Throwing mostly fastballs, with some sliders and a few curves, Larsen held the Yankees hitless, inning after inning. Furthermore, he walked nobody. That was the secret to my success. Nearly everyone in the stadium knew what was going on. Most, even some Dodgers players, were rooting for Larsen to achieve perfection.
Brooklyn pitcher Clem Labine admitted that in the late innings he began to subconsciously root for Larsen. And certainly for a Yankee. Most Dodger players, however, were rooting hard against Larsen. If anything, they bore down harder trying to prevent the no-hitter. Baseball teams hate to have a no-hitter pitched against them. The slightest jounce and the dang thing might explode. Mantle said that by the ninth inning the crowd was on its feet and his knees were shaking.
But I was never as nervous as I was in the ninth inning of that game. Carl Furillo led off the top of the ninth for Brooklyn by flying out to deep right field. Bauer chased the ball down in an outstanding defensive play.
The next batter, Roy Campanella , grounded out second to first. Two outs, one to go. Pitcher Sal Maglie was due up next, but there was no way he was going to bat at this crucial juncture of the game. Looking back on it, though, I know how much pressure he was under. He must have been paralyzed. That made two of us. When Mitchell stepped to the plate, Larsen looked at Yogi Berra.
He had confidence in his catcher and had seldom shaken him off during the game. Next came a slow curve over the plate for a called strike.
Mitchell swung at another curve and missed for strike two. He fouled off the next pitch, a fastball. The count remained 1-and Another fastball from Larsen, and Mitchell started to swing, but held up. Mitchell thought the ball was high, but umpire Babe Pinelli called him out. Don Larsen had pitched the first no-hitter in World Series history. Not only was it a no-hitter, but it was a perfect game — no hits, no runs, no walks, nobody reaching base. Hell froze over. A month of Sundays hit the calendar.
Don Larsen today pitched a no-hit, no-run, no-man-reach-first game in a World Series. I wanted to win this one for Casey. After what I did in Brooklyn, he could have forgotten about me and who would blame him? To read more Games Project stories from this book, click here. Larsen went the next season and enjoyed the party atmosphere that came with playing for the Yankees, often running with Mantle, Billy Martin and Whitey Ford in their late-night rounds of the city.
The night before his perfect game, he was out on the town, thinking he wasn't in Stengel's plans for the next day. Larsen pitched in three other World Series. Pitching against the Yankees on Oct. With the A's, Larsen went in , a reminder of his dreadful season with the Orioles. Larsen retired in with an record in 14 major league seasons. He later worked as a liquor salesman and paper company executive. When David Cone tossed a perfect game for the Yankees during the season, Larsen was in attendance after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.
No other pitcher has thrown a perfect game in the postseason, but in , the Phillies' Roy Halladay pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds during the National League Division Series. Sometimes I still wonder whether it really all happened. Wells and Cone are the only two other pitchers in Yankees history to post perfect games. RIP my friend. DonLarsen pic. In a message posted Christmas Day on social media, Scott Larsen said his father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer soon after he returned from his annual trip to St.
Louis in August to attend the St. Louis Browns Historical Society gathering. The elder Larsen "immediately began a rigorous program of radiation therapy" that he recently completed, Scott Larsen said. In addition to his son, Larsen is survived by his wife of 62 years, Corrine, daughter-in-law Nancy, and grandsons Justin and Cody.
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