Don Larsen, 1929-2020

NOTE: Some of this was taken from my 60th Anniversary piece on his perfect game, October 8, 2016.

Only one human being, living or dead, has ever pitched a no-hitter in the World Series. Until yesterday, he was living, and not merely the achiever but the last survivor of the greatest game ever pitched.

Don James Larsen (not "Donald") was born on August 7, 1929 in Michigan City, Indiana. As a teenager, the family moved to San Diego, where he attended Point Loma High School. He had some colleges interested in his basketball ability, but the St. Louis Browns were interested in his pitching. They signed him in 1947.

By his own admission, he preferred to make money playing a sport over studying while player: "I was never much with the studies." This would dovetail with something his eventual catcher, Lawrence "Yogi" Berra would say: When a sportswriter asked him, "How did you like school?" he answered, "Closed."

He moved up through the minor league ranks, reaching Class A (roughly equivalent to today's Class AA) in 1950. But Uncle Sam had other ideas, and he spent the 1951 and 1952 seasons serving in the U.S. Army, in a non-combat role in the Korean War.

On April 18, 1953, Don Larsen made his major league debut, at Briggs Stadium (later renamed Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. He started, and pitched 5 1/3rd innings, allowing 3 runs on 9 hits and 1 walk, striking out 3. He did not factor into the decision, and the Browns went on to win 8-7 in 11 innings. His uniform number? With a little irony, given his eventual achievement, was 27.

He went 7-12 for a weak Browns team that was on the verge of bankruptcy. For the 1954 season, they were moved, to become the Baltimore Orioles. They were no better, and he had an awful season, finishing 3-21, although his other numbers weren't that bad: An ERA of 4.37, and a WHIP of 1.498. He also developed a reputation as a carouser and a weird guy, earning the nickname "Gooney Bird" -- or "Gooney" for short.

But 2 of his 3 wins were against the Yankees. Bronx management -- possibly manager Casey Stengel, playing one of his many hunches -- must have seen something in him. On November 17, 1954, the biggest trade in baseball history was made, with some players to be named later named and sent on December 1, for a total of 17 players:

* The Orioles got Gene Woodling, Gus Triandos, Willy Miranda, Hal Smith, Harry Byrd, Jim McDonald, Bill Miller, Kal Segrist, Don Leppert and Theodore Del Guercio.

Woodling had been the left fielder on the Yankees' 5 straight World Champions of 1949-53, and he hung on for a few more years, helping the Orioles' young lineup. Triandos became the team's 1st good catcher. He and Smith were stuck behind Berra and Elston Howard, so there wasn't really a place for either in New York. Smith didn't help Baltimore much, either, but would come back to haunt the Yankees in the 1960 World Series. The rest didn't amount to much of a loss.

* The Yankees got Larsen, Bob Turley, Billy Hunter, Mike Blyzka, Darrell Johnson, Jim Fridley and Dick Kryhoski. Larsen's story, you're reading. Turley would help the Yankees win 7 Pennants, and be their 1st Cy Young Award winner, in 1958.

The rest? Hunter would be renowned as the Orioles' 3rd base coach in the 1960s and '70s, and would manage the Texas Rangers to a 2nd place finish in the American League Western Division in the 1977 season. That same year, Johnson would be the 1st manager of the expansion Seattle Mariners, having managed the Boston Red Sox to the 1975 AL Pennant.

So, for the most part, this trade was Woodling and Triandos for Larsen and Turley. Overall, a decent trade for the O's, and a great trade for the Yanks.

But Larsen, now wearing Number 18, started the Yankee phase of his career with a bad shoulder, didn't have much, and was demoted to the Triple-A team, the Denver Bears. He got called back up, and went 9-2 with a 3.07 ERA in 1955. He started and lost Game 4 of the World Series to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

He was better in 1956, going 11-5 with a 3.26 ERA, between starting and relieving. Stengel started him in Game 2 of the World Series, again opposite the Dodgers, and he was given a 6-0 lead. But he fell apart, and couldn't get out of the 2nd inning. And yet, because that inning ended 6-6, Larsen was not the losing pitcher: Tom Morgan was.

