How many pitches does a perfect game actually take? I went and counted somebody else's counting: 97. That's it. 27 up, 27 down, 97 pitches, and Larsen wasn't even in the rotation half that season. 1956, Game 5, no walks, no errors behind him, nothing.
Okay, so. Spare a thought for Sal Maglie, 39 years old, who threw a five-hitter that same afternoon and lost 2-0 because Mantle got one out in the fourth. Five hits! He'd no-hit the Phillies about two weeks before. Pitched the game of a good long career and ended up as the footnote on the other guy's day. The Evening Star front page that evening still had it live in the left column — twelve Dodgers retired in order, Maglie gives one hit — like the paper went to press holding its breath.
Whole thing was over in two hours and six minutes, Toby. And Larsen threw it with no windup at all — he'd ditched it a few weeks earlier (the idea was the batters got less time to read him), so 97 pitches and not one of them with a proper wind-up.
Spare a thought as well for whoever was sat at the organ that afternoon, Toby — no rally to vamp for, no runners to hurry along, just 97 pitches of nothing happening and a crowd getting quieter every half-inning. Hardest working hands in the building and not one of them on a baseball.