As Bobby Shantz Turns 100, a Look Back at 1960 World Series, Game 7

Bobby Shantz and the 1960 World Series

In the Series, the Yankees outscored the Pirates, 55-27, and outhit them, .338/.383/.528 to .256/.301/.355. Yet, the Pirates managed to get to Game 7. The Yankees led, 7-4, in the bottom of the eighth inning, but thanks to some timely hitting and some bizarre twists and turns, the Pirates scored five runs. The Yankees tied it in the ninth, setting the stage for a guy named Bill Mazeroski to become the hero. Maybe you’ve heard of him.

And maybe none of that would have happened had Shantz been able to stay in the game a little longer. Here’s how it went down.

The Pirates beat up on Yankees pitchers Bob Turley and Bill Stafford and led, 4-1, after two innings. The big blow that got things started was Rocky Nelson’s first-inning home run. With the Forbes Field faithful going crazy, manager Casey Stengel’s next pitcher had to slow down the Pirates’ momentum. He turned to the five-feet-six veteran Shantz.

The Pittsburgh newspaper reporters apparently were compensated according to how many times they referred to Shantz as “the little left-hander.” This “little left-hander” had the Pirates eating out of his hand from the third through the seventh innings. During that stretch, Shantz allowed just one hit and one walk but faced the minimum 15 batters with the help of two double plays.

However, in the eighth, Shantz surrendered a single to pinch-hitter Gino Cimoli. Bill Virdon followed with what appeared to be a third double-play grounder. But the ball took a bad hop and struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat, knocking him to the ground and out of the game. When Dick Groat’s grounder got through the left side to score Cimoli, Stengel came out to get Shantz.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

In came right-handed reliever Jim Coates. Bob Skinner bunted the runners to second and third. Coates then retired Nelson on a shallow fly to right field. It looked like he might pitch out of trouble until Roberto Clemente, swinging wildly at bad pitches, hit a weak grounder toward first baseman Bill Skowron. Coates, unsure of whether to field the ball or cover first base, took an indirect route to the bag and did neither. Clemente was safe, a run scored, and then three more scored when Hal Smith followed with a home run.

What If?

But what if Shantz had remained in the game? It made sense for Shantz to face Skinner on two fronts. First, Skinner was a left-handed hitter. Second, anybody familiar with Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh’s tendencies, as well as how the game was played in the pre-analytics era, had to know Skinner was bunting. (Stengel even confessed as much to Myron Cope of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.) Shantz was an eight-time Gold Glove Award winner. One would think his manager would want the superior-fielding Shantz in the game to get a possible force-out at third base. The next hitter, Nelson, was also left-handed. Murtaugh surely would have countered with right-handed-hitting Dick Stuart to pinch hit. But that may not have bothered Shantz. Pirates right-handed batters were 2-for-10 against him in the game.

It wouldn’t have been unprecedented for Stengel, either. He used left-hander Bob Kuzava to get the final eight outs in Game 7 of the 1952 World Series against a strong, predominantly right-handed Brooklyn Dodgers lineup.

Stengel explained to Jimmy Jordan of the Post-Gazette, “Bobby had a little pulled side [muscle] and that bothered him or maybe he’d have kept it up right to the end.” Stengel could have also mentioned that it was Shantz’s longest outing of the year.  Apparently, that didn’t bother Shantz or Stengel. There were no pitch counts in those days.

“These Fellers and These Other Fellers”

According to Jordan, Stengel blamed the loss on high pitches. “Now I tell these fellers [the Yankees] they can’t pitch these other fellers [the Pirates] high but they do it so you have to say it was pitching that beat us. They give Nelson that high ball and there it goes. Smith gets a high one and them other fellers are back in the ball game and then we have to fight back to get even again.”  These last three sentences could probably have used a few well-placed commas, but Stengel didn’t speak in commas. “Then Mazeroski gets another high ball just like he did in the first game [when he also homered] and that’s all there is to it.”

If it were “high balls” Stengel wanted to avoid, that was all the more reason to have kept Shantz in the game. Of the 17 batters who hit the ball against him, 11 hit it on the ground.

The 1960 Series remains the subject of ongoing discussion and controversy, even 65 years later. What if Stengel had pitched Whitey Ford in three games instead of two? What if the ball didn’t hit Kubek in the throat? Or if Coates had covered first base? There’s never any discussion over Shantz’s removal. Was Shantz removed because of injury or because Stengel thought he’d had enough? Stengel blaming it on a pulled muscle sounds to this writer like he’s merely covering his retreat. Regardless of why Shantz was replaced, the outcome might have been different had he continued to pitch.

The Last Word

Shantz will surely be contacted by a writer or two on Friday to reflect on his 100 years. One wonders whether the subject of his performance in Game 7 of the 1960 Series will come up.

Ironically, Shantz was a Pirate the next season. The Yankees exposed him to the 1960 expansion draft, where the new Washington Senators claimed him. The Senators then traded him to the Pirates two days later. Shantz pitched for Pittsburgh in 1961 before he was exposed to that year’s expansion draft. He was then lost to the Houston Colt .45s. With Houston, he started and won the first game in their history.

However, the Colt .45s kept Shantz for just three games. Then it was off to the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and Philadelphia Phillies, where he finished his career in 1964. With the Phillies, one of his coaches was Bob Oldis, the fourth-oldest living former major leaguer until he passed away on Sunday. Shantz finished his career with a 119-99 record, 48 saves, 3.38 ERA, 3.46 FIP, and 1.260 WHIP.