while channel surfing on one of our many rainy days in october, i came across a studio show being hosted by bob costas on the MLB network with special guests don larsen and yogi berra. i stopped to watch for a while because yogi is always good for a story or two about baseball but i soon discovered that this was indeed my lucky day.

the purpose of the studio show was to introduce a recently discovered kinescope of game 5 of the 1956 world series between the yankees and the brooklyn dodgers which showed the game in it's entirety. if you don't know already, game 5 was the perfect game pitched by journeyman larsen which broke a 2-2 series tie and steam rolled the yankees to their sixth title in the last eight years. think yankee fans are obnoxious now?

i settled in and watched every pitch and realized how much baseball has changed over the years. the uniforms were baggy and made of wool. there was no fist pumping by the players or any other forms of hot-dogging so prevalent today. if you got knocked down by a fastball, it was just business. you got up, dusted yourself off and got back in the batter's box.i did a little research and found the minimum salary in 1956 was $4,000 a year (yes, four thousand-you read it right). there was no free agency and when you signed with a team, it was for life unless THEY wanted you gone. almost all of the players worked full-time jobs in the off season just to make ends meet and 'training' was limited to the month of march in florida.

while watching the game.....the men wore suits & ties to the games and women wore dresses. foul balls were required to be thrown back as they were used for batting practice the next day. cigarette and cigar smoking was abundant in the stands. hot dogs were a dime and a beer was a quarter, plus it was given to you in a cold glass bottle. imagine that today.

the game itself was a classic. on top of the nail biting performance 2-0 win by larsen, it featured a total of 12 players who would be elected to the hall of fame plus both managers and one coach from each side. the pedigree for the game gets even better as both owners are in the hall of fame as well as both television announcers who shared time broadcasting the game, with yankee voice mel allen getting the first 4 1/2 innings and vin scully getting the remainder for the dodgers. radio announcer bob wolff is also enshrined in the broadcast wing of the hall.

larsen? well, he pitched 14 years in the big leagues and he only led the league once in any category....and that was 21 LOSSES in a single season. for his career, he pitched for eight teams and lost ten more games than he won and the only way he gets into the hall is to buy a ticket. but for one sun drenched afternoon in October of 1956, he was the best in the business.