1956 World Series

Gil Hodges

Three batters into the game, the Yankees led 2–0 on a Mickey Mantle home run. Brooklyn struck back with a Jackie Robinson homer in the second inning and a three-run Gil Hodges shot in the third, then won behind Sal Maglie's complete game.

Duke Snider

Neither starting pitcher survived the second inning, Don Newcombe giving up a Yogi Berra grand slam, and Don Larsen giving up four unearned runs. Little-known pitcher Don Bessent worked the final seven innings for the win.

Game 2 set a number of peculiar records in World Series history, which are either matched or comparable with similar World Series records and performances, in limited instances:

• Game 2 is the first of only two World Series games in history in which a grand slam-hitting team failed to win the game. While the Yankees would prevail in the 1956 series, the 1988 Oakland Athletics would produce a grand slam in Game 1, lose that game, and furthermore lose that series.

• The number of Yankee runs put up in the game, eight, is the largest number of runs accumulated in a World Series game, by a team which lost the game, yet went on to win the series. This record is shared in common only with Game 3 of 1947, with the Yankees repeating this unusual record here in another Yankee/Dodgers series.

• The combined run count of both teams in the game, 21, is the largest such combined run count between two teams in any one World Series game, such that the losing team won the series. The complementary record, the largest combined game run count with the game winning team being the series winning team, and the game losing team being the series losing team (and highest combined team run count ever in a World Series game) was set in Game 4 in 1993.

Enos Slaughter

Whitey Ford pitched a complete game, scattering eight hits, and got the support he needed from an Enos Slaughter three-run homer in the sixth that gave the Yankees a 4–2 lead; they never trailed in the game afterwards.

Hank Bauer

Hank Bauer's two-run homer in the seventh off Don Drysdale, pitching in relief, put the game away for the Yankees, who got a complete-game six-hitter from Tom Sturdivant. Mantle hit a home run off Ed Roebuck in the previous inning.

Don Larsen's perfect game

In Game 5, Larsen, working in an unusual "no-windup" style, pitched the only postseason perfect game, and the only postseason no-hitter until 2010. Of several close moments, the best remembered is Gil Hodges' fifth-inning line drive toward Yankee Stadium's famed "Death Valley" in left-center, snared by center fielder Mickey Mantle with a spectacular running catch.

A reporter asked Yankees manager Casey Stengel if this was the best game Larsen had ever pitched. Stengel diplomatically answered, "So far!" For Larsen, this was an especially satisfying performance, as he had acquired perhaps a better reputation as a night owl than as a pitcher. Stengel once said of Larsen, "The only thing he fears is sleep!" Larsen's perfect game was also the last game that umpire Babe Pinelli called behind the plate.[9]

Sports cartoonist Willard Mullin drew an illustration of a happy Larsen painting a canvas titled The Perfect Game, observed by Mullin's classic "Brooklyn Bum." Referencing the old saw "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like", the disgusted-looking Bum came up with a variation: "I don't care if it is art—I don't like it!"

Brooklyn starter Sal Maglie appeared on the game show What's My Line? the night before the game, with former Yankee Phil Rizzuto as one of the panel members.[10][11]

Jackie Robinson

In a 10-inning scoreless pitching duel with both starters going all the way, Jackie Robinson's walk-off single to left in the bottom of the 10th won the game for Clem Labine and kept the Dodgers' championship hopes alive. Tough-luck loser Bob Turley gave up a 10th-inning walk to Jim Gilliam, a sacrifice bunt by Pee Wee Reese and intentional pass to Duke Snider before the decisive hit. Game 6 is one of only three games in World Series history to be scoreless through nine innings, the others being Game 2 in 1913 and Game 7 in 1991.

Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra's two homers led New York to an unexpectedly easy 9–0 title-clinching victory. Yankee pitcher Johnny Kucks struck out Jackie Robinson to end the Series. It would be Robinson's final at-bat, as he retired at the season's end.

After belting the Yankee pitching staff for 19 runs and 21 hits in the first two games, the Dodger bats went silent in the next five games, scoring only six runs on 21 hits, batting only .142 (21–for–148). New York outscored Brooklyn 22–6 in Games 3–7, the Yankees winning their 17th World Series.