Perfect: Don Larsen's Miraculous World Series Game (6 page)

The World Series proved to be a disappointment for both Maglie and the Giants. The team held a 2-1 advantage when Maglie started the fourth game at the Polo Grounds on October 8, 1951. The first problem was the schedule. The game had to be postponed for one day because of rain, and the delay interfered with Maglie’s rhythm. “I was the sort of pitcher,” he later said, “who had to go every fourth day like it was clockwork.” Maglie compounded the lack of rhythm with another mistake—a large meal at an Italian restaurant the night before the game, which left him feeling “plain heavy” the following day. He lacked the sparkle of earlier outings, and the Yankees got to him early, with Joe DiMaggio hitting a home run and leading the Yankees to a 6-2 victory. Maglie never saw action in that series again. The Yankees won the next two games and the World Championship. And so, in retrospect, Maglie would later say of the experience, “I believe I ate us out of that series.”

Maglie continued to perform well for the Giants in 1952, finishing with an 18-8 record, but he began to experience a pain in his back that limited his mobility and often required him to sleep on a board to alleviate the discomfort. The cause of the problem was ultimately diagnosed as a strained ligament (which produced a lemon-size lump at the base of his spine). He spent a few days in traction at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, returned to the Giants by the end of the season, and by the beginning of the 1953 season was telling people that “my back feels better than ever.”

That may have been so, but the relief was only temporary. Sal began to experience pain in his shoulder after the season began, and then he heard something snap in his back while pitching in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. X-rays at the hospital revealed that he had a slight curvature of the spine, a tilted pelvis, and a right leg that was about three-quarters of an inch shorter than his left leg—perhaps the result of pushing off the pitching rubber so hard for so many years. He was placed in traction for five days and then given a lift for his right shoe. The lift produced only minimal relief, and Maglie finished the 1953 season with lingering pain and a disappointing 8-9 won-lost record.

Sal returned to the Giants with less pain and renewed hope in 1954. His performance matched his expectations, and he produced a 14-6 record, which included a complete game victory over the Dodgers at Ebbets Field on September 20 to win the pennant. Durocher took some credit for Maglie’s revival. “Now that dago pitcher,” the Giant manager once said to a reporter with reference to the Barber, “is a different kettle of fish. If I let him get happy, he don’t pitch good. So I get him mad. I say, ‘Whatsa matter, you stupid wop, you choking?’ He gets so mad he wants to kill me.”

The World Series was anticlimactic for Maglie. He had the honor of starting the first game at the Polo Grounds against the Cleveland Indians—who had established a major-league record with 111 wins during the regular season—but was lifted in the eighth inning when Indians first baseman Vic Wertz stepped up to the plate with two men on base and the score tied at 2-2. Don Liddle strode to the mound, and on the first pitch Wertz drove the ball over Willie Mays’ head in center field for what seemed to be a certain hit. But Mays—knowing that the fence was 475 feet from home plate—turned his back, ran at full speed, and caught the ball on the run over his shoulder about fifty feet from the fence. It was a spectacular play that saved the game for the Giants, who ultimately won 5-2 and then swept the next three games for the World Championship.

Maglie returned to the Giants in 1955, but, by the middle of the season, the honeymoon with the New York club came to an end. His pitching performance was still of a high caliber—he won nine of his fourteen decisions—but the Giants were concerned that the thirty-eight-year-old hurler had only limited time left as a productive player. After a game on July 30, Durocher signaled to Maglie that they needed to have a conversation in the dugout. “Sal,” the Giant manager explained, “the time has come to say good-bye. We need young blood on this club.” And that was how Maglie learned that he had been traded to the Cleveland Indians.

Sal hoped to demonstrate that his pitching skills were still intact. “I’ll show ’em,” he told a reporter. “I’m not as old as everyone thinks.” But the high expectations were sidetracked by the competition for pitching assignments. The Indians already had four accomplished pitchers in their starting rotation—Early Wynn, Mike Garcia, Bob Lemon, and Herb Score—as well as an aging Bob Feller, and there was simply no room for another starter. As a result, Maglie started only two games during the remainder of the season and saw only limited relief appearances in eight other games.

