people outside. We had a hard time getting to our car. Everybody wanted to buy you a drink. They were patting you on the back. We finally made it to our car, and we were wore out. We got in the car and took off for somewhere quiet. We went up into Squirrel Hill and sat on a Schenley Park bench and there wasn't a soul up there. Nobody. Except for a few squirrels running around. We sat there for about an hour and just relaxed. I wasn't thinking about the home run. It was, "We beat them. We beat the Yankees." The only thing I could think of after I hit second base was, "We beat them, we beat the Yankees, the great Yankees.""

"So I just walked to the plate, tryin' to hit the ball hard somewhere. I was always a high fastball hitter, and the first pitch that went by was probably a little too high. The second pitch he got down a little bit, and I hit it. And I knew when I hit it that Yogi Berra was in left field, that he wasn't gonna catch it. I knew I hit it good enough, hard enough... 'Cause it was 410 feet out there, and you probably had to hit it about 425 to get it over the big fence out there. So I knew he wasn't gonna catch it, and I was runnin' my butt off. And if he had misplayed it off the wall, I wanted to be on third base for a triple; there's a lot of ways to score from third base than there are from second. But by the time I was going into second, the roar of the crowd and the umpire down the left field line, give it his stuff... Then I hit second base, and I don't believe I touched the ground the rest of the way."

"Forget about the final score. If that ball had gone through, the score would have been tied, Bob Friend would have stayed in, and it would have been a different ball game. The Yankees wouldn't have scored any sixteen runs off of Bob, you can bet on that. I thought he was pretty sharp, as far as he went."

"I've seen every ball that has been hit over the center-field wall in Forbes Field. Mickey's, I'd have to say, was the most convincing."

"So far as I know they haven't changed the World Series rules. This thing still goes to the team that wins four games and not to the club that makes the most records."

"I got to my knees and backhanded it. I came up to throw to second to start a double play. But Groat had come in behind the pitcher's mound in preparation to take a throw from right field; he was on the grass instead of at second. He'd figured the ball had gone by me. So there's no one covering second. I cranked my arm twice, I was told, and then turned and stepped on the bag for a force out on Berra. But Mantle dove back into the bag and beat my tag at him. Yogi said I robbed him of a double. Mantle said he saw me catch the ball, and thought I caught it on the fly. Mantle might have been the goat if Skowron had followed with a single. Because if Mantle had gone to second he would have gotten there safely, and he would have scored on a single. Mantle wasn't more than an arm's length off the bag. Stuart said I should've gotten Mantle at first base. He told me if he'd have been at first base, the ballgame would've been over, and Maz wouldn't even have had to bat. That's the way Stuart was. He could give it and he could take it. But Murtaugh said I was the only one who could have caught the ball. I took one step off the bag with Yogi up; I couldn't take two steps off. The ball went over the bag and was in foul territory when I grabbed it. It was just one of the sequences in that game that stand out. It was probably the greatest game ever played in the seventh game of a World Series. It went back and forth. You couldn't ask for better drama."

"I was really disappointed, especially because I got hurt on a dumb baserunning mistake. I was on second base and a ball was hit to short and I took off for third. You're not supposed to go unless the ball is hit behind you between first and second base. I shouldn't have run; it was a real bonehead play. I was just so excited. The ball was hit to Kubek and he threw to third to get me. I dove into third, a headfirst slide, and my thumb just caught under the bag, and was bent back to my wrist. It really hurt. I told Murtaugh I had to play in the last game, though, if we were gonna win. I told him that. "I'll help this team win," I said. And I did. I had a sacrifice and I did some things that helped us. I only played seven innings in the field because my thumb hurt so much."

"They won the laughers. The easy games went to the Yankees. But when it came down to the clutch you know who was there. This was our kind of game. It was the first time in the Series we had a chance to show them our finishing kick. That's the way we won it all year and today we put it on again."

"I got my share of homers this year and I can tell you that no one ever gets any cheap ones here. Sure, I know Mantle led the American League in homers, but we got a couple of guys besides myself who can hit home runs, too. Clemente can hit a ball as far as anyone. He leans toward left field and hits to right. And what about Hoak, Skinner and Burgess? The ball jumps off their bats also."

"Why did you come in here if you didn't expect to get wet?"

"I was gonna hit one. Can I help it if Maz got cute?"

"I heard Clemente yell something like "Got it" but I wasn't sure. I felt as I went back that it was a tough one but that I had a chance. I caught it up here (over his shoulder) and stepped on Roberto's heel as I bumped him into the wall."

"I don't know about everyone else, but I'd certainly agree [with Tony Kubek]. I'm not sure if we belonged on the same field with those fellas. But something special was happening all year for us, and it happened again in the World Series."

"I gotta shake hands with himǃ That's one guy I know I'm better lookin' than."

"Worst park in baseball for a batter. I warned the Pirates and they wouldn't believe me but I'll bet they do now. It gets worse late in a game and if a pitcher gets an early lead, he's in clover. Why, I could pitch the last three innings there and get the side out. But this place is a hitter's paradise. Great background, no shadows, no haze coming in from the stands. A hitter's paradise, like I told you. Man, do we love to hit here."

"I dunno. This game is getting funnier and funnier. We do everything but punch 'em in the nose and here we are all tied up in the Series. We flatten 'em by scores of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0 and we still need one more to win. How do you figure that? Don't write this, but even if they beat us tomorrow, we're the better club."

"We just got beat, Roger—by the damndest baseball team that me or you or anybody else ever played against."

"We didn't win, anyway, did we? I hit a slider, I think it was, and then I worried all the way to first base if it would stay fair."

"He pitched a hell of a ball game. Tremendous. He's out of the inning if the ball doesn't take that bad hop. That's the play. And if he's out there, he gets that ball that Clemente hit."

"We were all buddies. We used to play with them in spring training all the time. Virdon was a Yankee to begin with. I knew him when he first broke in with us. I liked . They had , and you had to like Dr. Strangeglove. And they had Friend and Face. They were good fellows. Face was tough. They call it a today, but it's a , and nobody threw it better than Face. He was tough for everybody to hit."