After almost 52 years, Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game returned to New York last night, when the only known recording of the game was screened for fans at BB King Blues Club.
With Yankee Stadium closing its doors at the end of the season, nostalgia for the most famous moments in the building’s history is sweeping the city.
Perhaps no single game is as well known as Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. That’s when the unheralded Larsen retired all 27 Brooklyn Dodgers he faced in a 2-0 Yankees win.
“This is number one,” said Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Wolff, who called the game on TV. “From a standpoint of individual performance, Larsen is the best I’ve ever seen.”
The image of Yogi Berra rushing to hug Larsen after he polished off the gem with a strikeout is iconic, but the rest of the broadcast has remained unseen by all but a handful of fans for more than half a century.
“You have Yankees fans, people who have been dying to see this game for years,” said Brian Franzman, co-owner of reelsportsfan.com, which organized the event.
Lifelong Yankees fan Patricia Armstrong remembers being at the perfect game and the Stadium crowd getting quiet in anticipation of Larsen’s feat.
“I want to see it again so I can prove to my grandchildren that I was there,” she said.
Steve Kallas of Edgemont, N.Y., took his teenage son Johnnie to the screening.
“I’m a baseball history fanatic,” Johnnie said. “And it’s the most famous pitched game in the history of baseball.”