Larry Sherry

Hero for a Season 

 

One of the Jewish sages, Judah HaNasi, is quoted in the Talmud as saying, "Some win eternity after years of toil, others in a moment."

So it was with Larry Sherry, a Jewish baseball player who had his moment of eternity in the exciting baseball year of 1959.

Few pitchers have performed as brilliantly as Sherry in any World Series as Larry did in 1959. He continued to play ball after that year, of course, but it was all anticlimactic. It was 1959 that placed Larry Sherry into the record books and made him one of the authentic stars of World Series history.

It was all started when Larry, in a relief assignment, beat the Chicago Cubs in an extra-inning game to keep alive the hopes of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were tied in the standings with the Milwaukee Braves. It was the tenth inning when Sherry was called to the mound in a 4-4 game. Two men were on base and the next batter was Ernie Banks, who led the National League in home runs and runs batted in. He already had hit forty-five homers, the most recent in this very game. Now Sherry was facing him. Larry threw a slider on the outside corner to Banks. Ernie then fouled off the second pitch. The third delivery was a low slider, but not too low. It was a strikeout on three