Don Larsen's Perfect Game, 1956, by Randy Summers
From MemoryArchive
Who: Randy Summers What: Don Larsen's Perfect Game When: October 8, 1956 Where: Yankee Stadium, The Bronx, New York
It was a clear blue fall day in Houston. The summer heat had finally left, and we were enjoying those few weeks every early fall or early spring when the weather in Houston can be actually very nice. We were in the sixth grade at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Elementary School in southwest Houston. This was actually the second location of a school in Houston of that name. The school was new, just in its second year. My brothers and I had watched it being built right there on Murworth Street, now just a stone's throw from the old Astrodome and new Reliant Stadium. It was another average and ordinary day in school. My friends and I were the top dogs of the school. We were sixth graders, having Miss Bertha Smith for our teacher. There was another sixth grade teacher, Mr. Frankel, but he was clearly a junior colleague, maybe thirty years old tops. Miss Smith was the classic schoolmarm who had been teaching forever. In fact, the only member of the school staff senior to Miss Smith was the principal, the never-to-be-forgotten Miss Cookenboo. Legend had it she had been the principal of the old Longfellow School, now a disused property somewhere far across town. Miss Smith's room was the biggest, nicest, and best located in the long one-story building. It was closest to the lunchroom. Next farther out was Mr. Frankel's room, and across the hall was Miss Abdo's room. She was young, very bright, and had been my fifth grade teacher. All the girls loved trying to match-make Miss Abdo with Mr. Frankel. The boys cared more about such things as baseball.
It turns out that young Miss Abdo and the older Miss Smith actually both knew baseball. Boys and men in the USA soon learn that some females know baseball very well. I remember Miss Smith told us that one time she had seen Babe Ruth hit a home run in Yankee Stadium; her uncle had taken her. The previous fall during the '55 Series, Miss Abdo had explicitly permitted Jef Carson to listen to the game on his little Japanese transistor radio, with a small ear-piece that plugged in like a hearing aid. By the seventh game, she had allowed a bigger portable radio in the room, turned up loud. The boys listened intently, and most of the girls at least tolerated it. So, in the seventh game of the '55 Series, while in my 5th grade classroom, I had heard on the radio Sandy Amoros's legendary catch in the left-field corner of Yankee Stadium, and then his spectacular doubling up Yogi Berra off first. Berra had already rounded second. The Dodgers won the Series. But, if Amoros does not make that catch, Berra scores; and there is serious doubt that the Brooklyn Dodgers would have ever won the World Series, in 1955 or any other year. That's a Dodgers-Yankees game in the World Series for you.
But this memoir is about the '56 Series, and many of you already know that Berra and the Yanks were back in '56. It was a rematch, except this time the Yanks were up against the defending world champions. The Dodgers were no longer the perennial second-raters. They fielded a mighty team in '55 and the same in '56. In fact, if you know of a more dangerous batting order than the Dodgers of those years, give me a call, so I can get your vitae for the Pulitzer Prize committee at Columbia University.
We lined up, standing out in the hallway to go into the lunchroom, on that pretty, but otherwise average and ordinary, fall day in Houston. I was standing among a group of boys as usual. I do not recall if the rules separated the boys from the girls for the lunchroom line-up. It was probably just that the boys naturally congregated together, likewise the girls. Like the rest of the middle longitudes of the USA, Houston was on central standard time. So any given time of day in New York, eastern standard time, was later than in Houston. Mr. Frankel usually wore dark trousers, white-shirt, and a necktie. He was walking past the line-up, coming from the direction of the school office, where Miss Cookenboo and the office staff probably had a radio on. Thinking back to that moment now, I suspect that perhaps Mr. Frankel had just heard some news about the World Series game in New York. Because of what Mr. Frankel happened to say, in passing to some kids about twenty feet head of me in the line, I shall never forget that fine day nor the date: October the 8th, 1956.
I saw two boys break out of line and follow Mr. Frankel who continued coming our way, walking back towards his classroom. He turned around to respond to what one of the boys had asked him. One of them had asked him to repeat what he had said, or to amplify and clarify. The first thing I could hear of what Mr. Frankel was saying was:
"First time the trick's ever been done."
At this, we all broke out of line and clamored all around Mr. Frankel. He told us the game in New York was already over, that the Yanks had won 2-0, and that the Yankee pitcher had thrown a perfect game. Just like that. Mr. Frankel was correct. Indeed, it was the first time the trick's ever been done. And, still is: it remains so to this day, the only no-hitter in the history of the World Series. Baseball fans of my generation and older still alive, remember where they were and what they doing when they first heard about Don Larsen's Perfect Game.