He reported for spring training in 1956 in good shape, but he knew from the start that his prospects of playing a meaningful role on the Indians were bleak. Life then took an unexpected turn after Maglie pitched against the Brooklyn Dodgers in an exhibition game in Jersey City on April 30. He was sharp, and he held the World Series champions to one hit in the final four innings. Shortly afterward, Indian general manager Hank Greenberg called Buzzie Bavasi, his counterpart on the Dodgers, and asked whether Brooklyn might be interested in acquiring the former Giant pitcher. After checking with manager Walter Alston and team captain Pee Wee Reese, Bavasi called Greenberg back and asked how much the Indians wanted for Maglie. A hundred thousand dollars, said Greenberg. “You’ve gotta be crazy,” Bavasi responded. Greenberg persisted, Bavasi resisted, and finally the Indians—desperate to get rid of Maglie and his salary—agreed to accept $100 (although Bavasi said that, to avoid embarrassment, the Indians could issue a press release with any figure they liked, and later reports indicated that Maglie was sold for $14,000).

The trade may have been a propitious one in the view of Alston and Reese, but Dodger outfielder Carl Furillo was, as Bavasi later remembered, “furious.” Furillo had been a favorite target of Maglie’s when he was with the Giants, and there was many a time when Furillo found himself sprawled in the dirt at home plate to avoid a Maglie knockdown pitch. With those confrontations fresh in his mind, Furillo was not happy to see Maglie become a Dodger. “You dumb dago bastard,” he yelled at Bavasi. “What’d you get that dago for?”

Eager to mollify one of the team’s star performers, Bavasi turned to diplomacy. He gave Furillo $200 and told him to take Maglie out to dinner at Toots Shor’s, a favorite restaurant for ballplayers on West Fifty-first Street in Manhattan. He then called Shor and told him to pick up the tab for the meal, thus allowing Furillo to keep the $200.

As Bavasi had hoped, the dinner helped to ease Furillo’s anger at Maglie and contributed to the good relationship the two men enjoyed afterward. “Carl Furillo,” Sal would later say, “became one of my best friends on the club.” Nor was Furillo an exception. All of the Dodgers were surprised to see Maglie join the club but eager to embrace him as a teammate. It was, said Carl Erskine, “the strangest sight to see him in our clubhouse,” but, he added, the transition was a smooth one because “Maglie was a gentleman in every sense of the word.” The good feelings were mutual, and Maglie would later say of his Dodger teammates that “I got more of a kick out of them than I ever did in all my years with the Giants.”

The acquisition of Maglie proved to be a pivotal one for the Dodgers. They were locked in a battle for the pennant with the Milwaukee Braves, and the former Giant pitcher gave them a critical advantage—and a pennant. His first start on May 30 was a bumpy one, as he allowed four runs in five innings. But by July he fell into a groove, winning ten of his next twelve decisions, including a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies on September 25 at Ebbets Field. He then added another complete victory against the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 29, and the Dodgers won the pennant the next day.

No one doubted the value of the contribution Maglie had made. He finished the season with a 13-5 won-lost record, which was all the more remarkable because he had missed almost the first two months of the season. His teammates certainly understood his value. “We wouldn’t be up here now if it were not for Maglie,” said Campanella. The sportswriters agreed, and Maglie finished second in the voting for the Most Valuable Player award.

 

However much he enjoyed praise from his teammates and sportswriters, Maglie knows they are no guarantee of success in the fifth game of the 1956 World Series. And so he is a study of concentration as Yankee right fielder Hank Bauer, a right-handed batter, steps into the batter’s box to start the bottom of the first inning.

Bauer had two hits against Maglie in the first game, and the Dodgers are playing the Yankee outfielder deep and to the left in recognition of his substantial power. Bauer tries a surprise bunt on the first pitch, but the ball goes foul. Maglie does not like surprises, and the second pitch sails behind Bauer’s head. Radio announcer Bob Neal tells his listening audience that “Maglie looks to his hand to indicate that the ball slipped.” But those familiar with Maglie’s interest in keeping the batter off stride are surely skeptical. Bauer is obviously among them. He stares long and hard at Maglie, his anger almost palpable. It has no impact on Maglie. After another ball, a missed swing, and a foul, Bauer lifts a pop fly to the edge of the outfield grass that is caught by shortstop Pee Wee Reese.

