Don Larsen, the New York Yankees 1956 World Series hero has entered hospice care. According to a statement by his son, the 90-year-old Larsen, who lives in Hayden Lake, Idaho, has been recently suffering from esophageal cancer. Larsen is the only pitcher to throw a perfect game in World Series history. His last public appearance was in August 2019, at the St. Louis Browns Historical Society Luncheon.
Don Larsen / Terry Ballard
STATEMENT FROM SCOTT LARSEN, DECEMBER 25, 2019
On behalf of the Larsen family, my wife Nancy and I want to express our heartfelt appreciation to Don Larsen’s many friends and fans who have reached out and contacted us in recent days concerning my father.
Shortly after returning from his annual August trip to St. Louis to attend the St. Louis Browns Historical Society gathering, dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He immediately began a rigorous program of radiation therapy through Cancer Care Northwest. He recently completed that treatment regime.
My dad is keeping active, despite his age (90) and this continuing health challenge. He recently celebrated a 62nd wedding anniversary with my mother, Corrine, on December 7th at Capone’s, his favorite local restaurant in Hayden, Idaho.
Dad is continuing to reside in his home of over twenty-five years overlooking Windy Bay on his beloved Hayden Lake, where he has spent many joyful hours fishing, frequently with me and our sons, Justin and Cody.
My dad and the entire Larsen family are very grateful for the medical care he has received over these recent months through the Kootenai Medical Center and Cancer Care Northwest, as well as the current assistance he is receiving from Hospice of North Idaho. Dad is looking forward to the upcoming baseball season and hopes to attend Yankee spring training once again next year.
Ryan Verdugo, a former major league pitcher with the Kansas City Royals, pitched the first perfect game in Chinese Professional Baseball League history Saturday, October 6, 2018, with a 1-0 victory over the Chinatrust Brothers.
Ryan Verdugo / CPBL
Verdugo was a San Francisco Giants ninth-round draft pick in the 2008 draft, and make one appearance with the Royals in 2012. He continued to pitch in the minor leagues, last reaching Triple-A in 2015. He spent the next two seasons in the Mexican League before signing with the Uni-Lions in February.
He has 8-4 record in 26 starts and an ERA of 4.31 for the Uni-Lions in 2018.
David Cone has become a familiar face in the small town of Congers, New York. Saturday marked his second appearance at the annual Jason Krause Kick Cancer Fundraiser
at Kennelly’s Grille House. The charity supports brain cancer research,
which took the former local soccer star’s life at the age of 33 in
2008. Attending alongside his former teammate Mookie Wilson,
as well as former New York Yankee Mickey Rivers, and New York Giants
past and present stars, Jim Burt and Rashad Jennings, Cone felt at home
while participating in the day’s festivities.
“I have a lot of common friends that this means a lot to,” Cone said.
“Jason Krause passed away at a young age in his early 30s and he made
an imprint on this area, several people that I’ve become friends with.
It means a lot, and it’s one of those down to earth events that’s a lot
of fun to be a part of.”
Still fresh on his mind was the impact of the recent passing of Yankees legend Yogi Berra. Signing a steady stream of photos of his teammates carrying him off the field after a perfect game on what was Yogi Berra Day at Yankee Stadium on July 18, 1999, Cone felt a great deal of humility in one of his career highlights being directly linked to the Hall of Fame catcher.
“Yogi was great to everybody,” he said. “Yogi was that kind of guy.
He treated everybody so well and was so beloved. I’m just lucky. I’m
lucky that I happened to have the stars aligned on a day when it was his
day. I became a part of it by being lucky enough to throw a perfect
game. I feel very fortunate to be able to say that I did that on Yogi Berra Day.”
* - This was originally published September 27, 2015 for Examiner.com
This week Mark Buehrle set a Major League record for consecutive outs with 45. His tremendous feat came on heels of pitching a perfect game, followed by almost another six "perfect" innings in the next game. Without fail during the media coverage of Buehrle's streak, Harvey Haddix's flirt with perfection 50 years prior was ushered to the forefront of baseball discussion. Chicago-based sportswriter Lew Freedman recreates the events of May 26, 1959 with his new book, Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost, placing the reader in a box seat for all of the action.
