In the bottom of the 8^th, Maglie struck out Bauer, Collins and though greeted by a tremendous roar, Larsen himself. I asked him if he just wanted to strike out and get to the mound and he responded with disdain, “I was trying for a hit, I wanted to win the damn game.”

As Larsen prepared to go to the mound in the 9^th, for the first time he was genuinely nervous. “My legs were like rubber when I headed out there,” he recalls, “but I had a game to win.”

Carl Furillo fouled off four pitches before he flied out to right for the first out.

Campy was the second batter and on the second pitch grounded meekly to Billy Martin. Martin was excited during these late innings that on any fly to the outfield, he was running out to make sure it wouldn’t drop.

Now it was time for No. 27 as Larsen refers to the batter with two outs in the 9^th.

It was Maglie’s turn at bat and Larsen knew that the Dodgers had a number of choices on the bench including Charlie Neal, Gino Cimoli, Rube Walker, and Don Zimmer, but the logical one to expect was Dale Mitchell.

Mitchell was a lifetime .312 hitter. He had joined the Dodgers in July of that year after a successful 10-year career with the Cleveland Indians. Perhaps even more impressive than Mitchell’s lifetime average was the fact that in 3,984 at-bats he had struck out only 119 times.

Waiting for Mitchell to be announced and come to the plate also had the effect of freezing Larsen. “I remember my knees shaking. He really scared me," Larsen said of Mitchell. "I knew how much pressure he was under. He must have been paralyzed. That made two of us." But when I asked Larsen who was more nervous him or Mitchell, Larson answered with an unequivocal, “Me!”

“I walked to the back of the mound and looked out to center field and said a little prayer, ‘Old man, get me through one more.’ I was very nervous.”

The first pitch was a fastball low and outside. The next pitch was a slider that Mitchell took for a strike. The count was 1-1.

The umpire behind the plate was Babe Pinelli. Pinelli had been a major league player for eight seasons and a National League umpire for 22 more. He was the umpire for Jackie Robinson’s first major league game and this would be Pinelli’s last game behind the plate; he had already announced his retirement. According to Larsen, Pinelli did not miss one call the entire game.

A swing and miss on a slider made it 1-2.

Larsen looked in for the sign and behind the plate Berra signaled for a fastball. Larsen hadn’t shaken off a sign all day, “Why should I? Yogi was perfect!” Berra has said, "Everything I put down he got over. His breaking ball was good and usually his breaking ball wasn't that good. Hitters probably figured he had a good fastball and slider but his breaking ball was good that day. Anything he threw went over the plate."

Larsen used the no-windup delivery that he adopted late in the season. As the pitch was about to cross the plate, Mitchell swung and fouled it back.

There would be a pitch number 97.

With the count still 1-2, Yogi called for a fastball.

Two hours and six minutes after the first pitch Don Larsen threw a pitch that was a little high, a little outside but he insists was in the strike zone. Mitchell checked his swing, but Pinelli agreed with Larsen and raised his hand and called strike three. Mitchell turned to complain to Pinelli but as Larsen recalls, “There was no one there.”

“I knew Yogi would do something if I got the no-hitter I just didn’t know what,” remembers Larsen. Yogi came running out to Larsen, waving the ball in the air, and leapt into Larsen’s arms, creating a picture as vivid in baseball history as Alfred Eisenstaedt's LIFE photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square symbolizing the cathartic joy of V-J Day. Acclaimed author Jerry Crasnick told me, “Fifty years after the fact, Don Larsen's World Series perfect game remains one of the most powerful and enduring achievements in baseball history. And the images -- Larsen's called third strike on Dale Mitchell and celebratory embrace with catcher Yogi Berra -- are as vivid as ever. We might never see anything like it again.”

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