It’s one of the most indelible moments in baseball history, Bill Mazeroski’s game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series to lift the Pirates over the Yankees at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The man who threw the fateful pitch was Ralph Terry.
On Wednesday, Terry died at a long-term care facility in Larned, Kan., after having suffered a recent head injury when he slipped on ice, according to his wife, Tanya. He was 86.
“I don’t know what that pitch to Mazeroski was,” Terry told Mike Aubrecht in the book Yankee Killer. “All I know is that it was the wrong one.”
That may be the most memorable pitch he threw, but it was just the beginning of an impressive career.
Terry went on to be a part of World Series championship teams each of the next two years with the Yankees, which included being named Series MVP in 1962 after going 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 25 innings over three games. The Yankees defeated the Giants in seven games, with Terry recording the final out of a 1-0 Game 7 victory.
He was also a two-time All-Star.
Ralph Terry was named World Series MVP after leading the Yankees to the title in 1962. © Bettmann/CORBISTerry was born on Jan. 9, 1936, in a one-room, dirt-floor cabin between Chelsea and Big Cabin, Okla. His parents were just teenagers at the time. He went on to be a four-sport star for Chelsea High School and was offered a scholarship to play football at Oklahoma State but turned it down and instead was drafted by the Yankees at age 18.
Three years later, in August 1956, he made his major league debut. The Yankees traded him, however, along with Billy Martin, to the Kansas City Athletics the following June. Terry struggled for much of his next two years there and was traded back to the Yankees in May 1959. But he found his form in 1960 and his career began to blossom.
Between 1959 and 1964, Terry went 76-56 for the Yanks, which included a 16-3 mark in 1961 and a 23-12 record the following year. Terry was eventually traded to the Indians and spent one year in Cleveland before being dealt to the Athletics and then the Mets, where he appeared in just 13 games over two seasons before retiring.
Terry finished his career with 107 wins, 99 losses and a 3.62 ERA. He also had 20 shutouts and recorded 12 saves.
He is survived by his wife, two sons, Raif and Gabe, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
