Sports memorabilia in the year 1960
It was the year 1960 -Did you know that?
• Squaw Valley, California, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, was snow-free as the time for the games approached. A local Native American tribe, the Piute, performed an Indian Snow Dance, and believe it or not, it worked. A blizzard ensued, and the games went on as planned.
• United States Olympic Hockey Team Gold Vs. Czechoslovakia in Squaw Valley, California. This gold medal was the first for the United States Olympic hockey team.
• Wilma Rudolph won 3 Olympic gold medals at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. At the age of 20, she was also known as the fastest woman in the world. Surprisingly, she had polio when she was a little girl and wore leg braces until she was 12 years old.
• The US Men’s Olympic Basketball Team won the gold medal at the Summer Games. They defeated the Soviet Union.
• Floyd Patterson regained boxing’s world heavyweight title after losing it a year earlier. He was the first boxer to achieve this feat. He did it by knocking out champion Ingemar Johansson of Sweden in the fifth round in his match in New York.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League defeated the New York Yankees of the American League in a seven-game World Series. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski homered off Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry to win the World Series for the Pirates.
• Johnny Unitas, the Baltimore Colts’ quarterback, extending his streak of touchdown passes by passing for a touchdown in 47 consecutive games. The passing streak ended the next week at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the same venue where the streak began.
• Paul Hornung, running back for the Green Bay Packers, set a single-season NFL scoring record of 176 points. This record would stand for 46 years.
• Betsy Rawls won her fourth US Women’s Open golf championship in July by hitting Joyce Ziske at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts. She had also won this event in 1951, 1953, and 1957.
• 1960 also saw the opening of the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. The circuit was the host of the World 600 won by Joe Lee Johnson.