Presented by OPTIMIST YOUTH FOOTBALL.
This Day In Sports…October 8, 1956, 70 years ago today:
One of the defining moments in World Series history, as New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen tosses a perfect game in a 2-0 Game 5 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen had been knocked out of his Game 2 start in the second inning, but this historic feat would earn him Series MVP honors as the Yanks won another world championship. It’s still the only no-hitter (much less perfect game) ever thrown in the World Series.
Larsen needed only 97 pitches to finish the masterpiece. But he received massive help from his Yankees teammates along the way. In the second inning, Dodgers star Jackie Robinson rapped a hard grounder that glanced off third baseman Andy Carey’s glove, but shortstop Gil McDougald recovered it in time to throw the speedy Robinson out. And in the fifth, centerfielder Mickey Mantle made a running backhanded catch on a deep drive by Gil Hodges. Mantle also gave the Yankees all the offense they’d need with a solo home run in the fourth inning.
There’s been one other no-hitter in postseason play. It came from Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay in a 4-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds in the 2010 National League Divisional Series. Halladay, making his first playoff appearance of a 13-year big league career, allowed just one batter to reach base (on a walk). It was quite a year for Halladay—he had thrown a perfect game earlier in the season against the Florida Marlins. (Halladay died tragically in a plane crash in November, 2017.)
Unlike Halladay, nothing else in Larsen’s major league career came close to what happened that day at Yankee Stadium. Just two years earlier, while pitching for the Baltimore Orioles, Larsen led the majors in losses after a miserable 3-21 season. He was 81-91 with nine different teams over 14 years, but he did go 4-2 in the World Series. Larsen won a game for the Yankees in both the 1957 and 1958 Series, and he picked up another in the 1962 Fall Classic with the San Francisco Giants.
Larsen stepped away from sports after his baseball career ended, working in sales for a paper company in the Bay Area. After retiring from that job, he and his wife, Corrine, moved to Hayden Lake in the Idaho Panhandle in 1993. Larsen loved the peace and quiet and spent the rest of his life there. He passed away on New Year’s Day of 2020 in Coeur d’Alene.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
