1956 World Series

Once again, the eyes of the baseball world were on the bright lights of New York City (for the fourth time in five years) as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees met on familiar ground for the coveted World Series championship. The "Bronx Bombers" had bested "the Bums" in three out of the four meetings, but it was the Dodgers who had the last laugh by winning their first title off a dominant Game 7 in '55. Things seemed to pick up right where they had left off for Games 1 and 2 as eleven different members of the Yankees pitching staff were crushed by Brooklyn's bats. The result was a devastating 6-3 opener and an equally crippling 13-8 loss that put the defending champions up two games to none. However as sports often shows us, adversity and pride can turn a sinking ship around. Amazingly the Yankees aces rebounded for five consecutive complete-game performances from five pitchers who combined to allow the Dodgers six runs and twenty-one hits in 45 2/3 innings. In Game 3, a three-run homer by late-August acquisition Enos Slaughter and eight-hit pitching by "The Chairman" Whitey Ford had rallied the Yankees to their first victory, while Tom Sturdivant's six-hitter and homers by both Hank Bauer and Mickey Mantle highlighted the American Leaguers' triumph in Game 4.

Despite their back-to-back comebacks, Game 5 is the most notable Yankees performance of the '56 Series (and perhaps one of the most notable in all of baseball). The 64,000+ fans in attendance that day could never have predicted that they were about to witness the birth of a record that would stand into the next millennium or that their ticket stubs would mature into a $2,000.00 piece of sports memorabilia. The Dodgers couldn't have predicted the beating they were about to take either. During the first inning, the Yankees' twenty-seven-year-old right-hander Don Larsen went to his first and only "ball three" count on Pee Wee Reese. From then on, the modest pitcher and his pinstriped teammates worke...

The 1956 World Series of Major League Baseball was played between the New York Yankees (representing the American League) and the defending champion Brooklyn Dodgers (representing the National League) during the month of October 1956. The Series was a rematch of the 1955 World Series. It was the last all-New York Series until 2000, due to the Dodgers and Giants relocating after the 1957 season, to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively.
The Yankees won the Series in seven games, 4–3, capturing their seventeenth championship. Brooklyn won Games 1 and 2, but New York pitchers threw five consecutive complete games (Games 3–7) to cap off the comeback. The highlight was Don Larsen's perfect game in Game 5, the only no-hitter in the history of major league post-season play. Larsen was named the Series MVP for his achievement.
This was the last World Series to date not to have scheduled off days (although Game 2 was postponed a day due to rain).