Still, Don was angry about getting pulled after just 2 innings. He was quoted as saying, "I don't give a damn if I ever pitch another game for the Yankees or Stengel again! I go out there and break my neck, for what? He had no business taking me out of there! That's the last time I'll get to bed early. I'm gonna start enjoying life again!" Little did he know how soon he was going to pitch for Stengel again -- and how good life was going to get.

Before the Series, Larsen went to a novelty shop in Times Square, and had a fake newspaper headline made up: "GOONEY BIRD PITCHES NO-HITTER." As later Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton might have said, "Yeah, surrre!" At this point, if you were crazy enough to bet that any Yankee was going to pitch a no-hitter in this World Series, you would not have been crazy enough to bet that it would be Larsen, especially given 2 bad Series starts against the Brooks.

*

October 8, 1956. A cool Monday afternoon in New York City. It was Columbus Day, so school was out. This allowed kids to attend the game, presuming they could get in. One was a 16-year-old junior baseball star at St. Francis Prep in Brooklyn, whose older brother Frank was a rookie with the Milwaukee Braves that year: Joe Torre. Joe would be among the 64,519 fans listed in attendance.

The Dodgers had won the 1st 2 games of the Series, at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The Yankees had won Games 3 and 4 at the original Yankee Stadium. Now, the big ballyard in The Bronx was to host Game 5.

Stengel needed a starter. Whitey Ford had pitched Game 3, and wasn't ready to go again. Tom Sturdivant had pitched Game 4, and certainly wasn't ready. Casey played yet another hunch. When he chose a pitcher to start, the pitcher would find a ball in his shoe at his locker. Larsen was surprised to find the ball in his shoe. No doubt, his teammates were also surprised. But, unlike most of his teammates, he was fairly well-rested: Since his last regular-season start, 10 days earlier, he had pitched just 2 innings.

Starting for the Dodgers was Sal Maglie, the former ace of the New York Giants ,and one of the most hated opponents in Brooklyn history, but who had come to the Dodgers in midseason and pitched a no-hitter of his own -- something he hadn't done for the Giants. It is still the last no-hitter pitched by a player for a National League team in New York -- unless you believe that Carlos Beltran’s line drive really was foul, thus giving Johan Santana a no-hitter for the Mets in 2012.

Here was the Dodgers' starting lineup:

2B 19 Jim "Junior" Gilliam
SS 1 Harold "Pee Wee" Reese
CF 4 Edwin "Duke" Snider
3B 42 Jackie Robinson
1B 14 Gil Hodges
LF 15 Edmundo "Sandy" Amoros
RF 6 Carl "The Reading Rifle" Furillo
C 39 Roy Campanella
P 35 Sal "The Barber" Maglie

Granted, Walter Alston was the manager of the defending World Champions, but what was he thinking? Robinson, an ideal leadoff man but not with much home run power, batting 4th? Furillo, a former batting champion, 7th? Campy, a terrific power hitter, 8th?!?

And for the Yankees:

RF 9 Hank Bauer
1B 15 Joe Collins
CF 7 Mickey Mantle
C 8 Lawrence "Yogi" Berra
LF 17 Enos Slaughter
2B 1 Billy Martin
SS 12 Gil McDougald
3B 6 Andy Carey
P 18 Don Larsen

This might not have been an ideal lineup, either. Like Robinson, with whom he had an infamous incident in 1947, Slaughter was getting old, but had once been an ideal leadoff man. Berra had power, but he should have been batting 3rd, with Mantle 4th. Martin, 6th? He should have been switched with McDougald at 7th.

At 1:10 PM, Ralph "Babe" Pinelli, umpiring behind the plate for what turned out to be the last time in his career, pointed to Larsen, and said, "Play ball!" Larsen struck Gilliam out, then got to 3 balls on Reese, the only batter against whom that happened, but struck him out as well. Then he got Snider to line out to right.

The closest call came when Robinson led off the top of 2nd. He hit a sharp grounder off Carey's glove. McDougald, who moved from 3rd to short in the Yankee lineup after Phil Rizzuto was released a few weeks earlier, took it, and just barely threw Robinson out. Larsen then struck Hodges out, and got Amoros to pop up to 2nd.

