60 years ago today, Don Larsen threw baseball's lone World Series perfect game

Sixty years later, the lede rings true: "The imperfect man pitched a perfect game."

On Oct. 8, 1956, New York Yankees righthander Don Larsen did something no pitcher had done and no one one else has accomplished in a World Series or postseason game for that matter. Larsen faced the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5 of the Series and it was 27 up and 27 down in a 2-0 victory.

To say Larsen was an unlikely candidate to throw this gem would be an understatement. He had a career mark of 81-91, including a 3-21 record two seasons earlier with Baltimore.

The 11 victories Larsen notched in 1956 were his high in a career that spanned 14 seasons and seven teams.

On one day, he was unhittable. He threw 97 pitches in the game that lasted 2:06. He struck out seven, including Dale Mitchell to complete the masterpiece.

"Got him," Vin Scully called. "The greatest game ever pitched in baseball history by Don Larsen. A no-hitter, a perfect game in a World Series."

Mitchell argued with home-plate ump Babe Pinelli about the final strike call, but it was for naught as catcher Yogi Berra famously leaped into Larsen's arms.

Mickey Mantle homered off Sal Maglie, the hard-luck loser, to give Larsen a lead in the fourth and Hank Bauer brought in an insurance run two innings later.

"He really scared me up there," Larsen said. "Looking back on it, though, I know how much pressure he was under. He must have been paralyzed. That made two of us."

Larsen's perfect game is one of only two no-hitters in postseason history (Roy Halladay has the other). The Yankees would go on to their 17th World Series title, winning in seven games.

There had not been a perfect game pitched since Charlie Robertson on April 30, 1922, 34 years earlier.

“If Nolan Ryan had done it, if Sandy Koufax had done it, if Don Drysdale had done it, I would have nodded and said, ‘Well, it could happen,'” famed Yankees public address announcer Bob Sheppard once said. “But Don Larsen?”