as a key assistant in charge of evaluating players for general manager Joe L. Brown. After the 1965 season, he turned down feelers from the Boston Red Sox to join their organization as vice president, player personnel. Then, in , when his immediate successor as the Pirates' manager, Harry Walker, was fired July 17, Murtaugh returned as interim pilot for the remainder of the 1967 season, after which he returned to the front office. Well aware of the abundance of talent in the Pittsburgh system, Murtaugh asked to reclaim the managing job after Larry Shepard was fired in the last week of the season. Once medically cleared, he began his third term as skipper of the Pirates on October 9, 1969; hours after Murtaugh's re-hiring, Don Hoak, 41, his third baseman on the 1960 World Series champions and a manager in the Pirates' farm system, died of a heart attack after believing he was a leading contender to manage the parent club. Murtaugh's first two clubs won the 1970–71 National League East Division titles. Although the squad fell in that season's National League Championship Series to the Cincinnati Reds, Murtaugh's 1971 Pirates would bounce back. On September 1, 1971, Murtaugh was the first manager in major league history to field a starting lineup consisting of nine black players (including both African Americans and Afro-Latin Americans); the Pirates beat the Phillies 10–7 in that game. The next month, they defeated the San Francisco Giants in the NLCS and then captured the 1971 World Series with a memorable comeback from a two-games-to-none deficit against the favored Baltimore Orioles. That World Series was marked by the brilliant performance of future Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, who batted .414 with twelve hits to lead his team to the championship. Citing renewed health concerns — he had been hospitalized for chest pain during the 1971 season — Murtaugh again resigned as manager after the world title. He moved back into the Pittsburgh front office, and his hand-picked successor, Bill Virdon (center fielder for his 1960 champions), took over for — although Murtaugh, as manager of the reigning World Series champs, did return to uniform to manage the National League entry in the 1972 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Atlanta, a 4–3 triumph for the Senior Circuit. With the Pirates scuffling with a 67–69 mark on September 5, Brown fired Virdon and asked Murtaugh