Imagine pitching not only nine innings of perfect baseball as Buehrle did, but pitching 12 in an extra inning game, only to lose in the end. To add insult to injury, 30-something years later, a minor rule change strikes your no-hitter from the record books. Such is the story of "Hard-Luck" Harvey Haddix.
Follow Haddix as he battles flu-like symptoms to silence the bats of greats such as Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron. Freedman keeps the reader on the edge of their seat as the game tightens with each zero placed on the board. Every inning, you receive insider commentary from Haddix's teammates as he records another trifecta. As the game goes along you hope that the Pirates can string together a few of their 12 hits off of Lew Burdette to push a runner across the plate.
You are clued into the mind of Manager Danny Murtaugh, dissecting each move as you approach the later stages of the contest. Will Murtaugh summon ace reliever Roy Face? Will a pinch-hitter appear for Haddix in the late innings? Conspicuously absent from the lineup was the injured Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, opening the door for Roman Mejias to start. Mejias would later gain infamy on a key play during the early stages of the game. Would the result have been different with the Puerto Rican star in the lineup?
In between the description of the game's events, Freedman delivers insightful profiles of the players on the field for Pittsburgh, allowing the reader to gain a look at lesser known players that contributed that day such as: Bob Skinner, Dick Schofield, Dick Stuart, Rocky Nelson, and Smoky Burgess.
Sadly, no footage of this game exists. The Pirates were on the road and the local TV station KDKA chose to show a speech of vice-president Richard Nixon instead of the game between the Braves and the Pirates. This is why this book excels. With the recently released footage of Don Larsen's perfect game, the mystique of what actually transpired has been diminished. It is no longer a story told by only those who were there to witness it. Freedman's script of Haddix's game and its surroundings only enhance the legend of Haddix's duel with Burdette. If you want an illumination of one baseball's most magical games, Freedman serves up a winner in detailing the greatest game ever lost.
On the heels of Dewayne Wise's leaping catch during Mark Buehrle's perfect game, it's only appropriate that I present a book detailing the greatest outfield catches in Major League Baseball's history.
"Going, Going ... Caught!" was originally recommended to me by former Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Don Thompson as he attempted to describe Duke Snider's nearly impossible catch of Willie "Puddin Head" Jones' smash in Philadelphia on Memorial Day of 1954. Thompson should know a thing or two about Snider's climb up the wall that day; he was standing next to Snider when he did the seemingly impossible, digging his spikes into the outfield fence after sprinting into the depths of left-center only to throw his glove hand above his head and across his body for the catch as he collided with the wall. While Aronoff provides an illustration recreating the catch, there are no actual photographs of his theatrics available. This goes for about 95% of the other catches mentioned in the book. All we have left of these grabs are the accounts from the sportswriters and players who saw them. These accounts are what make this book special. You are transported back to a time when mass media didn't cover baseball and left you to create your own picture of a great center fielder chasing down a ball that seems way out of his reach.
Aronoff has done painstaking research to uncover multiple sources detailing catches that the writers at the time described as the "best ever." There is great detail given to the dimensions of old ballparks and how their cavernous reaches allowed for these players to catch up to balls that everyone in the crowd thought were going to fall in for extra-base hits.. Unlike modern stadiums, outfielders had to travel farther distances and contend with unpadded wooden and concrete walls to haul in shots hit into the far reaches of the ballpark.
While "Going, Going, Caught!" is well researched, the reader is bogged down with redundant accounts of the same catch, and multiple catches made by the same player that were "very good" but not great. Aronoff could have condensed the accounts he relayed in order to make it more digestible. It may be a bit too intense for the casual baseball reader, or those not familiar with the players of yesteryear.
However, Aronoff's book not only further enlivens the debate between Mantle, Snider and Mays, it also brings up fielding stars that time has forgotten, such as Jimmy Piersall, Terry Moore, Jigger Statz, Dode Paskert, Bill Lange, and baseball's earliest deaf player, "Dummy" Hoy. It may even make you question your beliefs of who is the greatest outfielder of all time. While their Hall of Fame contemporaries of Keeler, Cobb, Speaker, and DiMaggio are all profiled at one point, it's the exploits of the lesser known aforementioned players that make "Going, Going ... Caught" run.
