New York Yankee pitcher Don Larsen stood on the mound at Yankee Stadium, legs wobbling, sweating, short of breath and all alone in a stadium packed to the rafters. Some 791 miles west of the Bronx, a Chicago taxi cab driver listening on his radio pulled his vehicle into a no-parking zone at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, exited and peered through a television showroom window at Larsen on one of the 26 Zenith screens showing the game. Larsen was three outs away from pitching the first no-hitter in World Series history.

“I thought I was going to faint,” Larsen told the Chicago Daily Tribune, moments after the game. “In a prayer I mumbled to myself, I said, ‘Please get me through this.’ I was so nervous I couldn’t think straight.”

As Dodger right fielder Carl Furillo twisted his right spike into the batters box to lead off the bottom of the ninth, the sellout crowd in attendance anxiously awaited Larsen’s first pitch, hoping, praying, for three more outs. Yankee catcher Yogi Berra met Larsen between home plate and the mound. “Go out there and let’s get the first batter.”

Meanwhile, a police offer rolled up to the bay of windows along Michigan Avenue, leaned across the front of the patrol cars front seat, rolled down his passenger door window and ordered the cab drive to move his car. The cabbie turned and explained Larsen’s pending perfecto. The officer relaxed the law for the moment, drove around the corner, parked and witnessed the ninth inning play out while sitting behind the wheel of the car.

For Larsen, the years, days, hours and minutes leading up to this moment, hadn’t prepared him for such a dramatic experience. Born in the modest, middle America town of Michigan City, Indiana on August 7, 1929, Larsen quietly worked his way through the minors, before making his major league debut in 1953 with the St. Louis Browns.

After being sent to the Baltimore Orioles before the 1954 season, Larsen was again dealt to the Yankees as part of a 13-player trade the same season. Larsen was so unimpressive the Yankees immediately sent him back to the farm, where he compiled a 9-1 record before being promoted.

Larsen’s lack of experience in such situations was only intensified, thanks to his superstitious, pinstriped teammates. “I tried to engage in conversation with some of our players on the bench during the game, but they all avoided me like the plague,” said Larsen in a 2003 interview with Baseball Digest. “That doesn’t happen only in the World Series, it’s a baseball superstition for players to talk to a pitcher working on a no-hitter … I was the lonliest guy on the bench. Nobody would talk to me.”

The same behavior was taking place in the Yankees bullpen, according to Yankee pitcher Mickey McDermott. “(Bob) Turley and I and some of the other guys were in the bullpen and Turley turned to us and said: ‘Wouldn’t it be something if Don gets a home run to go with the no-hitter?’” Turley said in the Yankees clubhouse after the game. “This was when Larsen came up in the eighth inning, mind you.”

The comment roused the Yankee pen. “We almost chased Turley out of the bullpen,” said McDermott.

The 6-foot, 190-pound Furillo led off the ninth, hitting a routine fly ball to right field. Hank Bauer made the catch. Nearly 100 million across the country were tuned in, including a steady stream of 600 staff employees viewing the game on eight screens from the main studio at WGN in Chicago as Larsen recorded the first out of the inning.

Larsen continued praying as Roy Campanella came to bat. The Dodger catcher promptly grounded to second base. Billy Martin gobbled up his fourth chance of the day, threw to Ed Collins at first base. Two outs.

From the Bronx bleachers to a street corner in Chicago and beyond, everyone seemingly held a collective breathe as Dale Mitchell, the Dodgers 27th hitter of the day, made his way to the plate to pinch-hit for pitcher Sal Maglie. No one was more surprised than Larsen at what was unfolding on this cool Fall Monday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The night before Larsen didn’t expect to pitch, let alone start the game.

Larsen spent his Sunday evening relaxing. “I drank a couple of beers and went to bed … about midnight,” he told the Associated Press.

“Many times Casey (Stengel) and pitching coach Jim Turner announced the starting pitcher for the next day’s game the day or night before,” said Larsen. “If the starter was undetermined, then Frank Crosetti, our third base coach, performed a Yankee ritual of placing the warm-up ball for that day’s game in the starting pitcher’s spikes prior to game time.”

Larsen arrived at the Yankees clubhouse for Game 5 to find a crisp, new white baseball sitting in his spikes. The news didn’t bother Larsen. As amatter of fact, he was anxious to make up for his poor start in Game 2, when he was yanked in the second inning after allowing fours runs and four walks.

In his own words, written for Baseball Digest, Larsen explained it was a strong start that helped.

“I opened the game by striking out the first two batters — Junior Gilliam and Pee Wee Reese on called third strikes,” Larsen wrote. “Then Duke Snider hit a soft fly to right fielder Bauer. Retiring the Dodgers in order helped build my confidence and I was more relaxed on the mound.

“I retired the first 11 batters before Snider came up for his second at-bat and hit a ball deep to right field that would have been a home run, but it went foul. I then caught him looking at a slider for my fifth strikeout.”

By the seventh inning, after retiring 21 consecutive Dodger batters, it clicked. Larsen realized what was happening. As the Yankees batted in the home seventh, Larsen was smoking a cigarette in the dugout when he turned to Mickey Mantle and said, “Look at the scoreboard, Mick. Wouldn’t it be something? Two more innings to go.”

Now, he was one out away. Larsen quickly got ahead of Mitchell, one ball and two strikes. He had thrown 96 pitches, 70 for strikes. But the pitch count was irrelevant now. Larsen was pitching on adrenaline.

Larsen readied himself on the mound. Berra called for a fastball as home plate umpire Babe Pinelli, calling his final game behind the plate, leaned in over the catchers shoulder. As Larsen set into motion, he remembers saying to himself, “Well, here goes nothing.”

Mitchell stood frozen as the plate as Larsen’s fastball skimmed the outside corner. Berra jumped into Larsen’s arms after the called strike three. Don Larsen, an 11-game winner in 1956 who finished his career with an 81-91 record, had pitched a perfect game and off the 64,519 in the stadium that day, Larsen was first in line of unbelievers.

“It can’t be true,” he told United Press in an exclusive interview later that same day. “Any minute now I expect the alarm clock to ring and someone to say, “Okay Larsen, it’s time to get up … My legs are still rubbery all over and I’m so nervous and excited I don’t even know what day it is.”

Forbes.com voted Larsen’s perfect game as one of the Top 20 greatest individual athletic achievements over the past 150 years (18th). It was the crowing moment for an otherwise mediocre ball player.

“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.’ But Don Larsen?” Yankees public-address announcer Bob Sheppard said on ESPN Classic.

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NOTE: Larsen was named the World Series MVP by Sport magazine, claiming a new Corvette for the honor. After the Yankees won the Series, Larsen earned about $35,000 in endorsements and appearances, including $6,000 for being on Bob Hope’s TV show. He spent $1,000 to have plaques made up commemorating the game, awarding them to teammates, umpires, his parents and some close friends. He had his hat, glove and ball from that game silvered and years auctioned them off to pay for his grandson’s college tuition.