Pittsburgh Hall of Fame and Sports Museum™

Roberto Clemente slides into third base at Three Rivers Stadium as Baltimore third baseman Brooks Robinson turns, looking for the ball, in Game 4 of the 1971 World Series, on Wednesday night, October 13, 1971 — the first night game in World Series history. Clemente reached third twice that night, each time on a play with a throw coming to the bag: he went first to third on Al Oliver's game-tying single in the third inning, and first to third again on Willie Stargell's single in the fifth. The defending champion Orioles, armed with four 20-game winners, had won the first two games in Baltimore, 5-3 and 11-3, and they jumped ahead 3-0 in the first inning of Game 4. Pittsburgh came back behind Bruce Kison's 6⅓ scoreless innings of relief: Stargell and Oliver hit consecutive doubles in the first, Oliver's single tied it in the third, and Milt May's pinch-hit single in the seventh won it, 4-3, before 51,378. The Pirates had taken Game 3 behind Steve Blass's complete game, and Nelson Briles pitched a two-hit shutout in Game 5 to put Pittsburgh one win from the title. Clemente, 37 years old, was the engine of the upset: he batted .414 with two home runs, hit safely in all seven games — as he had in every one of the 14 World Series games he played — and in Game 6 he added a triple, a home run and a one-hop throw to the plate that held the potential winning run at third. In Game 7, his fourth-inning home run off Mike Cuellar opened the scoring and Blass pitched another complete game, Pittsburgh winning 2-1 to finish the upset, and Clemente was named the Series MVP. Robinson, the Series MVP of Baltimore's championship a year earlier, hit .318 with five RBIs in the losing effort. ⚾ Clemente batted .414, homered to open the scoring in Game 7 and hit safely in all 14 World Series games he ever played — at 37, is his 1971 the greatest World Series a player has ever had? 👇️