Don Larsen, Only Pitcher Perfect in World Series, Dies at 90

(Bloomberg) -- Don Larsen, who achieved baseball’s ultimate pitching feat on its biggest stage when he threw a perfect game for the New York Yankees in the 1956 World Series, has died. He was 90.

Larsen’s agent, Andrew Levy, announced his death on Twitter. According to the Associated Press, Levy said the former pitcher died of esophageal cancer in Idaho.

In the history of Major League Baseball, Larsen remains the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter in a World Series game. That his no-hitter was a perfect game -- no base runners at all, even by walk or error -- elevated the achievement to one of baseball’s most remarkable.

“I think about it every day, more than once, maybe several times,” Larsen said in a 2015 interview with Bob Costas for MLB Network. “I’m glad I was part of a little bit of history. It makes me proud.”

Larsen’s perfect game stood more broadly as the only no-hitter in baseball postseason history until October 2010, when Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds in game one of their National League Division Series matchup.

Larsen won 81 regular-season games and lost 91 during what could have been a forgettable, 14-year journeyman career with eight different franchises. His singular feat on Oct. 8, 1956, in Game 5 of the World Series between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, instead made him a legend.

Spare Delivery

Before 64,517 fans at Yankee Stadium in New York, plus a television audience, Larsen retired all 27 Dodger batters on 97 pitches. He reached three balls only once, on Pee Wee Reese in the first inning, before striking him out.

Yankee catcher Yogi Berra attributed part of Larsen’s success to the spare, no-windup delivery he had adopted. For batters, the pitch “just kinda came out of nowhere,” Berra recalled.

The Yankees had a 2-0 lead after six innings, and in the dugout, players were respecting baseball’s unwritten, superstition-laden rule not to talk to a pitcher working on a no-hitter. In the middle of the seventh inning, Larsen broke the rule himself by mentioning his work-in-progress to center fielder Mickey Mantle.

“When I said that, the whole dugout got like a morgue,” Larsen told Costas. “I sat on one end and the rest of the guys sat over there. It was very uncomfortable. The only time I was happy was when I was back on the mound.”

Legs Shaking

With two outs in the ninth, the Dodgers sent up Dale Mitchell as a pinch-hitter. “Yankee Stadium, shivering in its concrete foundation right now,” broadcaster Vin Scully reported on NBC.

Larsen recalled the moment: “My legs were shaking. It was a wonder I didn’t faint.”

After strike three was called on Mitchell, Berra ran to the mound and jumped into Larsen’s arms, an enduring baseball image.

“Mr. Larsen has given the younger generation -- perhaps several younger generations -- something to shoot at,” the New York Times said in an editorial the next day.

Remarkably, Larsen told Costas that while he knew he had thrown a no-hitter, the concept and name of a perfect game eluded him until he was informed later in the clubhouse. “I did not know what a perfect game was,” he said. One possible reason: the last perfect game had been pitched in 1922 -- seven years before he was born.

The win gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead in the series. They won the decisive Game 7 two days later.

Basketball First

Donald James Larsen was born Aug. 7, 1929, in Michigan City, Indiana. In high school in San Diego, where his family moved in 1944, Larsen found most of his success on the basketball court. He nonetheless turned down offers of basketball scholarships to pursue baseball, joining an American Legion team in 1946. He was spotted and signed by a scout for the St. Louis Browns.

Arm injuries delayed his rise through the minor leagues. He was drafted by the U.S. Army and spent 1951 and 1952 playing on a military team in Hawaii.

Larsen married the former Corrine Bruess in 1957. The couple had a son, Scott.

He was 23 when he finally broke into the majors with the Browns in April 1953. The next year the franchise moved to Baltimore, and Larsen and his teammates became Orioles. The change didn’t help Larsen, who lost 21 games.

“A pitcher’s dream is to win 20 games, not lose that many, but that’s what happened,” he wrote in his memoir.

A trade Brought Larsen to New York for the 1955 season. He posted nine wins and two losses and started Game 4 of the 1955 World Series, losing to the Dodgers, who went on to win their first championship.

Car Crash

Larsen crashed his car into a telephone pole after a long night out at spring training 1956. That was “in keeping with his label as a fun-loving ball player whose off-field antics and party-boy reputation” made observers question his dedication, wrote the co-author of Larsen’s memoir, Mark Shaw.

Mantle, no slouch at partying, wrote in his memoir of the 1956 season, “Larsen was easily the greatest drinker I’ve known, and I’ve known some pretty good ones in my time.”

Larsen won 11 games and lost six in 1956. He started Game 2 of the World Series, which the Yankees lost, before pitching his way into history in Game 5.

He would end his career with four wins and two losses in 10 World Series appearances.

On July 18, 1999, Larsen threw the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium as part of a salute to Berra. Larsen then shook hands with that day’s Yankee starter, David Cone, and wished him luck.

Cone went out and pitched a perfect game, the 16th in baseball history.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Arnold in Washington at larnold4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Steven Gittelson

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