Remember this clearly—yet I was all of 5 One other memory stands out__ about age 10. In the back office at Commiskey DAd had played for them like for 2 weeks and was trying to save a dime .
We got to our nosebleed seats and near the end of the game ask if I noticed the 2 gents in suits ahead of us in line. Yes just others lookiing to save a dime. He noted it was Mantle and Maris. I could have feinted but said nothing. Just stunned.
RIP Mr Larsen. Remember you from every Yankee Old Timers Game when I was a kid.
Mike Vaccaro (NY Post sports writer) called him up in 2009 for an interview. Here is a part of the article by Vaccaro that was posted tonight. (Mr. Larsen thoroughly enjoyed his one day of fame).
... “How did you get this number?”
That’s always a tricky one to answer. You never know if you’re spoiling a confidence. But before I could worry about that, the voice softened and strengthened and a loud laugh landscaped by so many New York nights out of the past took over.
“I’m kidding. I’m glad you called,” Don Larsen said. “I was 81-91 as a major league pitcher. If that’s all people knew about me, nobody would ever call.”
...Dick Young, the most influential sportswriter New York City has ever known..grabbed Trimble’s typewriter and without saying a word typed these words:
“The unperfect man pitched a perfect game yesterday.”
In later editions, that would be tweaked to what has become one of the most famous ledes in the history of newspapers: “The imperfect man pitched a perfect game yesterday.”
That was Larsen. For one day, he was the greatest pitcher who ever lived. The other 411 games of his career? The other 1,539 innings he logged for seven teams from 1953 through 1967? Not so much. And that was always OK with Larsen. You never met a guy happier to have accomplished something.
“Hell, yeah, I’m glad it happened to me,” he told me over the phone in 2009. “I think about it every day — and not just once a day. As long as they play baseball, they’ll remember the name ‘Don Larsen.’ That works for me.”