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Greetings and Welcome to The 405 Coffee Break with O.K. Solberg
New episodes tend to air over the local KMMR radio station @ 5 minutes past 4PM each M-F. And have been doing so, nearly every week since Sept 2018.
I'm D.J. Rasmussen, O.K.s friend since junior high, possibly your neighbor & this websites maintainer, whom strives to get each episode's show notes written, the transcript proofed and the audio posted to the internet within a few hours of that days KMMR air time. NOTE: recently been publishing most new releases by 4:30PM.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy the time we can spend together.
Wanna again welcome you to The 405 Coffee Break. Get your cup of coffee, glass iced tea, bottle of water. Let's see what's happening out there.
OK Solberg:Spring wheat $5.64 a bushel. 550lb steer calf not moving much now, So I'll give you a report. Canner cows in Billings. Last week, 19 head of canner cows averaging 1,380lbs went for a $1.80 per pound, equates to $2,484 for a Canner cow. Are you kidding me? A butcher hog in Iowa will bring you 69ยข a pound and a 100lb pound fat lamb in Billings $3.08 a pound. But guys, there's more, much more.
OK Solberg:Drumroll, please. Baseball opening day. Ring the bells and sound the horn. Actually, there was one game last night, but today, right now, is the full baseball opening day.
OK Solberg:So I have a treat for you today right after our bible verse. Listen now. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God, not from us. 2nd Corinthians 4:7
OK Solberg:Today, a story about Don Larson, a mediocre baseball player. So that's why I picked the verse with jars of clay from 2nd Corinthians 4:7 Jars of clay are mediocre, but Don had a treasure stored within.
OK Solberg:Gather around kitties and let me tell you his story. If you were a baseball man, a betting man, or just a man who watched the game long enough, you would never ever have picked Don Larson, not in a million October's. He wasn't the best pitcher in baseball. Well, he wasn't even close.
OK Solberg:In fact, if you page through the record books, you'd find something rather curious. Across 14 seasons in the major leagues, Larson finished with a losing record. Yes. I said losing record. 81 wins and 91 losses.
OK Solberg:He never won more than 11 games in a single season. And guys, in one miserable year with the Baltimore Orioles, he went 3 wins and 21 losses. Three wins, 21 losses, hardly the resume of a legend, but baseball, like life, occasionally gives a man one afternoon that he races a thousand ordinary days. 10/08/1956, game 5 of the 1956 World Series, the mighty New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. Yes.
OK Solberg:A repeat of last year. The year before, Johnny Padres on the mound, 1st win for the Brooklyn Dodgers ever. I'm talking the next year. Larson pitches for the Yankees. 64,000 people packed the stand.
OK Solberg:And on the mound, a pitcher, Don Larson, just two days earlier had been knocked out of the world series in game 2. He couldn't even get through the 2nd inning. He was walking batter after batter, giving up hits. Not exactly the stuff of October heroes, yet the Yankees put Larson back on the mound. That afternoon but that afternoon, something happened.
OK Solberg:27 Dodgers stepped to the plate. 27 Dodgers went back to the bench. Not one reached base. No hits, no walks, no errors, just perfection. And when the final strike crossed the plate, catcher Yogi Berra ran from behind home plate and leaped into Larson's arms, a photograph that will live forever in baseball history.
OK Solberg:It remains to this day. It remains to this day even in 2026 to be the only perfect game ever pitched in a world series. But here's the part they don't show on television. Because while Don Larson was throwing the most flawless game baseball has ever seen, well, his personal life was anything but perfect. That very morning in a courtroom in New York, his estranged wife Vivian was asking a judge to seize Larson's World Series paycheck.
OK Solberg:What? What was the reason? Back child support payments. $420. The court order was reportedly sitting in his locker at the ballpark.
OK Solberg:A man about to throw the greatest game of his life with a legal notice waiting for him when he got dressed. After the perfect game, well, the celebration rolled deep into the night at the famous Copa Cabana. The tab reportedly reached $400 more than Larson had in his pocket. Sure, someone else picked up the tab. And that perhaps is the strangest thing about Don Larson.
OK Solberg:He was not a dominant pitcher. He was not a disciplined person. Yet, on one October afternoon with the world watching, the imperfect man pitched the perfect game. Sometimes the legends aren't the ones who are great every day. Sometimes they're the ones who were great once, and that's the thing about baseball. Batter up.
OK Solberg:So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.