Home Run Derby Mickey Mantle vs Willie Mays Intro 1960

Home Run Derby was a 1960 television show that was held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles pitting the top sluggers of Major League Baseball against each other in nine-inning home run contests.
The show was produced and hosted by actor/broadcaster Mark Scott and distributed by Ziv Television Programs. It had 26 episodes and ran for one season.
Filmed in December 1959, the series aired in syndication from January 9 to July 2, 1960, and helped inspire the Home Run Derby event that is now held the day before the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game. ESPN staged a revival of the show in 1989.
The original series is intact, having been rerun on ESPN from December 17 to 28, 1988, and July 10 to October 28, 1989. Its rights now belong to MGM Television. The series proved popular and was credited in part with the establishment of a classic sports network which would eventually become ESPN Classic.
Wrigley Field in Los Angeles was chosen to host the event because its fence distances were symmetrical, favoring neither right-handed nor left-handed hitters.
The winner received a check for $2,000 and was invited back for the next week's episode against a new opponent (a rarity in that era for syndicated games); the runner-up received a check for $1,000. If a batter hit three home runs in a row, he would receive a $500 bonus check. A fourth home run in a row would be worth another $500 bonus check. Any consecutive home runs hit beyond that would each be worth $1,000. Each show would end with the host presenting each player with their prize checks (beginning with the loser), and would award separate checks for consecutive home run bonuses.
Mickey Mantle hit the most home runs on the show, a total of 44 during his five appearances.
Aaron won the most money during the show's run, $13,500. Snider, Kaline, and Triandos each won the minimum of $1000.
Below is the start of the 1st episode where Mickey Mantle won 9-8 vs Willie Mays, enjoy and Be a Kid Again....
#MickeyMantle
#WillieMays
#MLB
#mikesdeadformats
#HomeRunDerby
Sources IMDB and Wikipedia

[@blackfinjrblackfinjr3555]

RIP Willie Mays, the say hey kid

[@spy1965]

I used to watch these reruns back in the day (late 70's)

[@KevinMiller-xn5vu]

Sadly Mark Scott died of a sudden heart attack July 13, 1960 at the age of 45, 12 days after the first season of Home Run Derby ended. Producers decided to cancel the show rather than replace him with another host.

[@mikesdeadformats]

We hope he'd would be so proud to know 64+ years later his idea is still loved.

[@gerrydooley951]

and he died of natural causes. Such was the state of health in 1960

[@DK-jy4jb]

The really amazing thing about this show: it didn't occur to anyone to sell tickets to watch this event??

[@millardhale85]

Damn I wanted to watch it!

[@mikesdeadformats]

We only did the intro but the full episode is available on RUclips.

The best pure slugger of the time was Harmon Killebrew.

[@mikesdeadformats]

He was one of the best for sure.

[@ron88303]

At lease ten players from around that time had better slugging percentages. But Killebrew was up there.

[@sam_2193]

For anyone curious:
$2,000 in 1960 would be $20,605.38 in today’s money (or at least for 2023 because that’s the highest the calculator would let me go lol)

[@gerrydooley951]

you can really see that Mickey had disdain for Willie. A shame.

[@ron88303]

Didn't see that, but I did see Willie's disdain for Mickey. And that was indeed a shame.

[@gerrydooley951]

@@ron88303 so me willie's disdain for Mickey

[@ron88303]

@@gerrydooley951 You first.

[@luisdaniel7027]

I didn’t see that stop being negative

[@Richard-by5gm]

Sometimes one person thinks he is better than the other.