October 8, 1927. Bottom of the ninth, Yankee Stadium. The score was tied 3-3. Pittsburgh reliever Johnny Miljus had already struck out Lou Gehrig and Bob Meusel with two outs, which -- given who he was facing -- qualifies as a genuine achievement. Earle Combs stood on third. Tony Lazzeri dug into the batter's box with two strikes on him. The crowd was in full roar.
Then Miljus threw a wild pitch.
Combs sprinted home. The 1927 World Series was over. The New York Yankees -- 110-44 in the regular season, winners of the American League pennant by 19 games -- had swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in four. No at-bat, no home run, no strikeout ended it. A baseball skipping past a catcher in the October twilight: that was all it took.
The Machine Before the Series
The 1927 Yankees didn't arrive at the World Series running on fumes. They arrived as something that hadn't existed before -- a team so offensively dominant that it outscored its opponents by 376 runs over the course of a season. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, breaking his own record. Lou Gehrig hit 47. Between them, they out-homered every other club in the American League -- not every other player, every other team.
Ruth batted .356. Gehrig batted .373 with 175 RBI and the American League MVP award. Earle Combs, the leadoff man and center fielder, batted .356 with 231 hits. Bob Meusel drove in 103 runs. Tony Lazzeri drove in 102. This was the lineup Pie Traynor and Paul Waner and Lloyd Waner had to face in October.
The pitching staff was just as thorough. Waite Hoyt won 22 games. Herb Pennock and Wilcy Moore each won 19. Urban Shocker won 18 -- though almost nobody knew, and Shocker himself wasn't saying, that he was quietly dying of heart disease. He couldn't breathe lying down. He slept sitting upright. He told no one outside the clubhouse and pitched as if the stakes were just the standings. (He was dead eleven months later.)
The Pirates Weren't a Joke
This part gets overlooked. The Pittsburgh Pirates won 94 games and the National League pennant in 1927. Paul Waner batted .380, drove in 131 runs, and won the NL MVP award -- in his second big-league season. His younger brother Lloyd, in his rookie year, hit .355 with 223 hits. Between them, the Waner brothers collected 460 hits that season. Pittsburgh was good. (Ninety-four wins good, with the top two hitters in the National League sharing a clubhouse.)
The famous story -- that the Yankees put on such an overwhelming batting practice display before Game 1 in Pittsburgh that the Pirates demoralized themselves before a pitch was thrown -- is almost certainly a myth. Christy Walsh's ghostwriters invented it as Ruth mythology. No Pittsburgh player interviewed by baseball historians ever recalled watching that batting practice. The Pirates lost the series because the Yankees were historically extraordinary, not because of psychological theater.
What Actually Happened
Game 1 at Forbes Field was closer than it had any right to be -- Yankees 5, Pirates 4, with Wilcy Moore saving it for Waite Hoyt. Game 2 went more quietly, 6-2, George Pipgras handling Pittsburgh with ease.
Game 3 is the one that stays with you. Herb Pennock retired the first 22 Pittsburgh batters he faced at Yankee Stadium, the closest thing to a World Series perfect game anyone would see until Don Larsen's actual perfect game in 1956. When Pie Traynor broke it up with a hit in the eighth inning, the crowd almost seemed to exhale rather than cheer -- as if the spell had needed breaking. Pennock finished with a complete-game 8-1 victory. Ruth hit one of his two Series home runs in that game.
Then came the fourth game and the wild pitch and the end of it all.
Miljus had pitched well enough. Striking out Gehrig and Meusel with two outs and the tying run at third was the kind of performance that deserves better than what came next. One pitch got away. Combs scored. That was that.
| Series Result | Yankees over Pirates, 4-0 |
| 1927 Yankees Record | 110-44 (19 games ahead of Athletics) |
| Babe Ruth (Regular Season) | .356 BA, 60 HR, 165 RBI |
| Lou Gehrig (Regular Season) | .373 BA, 47 HR, 175 RBI (AL MVP) |
| Ruth (World Series) | .400 BA, 2 HR (only home runs in the Series) |
| Herb Pennock (Game 3) | 9 IP, 3 H, 1 R -- retired first 22 batters |
| Series Clincher | Wild pitch, bottom 9th, Game 4 -- Earle Combs scored |
| Total Series Attendance | 201,705 across four games |
Ruth Hits No. 60
Babe Ruth hits his 60th home run off Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators, breaking his own record and setting a mark that stands for 34 years.
