October 3, 1951, 70 years ago: Along with the Bucky Dent Game of 1978, this may be the most written-about single game in the history of baseball. And if you have to ask why, then you don't know the history of baseball.
The New York Gothams began play in the National League in 1883. In 1886, after a particularly rousing victory, their manager, Jim Mutrie, called them "my big boys, my giants," and they were the New York Giants from then on. In 1925, a football team would be named after them, and they still use that name.
Their first home had been a polo field in what became known as the East Harlem section of Manhattan. In 1890, they moved to 155th Street and 8th Avenue, where Harlem meets Washington Heights, with a cliff called Coogan's Bluff overlooking it. The stadiums that would be built there, first the one, then another on the same site after a 1911 fire, would carry the name "the Polo Grounds" from their previous home, even though polo was one of the few outdoor sports capable of being played outdoors that the place never hosted.
Up until 1898, New York and Brooklyn were separate cities. In 1883, a team was founded in the American Association. It would eventually become known as the Trolley Dodgers, due to Brooklyn being covered with trolley lines and locals having to dodge them. Eventually, this was shortened to "Dodgers."
In 1913, their owner, Charles Ebbets, built a ballpark on a spot near Prospect Park, where the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Flatbush come together. Someone suggested he name it for himself, and Ebbets Field was born.
The separate cities of New York and Brooklyn, and after 1898 the Boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, developed a rivalry above and beyond baseball. But the rivalry between the Giants and the Dodgers was nasty, even more so than the one that eventually developed between the 3rd team established in New York, the American League's Yankees, and the Boston Red Sox.
After all, not only were the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field just 13 miles apart, but, with the 154-game schedule of the time, they played each other 22 times a year. Like the old saying goes, "Familiarity breeds contempt." As Keith Jackson would later say of certain college football rivalries, "These two teams just don't like each other." And the fans, who had to live together in the City, and in the nearby suburbs, didn't like each other, either.
The Giants always had money, and the Dodgers didn't. The Giants won the Pennant in 1904, 1905, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1933, 1936 and 1937; and the World Series in 1905, 1921, 1922 and 1933. The Dodgers didn't win nearly as much: The Pennant in 1916 and 1920.
Because of a messy divorce, Charles Ebbets died broke in 1925. At his rainy funeral, another part-owner caught a cold and, in those pre-antibiotic days, developed pneumonia and died. As if the team's finances weren't precarious enough, the Great Depression came. Eventually, one-quarter ownership of the team came into possession of a bank, the Brooklyn Trust.
In 1934, the Giants were leading the NL, and, in a radio interview, someone asked Bill Terry, the Giants' manager and 1st baseman, about the upcoming series with Brooklyn. He mockingly said, "Brooklyn? Is Brooklyn still in the league?" Down the stretch, the Dodgers beat the Giants enough times that a surge by the St. Louis Cardinals cost the Giants another Pennant. The Dodgers, already known in the Brooklyn dialect as "Dem Bums," couldn't win, but they could spoil things for the "Jints."
In 1938, the bank hired Larry MacPhail away from the Cincinnati Reds, and installed him as team president. He renovated Ebbets Field, brought broadcaster Red Barber with him from Cincinnati, and rebuilt the team. By 1941, they were Pennant winners again. But, as the Giants did in 1923, '36 and '37 (after beating them in '21 and '22), the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees. The words "WAIT 'TIL NEXT YEAR" appeared in a headline of the Borough's newspaper, The Brooklyn Eagle.
Except "Next Year" never seemed to come. The Dodgers had replaced the Giants as New York's 2nd team, but the Yankees had already replaced the Giants as New York's 1st team. The Dodgers fell 2 games short of the Pennant in 1942. Then came World War II. In the 1st season back, 1946, the Dodgers finished in a tie with the Cardinals, but lost a Playoff.
In 1947, the Dodgers desegregated baseball with Jackie Robinson, and won the Pennant -- but lost the Series to the Yankees. After missing out in 1948, they won again in 1949, but lost the Series to the Yankees. In 1950, they lost the Pennant on the final day of the season, to the Philadelphia Phillies. So, going into the 1951 season, they'd already had 3 recent World Series losses, were 0-5 in the Series overall, and had 3 nasty near-misses for the Pennant.
But they were loaded: 1st baseman Gil Hodges was a slugger and a fine fielder; 2nd baseman Robinson excelled in all aspects of the game, especially baserunning; shortstop Harold "Pee Wee" Reese and 3rd baseman Billy Cox were slick fielders; center fielder Edwin "Duke" Snider might have been the best all-around player in the NL; right fielder Carl Furillo was a terrific hitter with a great arm; catcher Roy Campanella was a slugger who was the best game-caller in the NL; and the starting rotation was strong with Don Newcombe, Elwin "Preacher" Roe, Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca. Oddly, they could never settle on a regular left fielder.