In the 3rd, he got Furillo to fly to right, struck Campanella out, and got Maglie to hit a line shot to center that Mantle caught. In the 4th, Gilliam and then Reese both grounded to 2nd, and Snider struck out.

Maglie, whom Dodger fans despised when he was the headhunting ace of their arch-rivals, actually had a perfect game going himself, until the 4th inning, when Mantle hit a home run into the right field seats. It wasn't a "tape measure home run," but neither was it a "Yankee Stadium short porch home run": It would have been out of pretty much any ballpark. Had it been hit at Ebbets Field, it would have cleared the high right field wall and landed on Bedford Avenue.

In the 5th, following a Robinson flyout to right, Mantle made a running, onehanded, backhanded catch of a Gil Hodges drive. It was about 420 feet from home plate, and was nearly as remarkable as the 440-foot catch Willie Mays had made 2 World Series earlier. Perhaps even more so, since, unlike Willie, Mickey wasn't known as a spectacular fielder (though that may have been because so much fuss was made about his hitting). Larsen got Amoros to ground to 2nd to end the inning.

In the top of the 6th, Furillo and then Campanella both popped to 2nd, and Maglie struck out. Carey led off the bottom of the 6th with a single, and Larsen helped himself by bunting Carey over to 2nd. Bauer singled Carey home, and the Yankees led 2-0. But that would be it: Collins singled Bauer over to 3rd, but Mantle grounded to 1st, and Hodges threw home to Campanella to force Bauer out, and Campy then threw Collins out at 3rd.

Top of the 7th. Gilliam grounded to short. Reese flew to center. Snider flew to left. After 7 innings, Larsen hadn't allowed a baserunner. Broadcasting the game on Mutual Broadcasting Service (WMGM, 1050 AM in New York -- WNBC-Channel 4 on television), Bob Wolff did all he could to respect the tradition of not saying the word "no-hitter" on the air, lest you jinx it. He said things like, "No Dodger has reached 1st base" and, "The Dodgers are hitless" and "The Dodgers have had no baserunners."

For his 1981 book The 10 Greatest Games In Baseball History, John Thorn, now the official historian of Major League Baseball, included this game, and mentioned the jinx. He added, "But, somehow, saying the words, 'perfect game' doesn't have the same effect."

But after the 7th inning, when Larsen got back to the dugout, he was faced with another tradition regarding no-hitters: Nobody talks to the teammate who's pitching one. He sidled up to Mantle on the bench, and said, "Hey, Mick, wouldn't it be something if I pitched a no-hitter?" He not only talked about it, he said it. Mantle pushed him, and said, "Get away from me!" In the years to come, Mickey would laugh when telling this story. I don't think he was laughing at the time.

Berra wasn't concerned with the distinction. He would say, "I think I woulda thought more about it if we'd had a 9-0 lead: 'Ooh, he's got a no-hitter goin'.' But, at 2-0, I was just worried about winning the game."

He was right: The Dodgers were, after all, the defending World Champions, having clinched the Series in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium the year before, so home-field advantage didn't mean much. And with killers in their lineup -- Snider, Hodges, Campanellla, Furillo, even Robinson could crush the ball on occasion -- worrying about a 2-run lead was fully justified.

Top of the 8th. Robinson grounded back to Larsen, who threw him out. Hodges nearly broke it up again, lining to 3rd, but Carey caught it. Amoros flew to center. 24 men up, 24 men down.

Top of the 9th. The buzz at Yankee Stadium could be heard over Mutual radio and NBC television. Furillo hit a long fly ball to right that could have messed it all up, but it was a little foul. He hit another fly to right, but Bauer was able to catch this one. Campanella grounded to 2nd.

The last out was Dale Mitchell, pinch-hitting for Maglie. As a Cleveland Indian, Mitchell had been in the opposing dugout for Mays' catch, but had always hit well against the Yankees. So there was reason for concern.

Wolff: "I'll guarantee you that nobody, but nobody, has left this ballpark. And if, by chance, somebody did manage to leave early, man, he is missing the greatest!"

Larsen threw Mitchell ball one. Then a called strike. Then he got Mitchell to swing and miss. He was one strike away.

He had been pitching the entire game with no windup, and throwing exactly the pitches that Berra had been calling. He was about to throw his 97th pitch. (Brian Cashman wasn't born yet, but this is probably his favorite fact about this game.)