Game 1 -- Yankees 5, Pirates 4 (Forbes Field)
A closer game than expected: the Pirates score three in the eighth to nearly tie it, but Wilcy Moore shuts the door to preserve a Waite Hoyt win.
Game 2 -- Yankees 6, Pirates 2 (Forbes Field)
George Pipgras is efficient through nine innings as New York takes a 2-0 series lead.
Game 3 -- Pennock Retires 22 Straight (Yankee Stadium)
Herb Pennock is working on a perfect game through seven innings before Pie Traynor reaches in the eighth. Pennock finishes 8-1 on a complete-game win. Yankees lead 3-0.
Game 4 -- Series Ends on a Wild Pitch (Yankee Stadium)
Tied 3-3 in the ninth, Johnny Miljus strikes out Gehrig and Meusel, then throws a wild pitch with Combs on third. Combs scores. The first World Series sweep of an NL club by an AL club is complete.
The Side Story Nobody Told
Wilcy Moore wasn't a hitter. He was a sinkerball reliever who made his bat an active menace to both leagues. Ruth bet him $300 before the season that he wouldn't collect three hits all year. Moore finished with six. Ruth paid the bet without complaint -- which says something about Ruth, and something about what kind of team this was. The hero of Game 1 and Game 4 was also the guy who embarrassed Ruth in a spring side-bet. These things can coexist.
What It Meant
The 1927 World Series didn't end a dynasty. It announced one. The Yankees swept the Cardinals the following October for back-to-back championships. Ruth's 60-home-run record would define his name for the next 34 years. Gehrig's 175 RBI in a single season remains the American League record nearly a century later.
The debate about whether the 1927 Yankees were the greatest team in baseball history has never fully resolved itself. The 1998 Yankees, the 1906 Cubs, the 1969 Orioles, the 1976 Reds -- all have their defenders. But when people reach for a shorthand for an unbeatable team, they still reach for Murderers' Row.
The wild pitch that ended it all seems right, somehow. The 1927 Yankees didn't need a dramatic swing. Everything they needed had already been established before October. By the time Combs crossed the plate, the outcome had been decided months earlier, in ballparks across the American League, by a lineup that simply didn't have a bottom.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did the Pirates really get intimidated by the Yankees' batting practice before the 1927 World Series?
Almost certainly not. The story -- that the Yankees put on such a staggering batting practice display that Pittsburgh players demoralized themselves before the Series began -- was largely invented by Christy Walsh's ghostwriters as Ruth mythology. Baseball historians who interviewed surviving Pittsburgh players found no one who recalled watching that particular batting practice. The Pirates were a legitimately good team (Paul Waner won the NL MVP, Lloyd Waner had 223 hits as a rookie). They lost because the Yankees were historically extraordinary, not because of psychological theater.
How many home runs did Babe Ruth hit in the 1927 World Series?
Ruth hit two home runs in the 1927 World Series -- the only two hit by either team across all four games. He also batted .400 for the series. The regular season had been his greatest individual performance (60 home runs, .356 batting average), and October was just a coda.
How did the 1927 World Series end?
The Yankees won Game 4 in the bottom of the ninth on a wild pitch. With the score tied 3-3 and two outs, Pittsburgh reliever Johnny Miljus -- who had just struck out Gehrig and Meusel back-to-back -- threw a wild pitch with Earle Combs on third. Combs scored the winning run. It remains the only World Series in history to end on a wild pitch.
Who pitched for the Yankees in the 1927 World Series?
The Yankees used four starters across the four games: Waite Hoyt (Game 1, won), George Pipgras (Game 2, won), Herb Pennock (Game 3, won -- nearly perfect through seven innings), and Wilcy Moore (Game 4, won). Moore also saved Game 1 for Hoyt. No pitcher on the staff allowed more than four runs in a single outing.
Were the 1927 Yankees really the greatest team of all time?
Nobody's settled the argument, and probably nobody will. The 1927 Yankees went 110-44, outscored opponents by 376 runs, and swept the World Series. Ruth and Gehrig had seasons that don't have modern equivalents at the same time on the same roster. The 1998 Yankees, the 1906 Cubs, and others have legitimate claims. But Murderers' Row is where the conversation always starts.