It Was Perfect

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DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

It Was Perfect

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Sun Jan 05, 2020 10:19 am

The MLB Channel showed a game Saturday of Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. It was a reminder of how baseball has truly changed with time. Once a batter was in the batters box, he would seldom leave. He had no batting gloves. Not even a helmet. It was baseball like we played as kids. Well, except for the uniforms. While we were playing in our jeans and t-shirts, the '56 Dodgers and Yankees were playing in full uniform.
Unlike today's tailored uniform's, the Yankees and Dodgers played in clothing that would literally flap in the wind.
A fly ball to Sandy Amaros brought a chuckle in that there was a large '402 feet sign in the background of left field.
It was nice seeing number 42 worn by Jackie Robinson.
Nobody can wear 42 now. Except for one day when everybody wears the number. We do funny things with numbers.
Mickey Mantle belted a home run. He ran around the bases with no pause or demonstration. When reaching the bench, he shook a few hands and sat down. There were no 25 high fives from teammates or choreographed celebration as is the scene now.

Don Larsen and Sal Maglie looked to have three pitches. A fastball, a curve, and a change up. The latter, not thrown frequently by either.
Except for picking up a resin bag every once in awhile, they would get the ball back from the catcher and throw again.
Larsen threw every pitch that Yogi Berra called. Maglie, occasionally shaking off Roy Campanella.
The core of these teams were tried and true Dodgers and Yankees.
Pee Wee Reese. Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Gil Hodges all played with the Dodgers for years and years.
The same could be said for the Yankees with Mantle, Whitey Ford, Billy Martin, Gil McDougald, and Yogi Berra.
Heck, even their Managers, Walter Alston and Casey Stengel would remain their teams for over a decade, unlike modern Managers who seem to go from franchise to franchise.

America being America, the real money from Larsen's perfect game was made in the future.
Larsen's uniform was sold for three quarters of a million dollars. Mantle's rookie baseball card has fetched close to three million dollars.
Each, more than enough to pay all the players who played in that game for their salary year of 1956.

But enough of the differences of era's. let's talk about a perfect game.
Perfect games are usually thrown by good pitchers. Duh.
Seven of 21 perfect games were thrown by Hall of Famers.
Cy Young, Addie Joss, Sandy Koufax, Jim Bunning, Catfish Hunter, Randy Johnson, and Roy Halladay.
David Cone, David Wells, Dennis Martinez, Mark Buehrle, Felix Hernandez, Kenny Rogers, and Tom Browning were seven damned good pitchers that were not Hall of Fame worthy but threw perfect games.
Dallas Braden, 26-36 for his short career, threw a perfect game. As did Matt Cain.
Phillip Humber threw a perfect game in 2012. The same year as Hernandez and Cain. I don't remember it at all.
The hell of it was that it was the only game Humber would complete in his career.
Len Barker and Mike Witt who were fairly good pitchers threw perfect games in '81 and '84.

It's only right that Cy Young threw the first perfect game of modern baseball. He did it in 1904. Four years later, Joss threw a perfecto.
Then a drought.
It wasn't till 14 years later that Charlie Robertson, a run of the mill pitcher for the White Sox, that the feat was duplicated.
That was 1922.
The rest of the 20's, the 30's, the 40's, and the 50's leading up to Larsen, never saw another perfect game!
Like Robertson, Larsen was a journeyman.
Just two years earlier, Larsen lost 21 games in going 3-21 for the Baltimore Orioles.
Two of those three Wins came against the Yankees and the Yankees traded for him.
Larsen knew he had a no-hitter after the last pitch, but had no idea he had thrown a perfect game.
Dick Young, the heralded sportswriter, gave another writer a lead for his story by telling him, "A perfect game by an imperfect pitcher."
Some pitchers go through the rest of their lives bearing the brunt of what happened in one game.
Carl Mays killed Ray Chapman with a pitch.
Ralph Branca gave up the 'shot heard round the world' to Bobby Thomson.
For Don Larsen, he said he thought about that day in 1956 every day for the rest of his life which ended this past week.
And why not?
It was perfect.
Last edited by DOUGHBOYS on Sun Jan 05, 2020 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Re: It Was Perfect

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Sun Jan 05, 2020 11:59 am

Just one more thing about this perfect game.
As stated, Larsen threw every pitch that was called by Berra.
Not stated is that Berra NEVER went out to the mound.
Not once.
More than that, Larsen and Berra never talked to one another between innings in the dugout.
Larsen would sit at one end of the bench, Yogi and the other hitters at the other end.
At the end of the seventh inning, Larsen commented to Mickey Mantle, "Hey Mick, look at the scoreboard. Wouldn't it be something if I kept it up for two more innings?"
Mantle looked at him as if his nose were on fire with no response. Players did not want any part in jinxing a no-hitter.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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