Before the event, enjoying the prospect of a World Series for the first time in 33 years, Pittsburgh was as giddy as a maiden aunt who had finally gotten a proposal. Trucks, bicycles and baby buggies carried signs: "Beat 'Em, Bucs." College students put on a football-style rally dominated by a 40-ft. banner reading "Stop Yankee Aggression." An understanding judge postponed a murder trial on the ground that no jury could keep its mind on the evidence during such trying times. Amid the furor, some 200 sportswriters and a flock of major league managers predicted the script for the series: the Pirates would display a bagful of tricks and a spatter of singles; the Yankees would simply try to knock the ball out of sight.
Seldom have the opening games of the World Series gone so exactly according to form. In the first inning of the first game, Yankee Outfielder Roger Maris pulled a home run into the rightfield seats and circled the bases while the crowd of 36,676 watched in sullen silence. In the last half of the first inning, the Pirates scrambled back in characteristic fashion. Centerfielder Bill Virdon walked, then flustered the Yankees by pulling a delayed steal that had Catcher Yogi Berra throwing into centerfield; Virdon scored as Shortstop Dick Groat punched a double to right. The pattern set, the Pirates went on to a 6-4 victory and some heady talk in the locker room. "All that malarkey about the big, bad Yankees," scoffed Pitcher Clem Labine. "They're not the big, bad Yankees of old."
Peace of Mind. In the second game, the Yankees turned as big and bad as ever. Moody Mickey Mantle came to the plate in the fifth inning full of self-doubt. "I already struck out once in the game." said he later, "and I struck out twice in the opener. I thought this would be another of those games where I'd strike out four times. I'm the man to do it."
Then Mantle stepped into an outside pitch and set his mind at rest by putting the ball over the wall for a two-run, 41 Gift, homer. In the seventh, Mantle hit one of the hardest shots in World Series history: a ball that cleared the centerfield wall and landed 478 ft. away for a three-run homer. All afternoon, Yankees tirelessly rounded the bases and Pirate pitchers trudged in Indian file out of the bullpen. Final score of the slaughter: Yankees 16, Pirates 3.