updated 6:27 p.m. ET June 23, 2008

PITTSBURGH - The Pirates are throwing a welcoming party Tuesday night when the New York Yankees play in Pittsburgh for the first time since the 1960 World Series. This time, Bill Mazeroski will have a baseball in his hand rather than a bat.

Mazeroski, who hit the only Game 7-ending home run in World Series history, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the first Yankees-Pirates interleague series in Pittsburgh. Now 71, he is agile and active enough to attend Pirates’ spring training each year as an infield instructor.

His home run recently was voted by nearly 58,000 sports fans as the city’s best sports moment, topping Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception and the Steelers’ five Super Bowl victories.

“There’s probably not been a day in my life when somebody hasn’t mentioned it to me,” the Hall of Fame second baseman said. “It was a great World Series and a great seventh game.”

This matchup 48 years later looks one-sided, with the Yankees owning the best record in interleague play (120-83) and the Pirates by far the worst at 60-100, 3-6 this season. The Pirates were 0-6 against the Yankees in interleague play in New York, losing three-game series in 2007 and 2005.

But consider this: The Pirates, with a $49 million opening day payroll, have 78 homers and 370 runs; the Yankees, with a $209 million payroll, have 76 homers and 351 runs.

“It’s the Yankees, and it’s a great thing having an organization like that coming here and playing us,” Pirates manager John Russell said. “Mazeroski is throwing out the first pitch, and that’s great. It’s going to be exciting.”

The ’60 Series was perhaps the wildest and most unpredictable one of them all.

The Yankees set numerous offensive records while outscoring the Pirates 55-27, winning by scores of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0. Yet they lost every close game, including 3-2 in Game 4 and 5-2 in Game 5, both in Yankee Stadium.

“They broke all the records, but we won the game,” outfielder Gino Cimoli said after the Pirates’ 10-9 win in Game 7 on Oct. 13, 1960.

Mazeroski’s shot may not have been the Pirates’ biggest homer in Game 7.

Often overlooked is platoon catcher Hal Smith’s three-run homer in the eighth, part of a five-run rally that stands as the greatest late-inning Game 7 comeback in Series history.

Smith batted only because of two fluke infield singles: an apparent Bill Virdon double-play grounder that struck shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat and Roberto Clemente’s hustle play when pitcher Jim Coates was late covering first on his slow grounder.

“I came around third base and it struck me, you just won the World Series with a home run,” Smith said in a 1985 interview.

Smith’s homer was the most memorable in Pirates history for only one inning.

Mazeroski hit only 11 homers that season, but he also decided the Pirates’ 6-4 win in Game 1 with a two-run homer.

“People don’t remember that,” Mazeroski said.

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Yankees manager Casey Stengel was fired days afterward despite making 10 World Series appearances in 12 years and winning seven of them. One of the biggest pitching blunders in Series history may have played a role.

Stengel inexplicably passed up postseason ace Whitey Ford, who won a record 10 World Series games, for 15-game winner Art Ditmar in Game 1. Ditmar didn’t make it out of the first and was knocked out in the second inning of Game 5.

Ford pitched shutouts in Games 3 and 6, yet wasn’t available to pitch the decisive Game 7. Ford, who went 25-4 a year later, said it was the only time in his career he was mad at Stengel.

Mickey Mantle hit .400 with three homers and 11 RBIs, but he didn’t homer after Game 3.

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The World Series became part of a 1985 Supreme Court case. Ditmar, who had a 21.60 ERA in the Series, lost a lawsuit claiming he was subject to unjust ridicule when a TV beer commercial featured an errant call by radio announcer Chuck Thompson identifying him as the pitcher who threw Mazeroski’s homer. It was Ralph Terry.

“That 1960 Series probably doesn’t get as much respect as it deserves — all the games were in the daytime, there are no (complete) tapes of the games, no ESPN,” Mazeroski said. “But it was hard to beat, with that kind of stuff.”

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