The Giants? The infield was Whitey Lockman, Eddie Stanky, Alvin Dark and Hank Thompson; the outfield was Monte Irvin, Bobby Thomson and Don Mueller; the catcher was Wes Westrum; and the rotation was Sal Maglie, Larry Jansen, Jim Hearn and Dave Koslo. Irvin and Maglie were genuine stars, and pretty much every regular was good. But, aside from Irvin in left field, I don't think most Dodger fans would have swapped players with the Giants at any position.
The players on each team didn't like each other. To make matters weirder, the Giants manager was the man who had managed the Dodgers to the Pennant in 1941, Leo Durocher, a nasty man in so many ways, including his arguments with umpires that got him nicknamed "Leo the Lip."
He had been suspended for the entire 1947 season by Commissioner Albert "Happy" Chandler, for what he called "conduct detrimental to the game." It was Burt Shotton who managed the Dodgers to that Pennant. Durocher was reinstated for 1948, but Branch Rickey, who had succeeded MacPhail as team president, was tired of him.
When Giants owner Horace Stoneham fired Mel Ott, one of their most popular players ever but a poor manager, he called Rickey, and asked if he could hire Durocher. One man's trash being another man's treasure, Rickey told Durocher about the idea, and Durocher, knowing that Rickey was as cheapskate and Stoneham would pay him more, went for it. Dodger fans considered him a traitor, and hated him above all other Giant personnel, not knowing that it wasn't his idea.
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Leo Durocher for Leaving the Dodgers for the Giants
5. The Publicity. It helped both teams. Certainly, the Dodgers no longer had to worry about Leo generating bad publicity for them.
4. Team Types. Durocher had been a member of the 1934 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, "the Gashouse Gang." Aside from Joe Medwick, they weren't a power-hitting team. They were scrappy, scratch-out-whatever-runs-you-can team. The Dodgers were that kind of team, but were becoming a power team. The Giants were going the other way.
Leo was a good fit for the 1941-47 Dodgers, not the Giants of the same period. But from 1948 to 1955, the years he managed the Giants, he was a better fit for them than he would have been for the Dodgers, even if he had behaved himself.
3. Horace Stoneham. It was his idea, not Durocher's.
2. Branch Rickey. He was happy to go along with it.
1. The Dodgers Were Better Off.
Shotton returned, and managed the Dodgers through the 1950 season, winning the 1949 Pennant. He was replaced by Charlie Dressen for 1951.
The Dodgers started the season just 11-10, but then won 29 of their next 39, and led the NL by 7 games on June 23. Early on, the Giants had an 11-game losing streak, for a 2-12 start. Then they won 9 out of 11, but it still took them until May 28, Memorial Day, to get back to .500, at 20-20. An 8-1 run got them to 35-27 on June 19, 5 games behind the Giants.
Part of the reason the Giants got going is that, on May 25, they called up a black kid from an industrial town outside Birmingham, Alabama, who was tearing up Class AAA ball: A center fielder named Willie Mays. With Hank Thompson not hitting, Bobby Thomson was moved to 3rd base, and Mays turned out to be the NL Rookie of the Year.
But the Dodgers went 10-2 from June 30 to July 13, to lead the NL by 9 games. Then they went 1-6 after the All-Star Break, but still led by 7 1/2. On July 20, they started a 10-game winning streak, and were 9 1/2 up when it ended on July 31. On August 8, they swept a doubleheader from the Giants. The next day, they made it a 3-game sweep.
Someone on the Dodgers declared, "The Giants is dead." The quote hit the newspapers. It sure seemed like it: On August 11, the Giants were 13 1/2 games behind the Dodgers, and the rest of the NL was behind the Giants. It looked like another Yankees vs. Dodgers "Subway Series."
A funny thing happened on the way to the Subway Series. The Giants started cheating. They had a sign-stealing system at the Polo Grounds, and it allowed them to go 50-12 down the stretch, including 20-3 at home.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers coasted: From September 9 to 28, they went just 7-11, and fell into a tie for 1st place, blowing their huge lead. On the scheduled last day of the regular season, they needed to beat the Phillies in Philadelphia just to force a best-2-out-of-3 Playoff for the Pennant against the Giants, and while it took them 14 innings, they did it.
Game 1 of the Playoff was set for October 1, at Ebbets Field. Hearn outpitched Branca, who gave up a home run to Thomson in the 4th inning, a foreshadowing. Irvin also homered, and the Giants won, 3-1.
