Dear Commons Community,

I remember coming home from school one day in October, 1956, and my mother had the black and white 18-inch television on and was watching the Yankees playing the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. This was most unusual because she rarely watched TV and new little about professional baseball. As soon as I walked in, she tried to explain to me what was going but she was not making sense. After watching for a few minutes, I realized that baseball history was being made if Yankee pitcher Don Larsen could hold onto the perfect game he was pitching.  He did hold on and history was made.  No one before or since has even come close to matching his feat in a World Series game.  Don Larsen died yesterday of esophageal cancer at the age of 90.  Below is an excerpt from his obituary as it appears in the New York Times this morning.

“When Larsen took the mound against the Brooklyn Dodgers on the afternoon of Oct. 8, 1956, at the original Yankee Stadium, he was in the fourth season of an unremarkable career.

He possessed an imposing physique for his time, at 6 feet 4 inches tall and 215 pounds or so, his frame topped by a brush cut and oversize ears. His repertory of a fastball, slider and curve seemed weapons enough for a fine career.

But Larsen had lost 21 games pitching for the Baltimore Orioles two years earlier, and he had difficulty controlling not only his pitches but also his affinity for night life.

Nonetheless, for one day Larsen was the picture of perfection. Twenty-seven times, the batters in a Dodgers lineup with four future Hall of Famers came to the plate, and all returned to the dugout without a hit, a walk or an error by a Yankees fielder.

Larsen’s 2-0 masterpiece came 34 years after the major leagues had last witnessed a perfect game. No pitcher has so much as thrown a no-hitter in the World Series.”

The iconic photo above is of catcher Yogi Berra jumping on Larsen after the last out was recorded.

Tony

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