Don Larsen was a mediocre pitcher at best, going 81-91 with a 3.78 ERA in 14 big-league seasons, and he was so bad in his first World Series start in 1956 that he was pulled in the second inning after giving up four runs in a 13-8 Game 2 loss to the Brooklyn Dodgers.
But in Game 5, the right-hander, then 26, did what no other pitcher has ever done — retire all 27 batters, seven by strikeout, for baseball’s only World Series perfect game.
The lasting image of that afternoon in Yankee Stadium is catcher Yogi Berra leaping into Larsen’s arms and onto the front page of every sports section in the nation after Dale Mitchell struck out to end a 2-0 Yankees victory.
But the perfecto would not have been possible without the stout defense of third baseman Andy Carey, who got enough of his glove on Jackie Robinson’s second-inning smash to deflect the ball to shortstop Gil McDougald, who threw to first for the out, and caught a Gil Hodges low liner to his left about an inch above the ground in the eighth.
“It was a fantastic thing to be a part of,” Carey, who lived in Newport Beach for 55 years before his 2011 death, told The Times in 1986. “I don’t think we realized what a great game it was until many years later.”
