Sport: Decline & Fall

The chapfallen Dodgers shuffled off to Japan. "We'll win every game." said Captain Pee Wee Reese, just as if it mattered. Back in Manhattan, Charles Dillon Stengel creased his 66-year-old wrinkles in a broad grin. Retire? Well, he might have said something about it. But the fact was that he had just signed a -new contract to manage the Yankees for another two years at a fat $80,000 a year. What were 66 years to a man who had just won his sixth World Series and seventh pennant in eight years as the Yankees' manager?

Youth and the yawning expanses of Yankee Stadium had been the undoing of the aging Dodgers. Hits that would have sailed into the Ebbets Field stands for homers settled in Yankee gloves for long outs. Pitchers that the Dodgers had murdered in Brooklyn beat them handily in The Bronx. Brooklyn fans, talking of winning four straight after the Dodgers' first two thumping victories, suddenly recognized that something had gone out of Brooklyn's aging pros.

Perfect Game. There was brief hope as the week began. Crafty Sal Maglie was rested and ready. The Yanks were gambling on Don Larsen. a lighthearted playboy noted most for spectacular achievements such as wrapping his car around a Florida telephone pole during spring training. In the second game, he had lasted less than two innings.

Maglie was sure and sharp. He gave up only five hits and two runs. But after the first few innings, Sal Maglie was just the second-best pitcher in the game. Towering (6 ft. 4 in., 220 Ibs.) Yankee Larsen was scarcely wasting a pitch. Only once, against Pee Wee Reese in the first inning, did he go to a full count on a batter. His sharp curves found the plate as if they had eyes. He needed no more than 97 pitches (71 of which were in the strike zone) to dispose of the absolute minimum of 27 Dodger hitters, and not a single Dodger got to first base. While the crowd watched tensely, the Dodgers put up their 27th batter. Pinch Hitter Dale Mitchell. He took a ball, then a called strike, missed a curve for strike two. He fouled another off and settled grimly in the batter's box. Larsen pitched. Mitchell checked his swing, watched the third strike whiz by. The crowd let out its breath and roared. Yogi Berra leaped into Larsen's arms. Don Larsen had pitched the first perfect major-league no* hitter in 34 years, and the first no-hitter-of any kind in World Series history.

Thin Victory. Dodger hearts felt the chill forebodings of impending defeat. If Maglie could not win, who could?

For the sixth game, back at Ebbets Field, Manager Walter Alston started his bullpen specialist, Clem Labine. Inning after scoreless inning, he matched the Yanks' bulky "Bullet Bob" Turley, an erratic speed merchant who seldom wins the way he ought to. Then, in the tenth, hefty Jackie Robinson briefly remembered the skill that once made him one of the roughest hitters in the league. He laced a rising liner over the head of aging Enos Slaughter in left field and drove in the only run of the game. It was a thin victory, but the Dodgers were still alive.