Game 2 was played on October 2, at the Polo Grounds. The Dodgers bounced back in a big way, with home runs from Robinson, Hodges, Andy Pafko (finally, they found a left fielder) and Rube Walker, who was catching in place of Campanella, who was injured, ending a season in which he would be named the NL's Most Valuable Player. (Home runs on the season: Hodges 40, Pafko 30, Robinson 19, Walker... 4.) Clem Labine pitched a 6-hit shutout, and the Dodgers beat the Giants 10-0.
Dodgers manager Charley Dressen stuck with Labine the whole way, making it next to impossible for him to pitch in the deciding game the next day, also at the Polo Grounds.
*
This is what the world was like on October 3, 1951, 70 years ago today:
There were 16 teams in the major leagues, 8 in each League. There was a National League team in Boston, and American League teams in Philadelphia, Washington and St. Louis. There were no teams south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers, and, with the just-barely exceptions of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns, no teams west of the Mississippi. The Pacific Coast League considered itself just as good as the AL and the NL, and its fans called the majors "the eastern leagues."
Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago were the only MLB stadiums in use then that are still in use now. There were no artificial turf fields, and no domes, retractable or otherwise. There were a few black players, but not many. There were a few Hispanic players, but nearly all of them were light-skinned enough to qualify as "white." There were no Asian players.
Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Napoleon Lajoie, Honus Wagner, Cy Young, and 1890s stars Hugh Duffy and William "Dummy" Hoy, who was deaf but a fine all-around player, were still alive. Of the defining players of my childhood: Carl
Yastrzemski was 12 years old; Willie Stargell was 11; Pete Rose was 10; Tom
Seaver, Steve Carlton and Rod Carew were 6; Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers
were 5; Nolan Ryan was 4; Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk were 3; Mike Schmidt
was 2; and, on that very day, David Mark Winfield was born in St. Paul,
Minnesota. George Brett wasn’t born yet.
Nor were any of the current managers or head coaches of the New York Tri-State Area's major league sports teams. In fact, the Mets, the Jets, the Nets, the Islanders and the Devils didn't exist yet. Nor did the Liberty, the Red Bulls or NYCFC -- or even their respective leagues. Indeed, for the soccer teams, the previous league hadn't even been founded.
The current titleholders were the Yankees in baseball, the Cleveland Browns in football, the Rochester Royals in basketball, and the Toronto Maple Leafs in hockey. (Did I mention that this was a long time ago? As of 2021, the Royals, now the Sacramento Kings, have never reached the Finals again, the Browns haven't done so since their 1964 NFL Championship, and the Leafs haven't done so since their 1967 Stanley Cup.) The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Jersey Joe Walcott. England's Football League had been won by Tottenham Hotspur of Middlesex (absorbed into North London in 1965), and its FA Cup by Newcastle United.
The Olympic Games have since been held 5 times in America; 4 times in Japan; 3 times each in Canada and Italy; twice each in France, Australia, Norway, Austria, Korea and Russia; and once each in Britain, Finland, Mexico, Germany, Bosnia, Spain, Greece, China and Brazil. The World Cup has since been held twice each in Mexico and Germany; and once each in America, England, Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Brazil and Russia.
There were 48 States in the Union, and 22 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There had not been a Civil Rights Act since 1875. There was no Medicare, Medicaid, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA or Title IX. The ideas that women could decide for themselves if and when to have a child, and that people of the same gender could get married and have all the legal rights of a regular marriage, were radical. But the idea that corporations were "people" and entitled to the rights thereof was absolutely ludicrous.
The President of the United States was Harry Truman. Herbert Hoover, and the widows of Franklin Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Woodrow Wilson were still alive. Dwight D. Eisenhower was President... of Columbia University in New York. John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lyndon Johnson was in the U.S. Senate. Jimmy Carter was in the U.S. Navy.
George H.W. Bush was in the oil business in Texas. His son George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were all 5 years old. Joe Biden was about to turn 9. Barack Obama wasn't born yet.
The Governor of the State of New York was Thomas E. Dewey, who had been the Republican Party's nominee for President in 1944 and 1948, and an organized crime-busting District Attorney before that. The Mayor of the City of New York was Vincent Impellitteri. The Governor of New Jersey was Alfred E. Driscoll, whose New Jersey Turnpike would open on November 30, and whose Garden State Parkway would soon begin construction.
There were still living veterans of the American Civil War, America's Indian Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Zulu War. French trade union leader Léon Jouhaux was about to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his work on social equality and Franco-German reconciliation."
