With Furillo retired, I started to think about Roy Campanella. I don’t know if he was as nervous as I was when he came to the plate, but I’m sure he felt a lot of pressure as well.

The Dodgers were losing the pivotal Game Five of the World Championship, 2-0. If that wasn’t bad enough, I hadn’t given up a hit. Fifty-two World Series had been played before this one, and nobody had ever pitched a no-hitter.

And don’t kid yourself, baseball teams hate to have a no-hitter pitched against them. It’s bad enough to lose, but no team wants to think that a pitcher is that much better than they are on a given day.

Most times, when the no-hitter is still possible and the game gets into the late innings, the other team will try anything to scratch out a hit. Interestingly enough, nobody in the Dodger line-up tried to bunt on me. The Dodgers weren’t known for their speed, but I was surprised they didn’t try at least one bunt.

Of course, I knew that Roy Campanella wasn’t going to do anything but try to get a solid base hit. I remember that Yogi and he exchanged words, and both had a good chuckle about something. There they were poking fun, and I was dying out there.

Our strategy with the great Dodger hitter was to pitch him inside, even though I had retired Campanella on two outside pitches in both the third and sixth innings.

This time around, I was determined to throw the pitches inside and keep the ball away from Campanella’s power zone. My first pitch was a good fast ball in close. The crack of the bat scared me, but Campanella came around too soon and fouled it into the left-field stands for strike one.

Yogi called for a slider on the next pitch. Since this was the ninth inning and I was approaching 100 pitches, I wasn’t sure how much “stuff” I had left. But Yogi was the boss, and so I set up to throw the slider. It was more of a fast ball and just a wee bit outside. I knew it would be ball one.

But while Roy Campanella was a very disciplined hitter, he decided that the pitch was hittable and swung the bat. Campanella said later he was trying to foul the pitch off, but instead the future Hall of Famer grounded the ball harmlessly toward an anxious Billy Martin who was positioned perfectly at second base.

There was never a doubt that Martin would handle the medium-speed grounder. Almost effortlessly, he scooped the ball into his glove, and threw easily to Joe Collins at first for consecutive out number 26 on pitch number 91.

Twenty-six up and 26 down. No runs, no hits, no errors, no walks, no passed balls, no wild pitches, no hit batters—nothing to spoil my day in the sun.

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