In 24 hours since Gerrit Cole announced the birth of his child, the Yankees lost a member of their historic family. Don Larsen, the only man in World Series history to throw a perfect game, passed away at the age of 90.
The Funny Thing About Baseball
All you have to do is look around. By pitching the first, and so far only, a perfect game in the World Series, Larsen is an icon in not just the baseball community, but a storied member of the Yankees from the ’50s. Yogi Berra leaping into Larsen’s arms after the 97th and final pitch of his perfect game is one for the record books.
But in a day and age where so much emphasis is placed on advanced metrics and analytics, Larsen proves that statistical analysis isn’t the best way to navigate a short, postseason series. Because Don Larsen was terrible as a starting pitcher… in the regular season.
The man has a career record of 10 games under .500, with a WAR of less than 20, who was forced into a reliever position while still in his prime as a starter. His career WHIP of 1.400 is pretty lackluster, and he ended up on 7 different teams.
But that all changed come the postseason. Sure, he got chased early in game 2 of the 56 series, but he’d come back to win the series MVP, if only because of the perfect game he through in game 5. A career 4-2 postseason record, with a dazzling 2.75 ERA, 24 strikeouts over 24 innings, 11 earned runs (vs 16 runs allowed so that’s not quite as impressive), and a much improved 1.194 WHIP, this man saved his legacy based on him in the playoffs alone. And these are all World Series numbers. This is BEFORE the Championship Series was devised.
The man, for lack of a better comparison, was the 50’s equivalent of Madison Bumgarner’s 10-14 World Series dominance.
And then he was traded to Kansas City in 1960 for another part-time Yankee great. His name was Roger Marris.
My condolences to the Larsen family for their loss. And while this guy may have underperformed in the regular season, he’d be in my starting 5 come October any day of the week.