Pondering the perfect game of 1956

Pundit George Will is a bestselling author on baseball and one of the game’s most prominent fans. So we paid attention when he commented on ABC’s This Week about Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga’s June 2, 2010, near-perfect game.

Sometimes refs get it wrong, and that’s okay, Will said.

Will cited the final pitch of New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen’s legendary 1956 perfect game during the World Series — the only one ever thrown in more than a century of World Series games.

“In the most important perfect game ever pitched — 1956, Don Larsen in the World Series — the 27th out was made by Dale Mitchell,” Will said. “A wonderful batter’s eye he had. He struck out 119 times in 4,000 Major League at-bats. The umpire (Pinelli) — it was his last game, by the way — called strike three on Dale Mitchell. It was a foot and half probably high and outside. He was so eager to get the game over.”

We couldn’t resist looking into Will’s assertion, and found a diversity of opinion about that final pitch. We rated Will’s statement Half True; read all the details in our complete report.