The pitch snuck over the outside corner. Pinelli called, "Strike three!" To this day, Yankee-haters will claim that it was outside. Well, even if it had been so called, the count would have been 2 and 2, and there's hardly a guarantee that Mitchell would have made contact on the next pitch, let alone reached base.

Wolff's call: "Larsen is ready, gets the sign. Two strikes, ball one, here comes the pitch: Strike three! A no-hitter! A perfect game for Don Larsen! Yogi Berra runs out there, he leaps on Larsen! And he's swarmed by his teammates!"
Two years later, Wolff would be behind the mike at the Stadium again, calling the 1958 NFL Championship Game, in which the Baltimore Colts beat the football version of the New York Giants in overtime, the so-called "Greatest Game Ever Played."

In those days, NBC invited one broadcaster from each team to do the TV side of it, and Vin Scully was chosen from the Dodgers. After their move to Los Angeles, he would broadcast perfect games by Sandy Koufax for them in 1965, and Dennis Martinez against them in 1991. Here's Scully's call: "Got him! Baseball history! The greatest game ever pitched in baseball history, by Don Larsen! A no-hitter and a perfect game in the World Series!"

Larsen had pitched the 1st no-hitter in World Series history, something that Yankees Herb Pennock in 1927 (5 outs away) and Bill Bevens in 1947 (1 out away) had come close to doing. And it was the 1st perfect game in Major League Baseball since Charlie Robertson did it for the Chicago White Sox in 1922.

Larsen was aware that he had a no-hitter going, but it had been so long since Robertson's feat -- 7 years before Larsen was born -- that he said he'd never even heard of a perfect game before. Now, he'd done it: 27 men up, 27 men down.

In the New York Daily News, Joe Trimble wrote, "The imperfect man pitched a perfect game yesterday." In The Washington Post, the great baseball writer Shirley Povich wrote, "The million-to-one shot came in. A month of Sundays hit the calendar. Hell froze over. Don Larsen pitched the first perfect game in World Series history."
Larsen was named the Most Valuable Player of the World Series, and was given a Chevrolet Corvette by SPORT magazine. At age 27, his name was permanently written into baseball history. Once, when asked if he ever got tired of talking about the game, Larsen said, "No, why should I?"

Back in Brooklyn, the Dodgers won Game 6, 1-0 in 10 innings on a hit by Jackie Robinson. But the Yankees won Game 7, 9-0, with Yogi hitting 2 home runs, Elston Howard hitting one, and Bill "Moose" Skowron hitting a grand slam, to back the shutout pitching of Johnny Kucks. The last play of the game was Kucks striking Robinson out, but the ball got away from Yogi, and he had to throw Jackie out at 1st.

That turned out to be the last play of Jackie's career, as he retired the following January. It also turned out to be the last play in a Subway Series for 44 years, as the Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to California after the next season, the Mets were established in 1962, and they didn't meet the Yankees in a World Series until 2000.

*

So what could Don Larsen do for an encore? A bit. He went 10-4 in 1957, and Stengel gave him the ball to start Game 7 of the World Series -- officially, the biggest game he ever pitched. But he lost it to the Milwaukee Braves. In 1958, he went 9-6, and won Game 3 of the Series, as the Yankees beat the Braves to avenge the previous season's defeat.

But 1959 was a bad year by Yankee standards, and he went just 6-7. After the season, he was involved in another epic trade: He, Bauer, reserve outfielder Norm Siebern, and highly-rated 1st base prospect Marv Throneberry (later to become a symbol of early Mets ineptitude) were sent to the Kansas City Athletics for Roger Maris, Joe DeMaestri and Kent Hadley.

Maris would help the Yankees win the next 5 AL Pennants, including winning the next 2 AL MVPs, culminating in his record-breaking 61-home run season in 1961.The rest didn't do much, although Bauer would manage the Orioles to their 1st Pennant and World Series win in 1966.

Don was awful in 1960, going 1-10 for the A's. In 1961, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox, and rebounded, going 8-2. In 1962, pitching solely in relief, he went 5-4 with 10 saves, and helped the San Francisco Giants win their 1st West Coast Pennant -- and pitched against the Yankees in the World Series. But the Yankees won.