Yankee first baseman Joe Collins, a thirty-four-year-old left-handed batter, follows Bauer to the plate. After a called ball and a strike, Collins bunts the ball down the third-base line. Dodger third baseman Jackie Robinson fields the ball cleanly and throws Collins out at first.

The Dodger infielders move to the right as Mickey Mantle, the Yankees’ switch-hitting center fielder, steps up to the plate to bat left-handed against the right-handed Maglie. Having played against him in three previous World Series, the Dodgers are all too familiar with Mantle’s prodigious power, and they hope to limit his success with an unusual infield shift—Dodger first baseman Gil Hodges moves deep behind the bag, second baseman Junior Gilliam moves back to the edge of the outfield grass between first and second base, and shortstop Pee Wee Reese relocates to the right side of second base (with third baseman Jackie Robinson in the shortstop position). The infield shift proves to be of no utility on this occasion. After missing the ball on a gigantic swing on the first pitch and then taking two balls, Mantle sends an easy fly ball to Sandy Amoros in left field, and the inning is over.

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fter he finishes his warm-up pitches, Larsen prepares himself for another round with the Dodgers, no doubt hoping that he can survive longer than he had in the second game. The first Dodger to step into the batter’s box to start the second inning is the right-handed Jackie Robinson. The ebony color of his skin stands in stark contrast to the light gray uniform he wears.

Although thirty-seven and carrying more weight than he did nearly a decade earlier when he became the major league’s first black player, Robinson remains a dangerous hitter. Having faced him in the 1955 World Series, Larsen is well aware of Robinson’s skill with a bat, and that perception was reinforced when he and Berra reviewed the Dodger lineup before the game. “We can’t throw anything soft to Jackie,” the Yankee catcher explained. “Anything tight and up is his wheelhouse, so we gotta be careful to keep the ball away from him.” Still, the Yankee outfield shifts to the left in case Robinson does get an inside pitch that he can pull.

Robinson’s advanced years do not reflect lethargy. Quite the contrary. There is something electric about him. Something that suggests that anything is possible. Because, however much he may have aged, Robinson has not lost his burning desire to win. Nor has he forgotten his roots and the symbol that he now represents in baseball history.

It is, to be sure, a remarkable story. His grandparents were slaves in the Deep South before the Civil War, and racial segregation was still a part of daily life when he was born near Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. Robinson’s father, Jerry, worked as a sharecropper on a plantation while his mother, Mallie, took care of young Jackie and his four older siblings. But the family was not destined to stay in Georgia for long. Six months after Jackie’s birth, Jerry went to the train station with another man’s wife and never returned. A strong-willed woman determined to improve her lot, Mallie packed the family up shortly afterward and took them by train to Pasadena, California, to join some family members there. Once in Pasadena, Mallie was able to find a small house for her family on Pepper Street in a largely white neighborhood, and it was there that Jackie Robinson spent his formative years.

For young Jackie, the departure from Georgia was a fortunate change of venues. California would give him opportunities that probably would never have been available in the Deep South—though racism was still rampant out west, and there were many activities that Jackie and his young friends could not enjoy. (Unable to use the community pool when they chose, Jackie and his friends would often swim in the nearby reservoir, and one hot summer day they were discovered by a sheriff, who packed them off to jail. “Looka here,” said the sheriff when he first saw the young boys. “Niggers in my drinking water.”)

The racism that Robinson encountered outside the home was made bearable by the support and guidance that he and his siblings received inside the home from Mallie. As Jackie later recalled, she “indoctrinated us with the importance of family unity, religion, and kindness toward others.” And so, throughout his adult life, Jackie Robinson would remain religious (often saying prayers on his knees before going to bed), devoted to his family, and committed to doing what he could to improve the lives of others.

Long before adulthood, however, he had demonstrated the skills and temperament that would be his trademarks as a major-league baseball player. He was a talented youngster with extraordinary eye-hand coordination. One of his classmates in Pasadena remembered that young Jackie “could do things in games and sports that the other kids could not do.” But those superior skills also reflected a sense of competition that many of his peers found offensive. “Jackie wasn’t a very likable person,” said another classmate, “because his whole thing was just win, win, win, and beat everybody.”