Buccos Cove Fan Vote All-Pirates Team: Second Baseman Bill Mazeroski
As our Buccos Cove Fan Vote All-Pirates team moves to second base, there are several players who have made their mark at the position. Most recently Adam Frazier has been a two-time Gold Glove nominee at the position, and who can forget Freddy Sanchez winning the National League batting title back in 2006. However, there are few names as synonymous with Pirates' second baseman as the man who you the fans voted for this position. He was named a National League All-Stat 10 times in his 17-year career and spent all 17 years in a Pittsburgh uniform. However, his biggest achievement of all was the walk-off home run that gave the Pirates the 1960 World Series Championship over the New York Yankees.
Bill Mazeroski was not only one of the greatest second baseman of all-time, but one of the greatest Pirates players of all time. Over his 17 year career, he hit .260 with 138 home runs and 853 RBI while featuring a career fielding percentage of .983 at second base. He committed just 204 errors in 17 seasons in the MLB for an average of just 12 errors a season. He was known for his ability to get on base at a high rate, and routinely had 150+ hits per season throughout his career. However, it was his defense and his ability to turn the double play with his infield partner Dick Groat that made him most famous. Today, we look at his Pirates career including the home run heard around Pittsburgh on that fateful day in 1960.
A Local Kid Becomes a Hometown Hero
Bill Mazeroski grew up a Pirates fan, as his family lived in Wheeling, PA. located just 60 miles outside of Pittsburgh. Growing up, Mazeroski loved sports and played any sport he could. He was known by his high school classmates for being able to punt a football 60-yards, although he was never on the football team. He did play basketball and baseball in high school and was a star center who averaged 27 points per game. He had a scholarship offer to play basketball from West Virginia, Ohio State, and Duquesne but Mazeroski decided to stick with the sport he loved. He went to a few Pirates tryouts when he finished high school before he signed a $4000 bonus with Pittsburgh and began his professional baseball career.
Two years after singing, Bill Mazeroski made his Major league debut at the young age of 19-years-old. During that first season, he played in 87 games for the Pirates and hit .243 with three home runs and 14 RBI. While he wasn't hitting the ball at a high clip, he played solid defense with a fielding percentage of .981. It was enough to earn him the starting second baseman's job in 1957, a position he would hold for the next 12 seasons. The 1958 season was his best of his early life as he hit .308 with 19 home runs and 68 RBI and was named to his first all-star team. He would make the all-star team in each of the next two seasons as well and turned into a Pittsburgh icon.
Mazeroski continued to be a consistent hitter all throughout the 60s before he started falling off during the 1969 season. He started playing a back-up role to guys like Dave Cash, but was still contributing. He won his second World Series ring with the team in 1971, a year where he played in just 70 games and hit .254 with a home run and 16 RBI. Mazeroski retired from Major League Baseball following the 1972 season. He stuck around as the Pirate's third base coach during the 1973 season, but coaching just wasn't his forte and he left baseball. He would be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame and the street that runs behind PNC Park was named after the legend.
The 1960 World Series
Perhaps the thing that Bill Mazeroski is most famous for in Pittsburgh is his Game 7 walk-off home run to give the Pirates the World Series Championship. There have only been two walk-off home runs to end a World Series, and Bill Mazeroski hit the first during that 1960 World Series. However, on paper, it looked like the Pirates had lost the series. The New York Yankees outscored the Pirates 46-17 in the series, but the Pirates won three nailbiters to send the series to a seventh game in Pittsburgh at Forbes Field. Vern Law would get the start for the Pirates against a group of bullpen pitchers for the Yankees.
This was an offensive game throughout with each side going blow for blow with each other. The Pirates got out to a 4-0 lead after two innings, but the Yankees stormed back with seven runs in the span of four innings and took a 7-4 lead into the bottom of the eighth. The Pirates would retake the lead with a five-run bottom of the eighth, but the Yankees responded with two runs in the top of the ninth to tie the game at 9-9. Bill Mazeroski was stepping to the plate to lead off the inning, and he was more known for his contact than his power. He took the first pitch for a ball and then sent the 1-0 pitch over the wall for a home run and the Pirates won the game 10-9 giving them their third World Series Championship. It was this hit that immortalized Mazeroski in Pirates history and made one of the best defensive second basemen of all time a legend.
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