Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of New York Yankees starter Don Larsen’s perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.

It was a highly unexpected pitching performance, given that Larsen allowed four runs and got only five outs in Game 2 of the Series.

But there were hints of potential greatness in September, a month in which Larsen allowed two runs and 15 hits in 34 2/3 innings, after changing his pitching motion to a no-windup delivery.

What should we remember of that game?

A loaded Dodgers lineup

The Dodgers had four eventual Hall of Famers in their lineup, the most any pitcher has faced in a perfect game outing. They were shortstop Pee Wee Reese, center fielder Duke Snider, third baseman Jackie Robinson and catcher Roy Campanella. The first baseman was Gil Hodges, who is not in the Hall of Fame, but who slugged 370 home runs in his career, including 32 in 1956.

Robinson was deprived of a hit in the second inning when his ground ball caromed off third baseman Andy Carey right to shortstop Gil McDougald, who threw out Robinson.

Hodges also came close to a hit in the fifth inning, but Mickey Mantle preserved the perfect-game bid with a running catch.

Walk-free

Larsen averaged 4.2 walks per nine innings for his career and 4.8 walks per nine in 1956.

In every game that Larsen pitched that season in which he went more than two innings, he issued at least one walk. He had two starts that September where he issued eight (in a shutout) and seven, yet allowed only one run.

In Larsen’s nine other Word Series appearances, he walked 19 batters in 27 innings.

Yogi Berra helps him along

Yogi Berra was 0-for-3 in Game 5, but was behind the plate for all 97 of Don Larsen's pitches. Berra had a great series, with 10 RBIs, including two home runs in the Yankees' series-clinching win in Game 7.

The final out

The final out of Larsen’s perfect game was pinch hitter Dale Mitchell, who hit .312 in his 11-year career. Mitchell twice ranked as the toughest hitter in the American League to strike out and fanned 119 times in 3,984 at-bats, but Larsen struck him out on a 2-2 check swing (called by soon-to-retire umpire Babe Pinelli) to end the game.

The supporting cast

The Yankees scored two runs, one coming on Mantle’s home run. Mantle is the all-time World Series home run leader with 18. The other came on an RBI hit by Hank Bauer. Bauer’s claim to fame is a 17-game World Series hitting streak, the longest of all time.

They said it

Newspaper accounts of the game note that Larsen’s mother did not watch the game because of family superstition.

“I make it a rule never to watch Don when he pitches,” she told a wire-service reporter. “Seems like every time I watch him, he loses. So I just don’t do it. I didn’t today and see what happened.”