Bill Mazeroski, the Hall of Fame second baseman who won eight Gold Glove awards for his steady work in the field and the hearts of countless Pittsburgh Pirates fans for his historic walk-off home run in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, has died at the age of 89.
Pirates owner Bob Nutting said “Maz was one of a kind, a true Pirates legend … His name will always be tied to the biggest home run in baseball history and the 1960 World Series championship, but I will remember him most for the person he was: humble, gracious and proud to be a Pirate.”
Mazeroski died on Friday in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, the Pirates said. No cause of death was given.
Elected to the Hall by the Veterans Committee in 2001, he was, by some measures, no superstar. Mazeroski had the lowest batting average, on-base percentage and stolen base total of any second baseman in Cooperstown. He hit just .260 lifetime, with 138 homers and 27 stolen bases in 17 years, and had an on-base percentage of .299. He never batted .300, never approached 100 runs batted or 100 runs scored and only once finished in the top 10 for Most Valuable Player.
His best qualities were both tangible and beyond the box score. His Hall of Fame plaque praises him as a “defensive wizard” with “hard-nosed hustle” and a “quiet work ethic.” A 10-time All-Star, he turned a major league record 1,706 double plays, earning the nickname “No Hands” for how quickly he fielded grounders and relayed them. He led the National League nine times in assists for second basemen and has been cited by statistician Bill James as the game’s greatest defensive player at his position.
“I think defense belongs in the Hall of Fame,” Mazeroski said, defensively, during his Hall of Fame induction speech. “Defense deserves as much credit as pitching and I’m proud to be going in as a defensive player.”
But Mazeroski’s signature moment took place in the batter’s box. On 13 October 1960, Mazeroski launched a home run over the fence in left field in the bottom of the ninth at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, giving the Pirates a 10-9 win in Game 7 of the World Series against the New York Yankees. The fans mobbed him on the field as he crossed home plate.
“I don’t know it’s out. I don’t know it’s a home run. But I know I’m going to end up on third if he misplays that ball off the wall,” Mazeroski recalled in 2015. “So I’m busting my tail getting around there, and by the time I hit second base, I looked down the line and the fans went crazy. From second base, I didn’t touch the ground all the way in.”
It was the first time a World Series had ended on a homer, leading to enduring waves of celebration and despair. Forbes Field was torn down in the 1970s, but a decade later fans began gathering every 13 October at the park’s lone remnant, the center field wall, and listened to the original broadcast.
The late singer Bing Crosby, a former co-owner of the Pirates, was so afraid he’d jinx his team that he listened to the game with friends across the Atlantic Ocean, in Paris.
“We were in this beautiful apartment, listening on shortwave, and when it got close Bing opened a bottle of Scotch and was tapping it against the mantel,” his widow, Kathryn Crosby, told the New York Times in 2010. “When Mazeroski hit the home run, he tapped it hard; the Scotch flew into the fireplace and started a conflagration.”
Mazeroski was a Pirate for his entire time in the majors and was a team man off the field. His wife, Milene Nicholson, was a front office employee whom he met through Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh. They were married in 1958, had two sons and remained together until her death in 2024.
Mazeroski was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, during the Great Depression, grew up in eastern Ohio, and lived for a time in a one-room house without electricity or indoor plumbing. Although a star in basketball and football, he favored baseball and was good enough to be drafted by the Pirates at age 17 in 1954. Mazeroski was a shortstop for a team with numerous prospects at that position, and had switched to second by his rookie year, 1956. Even as a part-time player at the end of his career, he was a leader and steady presence on the 1971 team that featured Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell and defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.
After his final season, 1972, Mazeroski coached briefly for the Pirates and the Seattle Mariners and was an infield instructor for Pittsburgh during spring training. In 1987, the Pirates retired his uniform, No 9. The 50th anniversary of his Game 7 heroics was marked in 2010 by the unveiling – on Bill Mazeroski Way – of a statue of one of Pittsburgh’s greats, rounding the bases, on top of the world.