Larsen would pitch the 1963 season with the Giants, then was traded to the Houston Colt .45's in 1964. In 1965, with the Astrodome opened, their name was changed to the Houston Astros. The dome was opened with an exhibition game -- against the Yankees. But the Astros won 2-1, with Mantle hitting a home run for the Yankees' only score.

That season, Don was traded back to the Orioles, but was released before he could be a part of their '66 title season under Bauer. The Giants re-signed him, but he spent the entire 1966 season with the Triple-A Phoenix Giants. He got into 3 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1967, and hung 'em up.

Like the only man ever to pitch back-to-back no-hitters, Johnny Vander Meer of the 1938 Cincinnati Reds, the only man ever to pitch a perfect game in the World Series had a losing won-lost record for his career: 81-91. Much of that was due to his 3-21 performance for the '54 O's, and his 1-10 for the '60 A's. Take those out, and he was 77-60.

*

He didn't get another job in baseball, but was always invited back to Yankee Stadium for Old-Timers' Day. He went to work for a paper company in Salinas, California, and later moved to Hayden Lake, Idaho, with Corrine, his 2nd wife, to whom he'd been married for 60 years. Hayden Lake is 7 miles north of Coeur d'Alene; 37 miles east of Spokane, Washington; and 100 miles south of the Canadian border. Don and his 1st wife, Vivian, had split a few weeks before his perfect game. He had a daughter, Caroline, with Vivian; and a son, Scott, with Corrine.

On May 17, 1998, another hard-partying pitcher, David Wells, became the 2nd Yankee to pitch a perfect game. Someone found out that he, like Larsen, was a graduate of Point Loma High School in San Diego, and set up a phone call between them, starting a friendship that would last for the rest of Larsen's life.

On July 18, 1999, the Yankees honored Yogi Berra, now that his 14-year feud with team owner George Steinbrenner had ended. As many of his former Yankee teammates as they could get were invited, including Larsen, who threw a ceremonial first pitch to Yogi. Then, with Yogi and Don watching from the luxury boxes, David Cone matched the feat, pitching a perfect game. This time, it was the pitcher, Cone, who jumped on the catcher, Joe Girardi.

On September 21, 2008, the last game at the old Yankee Stadium was played. During the pregame ceremonies, a photo was taken on the mound, with the 3 perfect game pitchers and their catchers: Larsen and Berra, Wells and Jorge Posada, and Cone and Girardi, by then the Yankee manager.

When the new Yankee Stadium opened the next season, it contained a Yankees Museum. Its centerpiece is a display containing baseballs autographed by nearly every Yankee player ever (a few from the early days have not yet been obtained, and are unlikely to be). At each end, 60 feet, 6 inches apart, are statues of Berra and, 15 inches above the ground as pitcher's mounds were up until 1968, Larsen.

When Yogi died in 2015, it left Don as the last living player from his perfect game, just as Willie Mays is now the last living player from the 1954 World Series Game 1 where he made "The Catch." Don was also the last living player from the trade that brought Roger Maris to the Yankees.

Every Old-Timers' Day, Larsen, Wells and Cone, the 3 perfect game pitchers, would stand together, until it reached the point where Don was too frail to stand for more than a few minutes, at which point the former custom of having players stand on the foul lines between home plate and 1st and 3rd bases was dropped, in favor of chairs between 1st and 2nd, and between 2nd and 3rd. From that point on, "Gooney,""Boomer" and "Coney" would sit together, their bond still strong.

On October 6, 2010, in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. He joined Larsen as only the 2nd pitcher ever to throw a postseason no-hitter. Halladay was 33 years old, Larsen 81. And yet, due to a 2017 plane crash, Halladay ended up dying first.

On June 23, 2019, the Yankees held Old-Timers' Day. Thanks to an assist from my sister's company, she and I got to go, and watch both the old-timers' game and the regular game from a luxury suite. Don Larsen was there, in a wheelchair. Between the old-timers' game and the regular game, I went back into the suite to get a snack, and as I was coming out, Larsen was being wheeled past. He looked well older than 90, and had what could have been a large skin cancer patch on his nose. Given everything he did to himself, I'm surprised he lasted this long.