The Prime Minister of Canada was Louis St. Laurent; and of Britain, Clement Attlee. The monarch of both nations was King George VI, but he was dying of lung cancer, and would be succeeded 4 months later by his 25-year-old daughter, who became Queen Elizabeth II.
The Pope was Pius XII. The current Pope, Francis, was then 14-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in school in his native Buenos Aires, Argentina. There have since been 14 Presidents of the United States, 15 Prime Ministers of Britain, and 7 Popes.
Major novels of 1951 included The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk, From Here to Eternity by James Jones, The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, The Teahouse of the August Moon by Vern Schneider, and, from science fiction, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein, and The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.
Tennessee Williams' play The Rose Tattoo debuted. The year's nonfiction bestsellers included Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren, The Rebel by Albert Camus, White Collar: The American Middle Classes by C. Wright Mills, and The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, in which she made the absolutely correct judgment that "The most ardent revolutionary will become a conservative, the day after the revolution."
Major films of the early Autumn of 1951 included the Biblical film David and Bathsheba, the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still, Jim Thorpe -- All-American, An American in Paris, Little Egypt, A Place in the Sun, The Red Badge of Courage, the 1st film version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, and Rhubarb, in which a cat inherits ownership of a baseball team in Brooklyn.
C.S. Lewis published Prince Caspian, part of his Narnia series. His close friend J.R.R. Tolkien had published The Hobbit years earlier, but had not yet published any part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Ian Fleming was writing for The Times of London, and would soon begin to stop talking about writing a spy novel, and start writing Casino Royale. Gene Roddenberry was the chief speechwriter for William H. Parker, Chief of Police for the City of Los Angeles, and had begun writing episodes of a new TV series, Mr. District Attorney. George Lucas was 7 years old, Steven Spielberg 5, Stephen King 3, George R.R. Martin 2, and J.K. Rowling wasn't born yet.
The film Superman and the Mole Men would premiere the next month, beginning George Reeves' run as the Man of Steel. Robert Lowery was the most recent actor to play Batman. Wonder Woman had yet to debut onscreen, and, except for Captain America, played in a 1944 film by Dick Purcell, most of the classic Marvel Comics characters hadn't yet been created.
Television shows that had recently debuted included Dragnet, Watch Mr. Wizard, The Roy Rogers Show; the soap operas Love of Life and Search for Tomorrow; the anthology series Hallmark Hall of Fame, which eventually grew into The Hallmark Channel; the disastrous TV version of Amos & Andy, proving that audiences would rather listen to white actors playing black men on the radio than watch black men playing black men on TV; and I Love Lucy, which broke ground in that it not only starred, but was produced by, a woman and a nonwhite man, who were married to each other: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (who was, nonetheless, a very light-skinned Cuban). In addition to I Love Lucy, CBS also debuted its "Eye" logo.
The Number 1 song in America was "Because of You," the 1st major hit for Tony Bennett. Frank Sinatra lied when he sang, years later, "When I was 35, it was a very good year": He left his 1st wife, Nancy Barbato, to marry actress Ava Gardner, and was ripped for it in the media, and his career fell apart. (Ava soon helped to restart it by getting him cast in the film version of From Here to Eternity.) Elvis Presley was in high school. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon were 10 years old, John Lennon was about to turn 11, and Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen were 2.
Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $10.52 would
buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 3 cents, and a New York Subway ride 10 cents.
The average price of a gallon of gas was 27 cents, a cup of coffee 30 cents, a burger 15 cents, a movie ticket 47 cents, a new car $1,315, and a
new house $18,000. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 275.87.
The tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building in Manhattan. There were no mobile telephones. Telephone numbers were still based on
"exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that,
today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket
office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000.
There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system:
The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was
"New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."
There were no photocopiers. Computers were new and huge: Alan Turing was still alive, and Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren't born yet. Diners Club
had introduced the credit card, but American Express had not yet popularized
it. There were no automatic teller machines. There were artificial
kidneys, but no artificial hearts. Transplanting a kidney was possible, but not
a heart, lung or liver. The polio vaccine was still in development. Insects, dogs and apes had
been launched into the accepted definition of "space," but no object had yet been put into orbit.
In the late Summer and early Autumn of 1951, Volkswagen began production of the Type 1, which became known as the classic "Beetle." Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed the ANZUS mutual defense treaty. NATO accepted Greece and Turkey as members. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan was assassinated. Winston Churchill led the Conservative Party to victory in Britain, and regained the post of Prime Minister. And a storm killed over 100 people in Southern Italy.
