The bedrock foundation of Pirates fandom is the years 1960-1979, in which Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and company delivered three World Series wins. As far as I can tell, they weren't actually the better team in any of them. That was especially true in 1960, when the Yankees outscored the Bucs by a total of 55-27. Good thing that's not what matters, and while they were blown out three times, Pittsburgh pulled out four close wins to take the series.
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| Virdon Saves Game |
So these two cards of the 1960 World Series from 1961 Topps emphasize that the Pirates barely won their games. Bill Virdon saved the game in Game 1. The back doesn't explain how exactly, but maybe I can piece it together from Baseball Reference and
this article from the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Virdon was the center fielder, and in the 4th inning he made a great catch on Yogi Berra's fly ball with runners on first and second to save two runs. The Pirates ended up winning the game by two runs.
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| Face Saves The Day |
Then in Game 5, another close win, Roy Face saved the day. In this game, Face pitched 2-2/3 innings, relieving Harvey Haddix. He gave up no hits, which was something against this Yankees lineup. He maintained the Buccos 5-2 lead.
I've been collecting this World Series subset, and now own them all. One of them is in my COMC account and I don't have it quite yet. I posted
the Whitey Ford and
Mickey Mantle cards before. In addition to the World Series subset, I also have the
Dick Groat and Roger Maris MVP cards. It looks like maybe I didn't post a couple of the others yet. I'll get caught up. But I've completed my commemoration of the 1960 Pirates championship team, all of which is taking place in my little PSA-graded collection.
Thanks for reading!
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