On October 13, 1960, Bill Mazeroski ended the World Series before the New York Yankees could take another turn at bat. Leading off the bottom of the ninth at Forbes Field, the Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman hit Ralph Terry's pitch over the left-field wall. Pittsburgh won Game 7, 10–9, and the championship belonged to the Pirates.
The home run arrived after a game that had repeatedly changed direction. Pittsburgh built an early lead, New York moved ahead, and the Pirates scored five times in the eighth to take a 9–7 advantage. The Yankees answered with two runs in the ninth. What remained was a tie game, one final opportunity for Pittsburgh to avoid extra innings, and a hitter better known for his defense than for overwhelming power.
Mazeroski did not need a long rally or another teammate's follow-up hit. His swing supplied the winning run and the final out-of-reach destination at once. A walk-off homer is decisive in any game. In the last scheduled game of a World Series, it also shuts down every alternative ending to the season.
The Series had made a striking case for baseball's game-by-game accounting. New York's victories included enormous scoring margins, but those extra runs could not be carried into the next contest. Pittsburgh only needed to win four games, and the narrow ones counted exactly as much as the blowouts.
October 13 gave the Pirates their first World Series title since 1925 and turned Mazeroski's name into shorthand for a championship decided by one swing. The memory belongs to a particular wall, a particular inning and a particular ballpark. Its meaning is familiar anywhere baseball is played: the final score matters more than how convincing the path to it looked.