In North America, Shoppers World, considered the 1st shopping mall, opened outside Boston in Framingham, Massachusetts. Oklahoma A&M University, renamed Oklahoma State in 1958, beat Drake University in football, 27-14, and one of the players on that Southern team broke the jaw of Drake's black star running back, Johnny Bright. And Bill Barilko, whose goal had won the Stanley Cup for the Toronto Maple Leafs, was killed in a plane crash.
Jazz composer Jimmy Yancey, and cereal tycoon Will Kellogg, and U.S. Soccer Federation founder Thomas Cahill died. Mark Harmon, and Michael Keaton, and Mark Hamill were born. So were rock and roll legends Chrissie Hynde, Gordon "Sting" Sumner, John Mellencamp and Bootsy Collins.
So were star quarterback Bert Jones, and hockey legend Guy Lafleur, and basketball star Bob McAdoo, and baseball announcer Jon Miller, and soccer coach Claudio Ranieri, and football coach Nick Saban, and, as I said, on the exact day of the Playoff decider, Baseball Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield.
That's what the world was like on October 3, 1951, when the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers met to decide the National League Pennant at the Polo Grounds.
*
It was cloudy that Wednesday, and there was a threat of rain, so only 34,320 fans came to the 55,987-seat Harlem Horseshoe. At 1:30 PM, home plate umpire Lou Jorda signaled to Giant starter Sal Maglie, and said, "Play ball!"
Maglie struck Furillo out. He walked Reese and Snider. Robinson singled Pee Wee home. 1-0 Dodgers. Pafko grounded out, and Hodges popped up. In the bottom of the 1st, Stanky flied out, Dark popped up, and Mueller lined out.
2nd inning: Cox grounded out. Walker struck out. Newcombe popped up. Irvin grounded out. Lockman and Thomson singled, but Mays lined out. 1-0 Dodgers.
3rd inning: Furillo grounded out. Reese popped up. Snider struck out. Westrum walked. Maglie bunted him over. Stanky grounded into a double play. 1-0 Dodgers.
4th inning: Robinson grounded out. Pafko struck out. Hodges grounded out. Dark popped up. Mueller lined out. Irvin grounded out. 1-0 Dodgers.
5th inning: Cox bunted for a hit. Walker struck out. Newcombe grounded out. Furillo flied out. Lockman grounded out. Thomson doubled. Mays struck out. Westrum was intentionally walked, to set up a force play. Maglie struck out. Still 1-0 Dodgers.
6th inning: Reese struck out. Snider singed, but was caught stealing. Robinson walked. Pakfo popped up. Stanky flied out. Dark grounded out. Mueller popped up. Still 1-0 Dodgers.
Top of the 7th: Hodges popped up. Cox grounded out. Walker singled. Newcombe grounded out. But as the Dodgers took the field for the bottom of the 7th, Newcombe was beginning his 270th inning of the season. He was pitching on fumes. He gave up a double to Irvin. Lockman grounded into a fielder's choice that advanced Irvin to 3rd. Thomson hit a sacrifice fly that scored Irvin with the tying run.
A mound conference was convened. Dressen, Walker, and the entire Dodger infield surrounded Newcombe. This included Jackie Robinson. He was the 1st black man to play in the major leagues since 1884. Newcombe was the 1st black man to become a successful major league pitcher.
Jackie knew that, if Newk couldn't get the job done, people would say a black pitcher couldn't do it. Newk had already given up what would now be called a walkoff home run to Tommy Henrich in Game 1 of the 1949 World Series, and the home run to Dick Sisler that won the 1950 Pennant for the Phillies. To use another phrase that wasn't yet in use, Newk "couldn't win the big one."
Jackie told Newk, "You keep pitching until your fucking arm falls off."
The batter was Mays. Lockman was still on 1st. Newk got Mays to ground to Dark, who started an inning-ending double play. It was 1-1.
Top of the 8th: Top of the order up. Furillo lines back to Maglie. Then, the Dodgers began to pick Newcombe up. Reese singled. Snider singled Reese over to 3rd. Maglie threw a wild pitch that advanced the runners, scoring Reese. With 1st base open, Robinson was walked. No good: Pafko singled Snider home. Hodges popped up. But Cox singled Robinson home. Walker grounded out. 4-1 Brooklyn.
Bottom of the 8th: The 3-run cushion helped settle Newcombe down. He struck out Bill Rigney, who was pinch-hitting for Westrum. Hank Thompson was sent up to pinch-hit for Maglie, and grounded out. And Stanky popped up. End of 8: Dodgers 4, Giants 1. Dem Bums needed 3 more outs.
Top of the 9th. Larry Jansen now pitching for the Giants. Ray Noble replaces Westrum as catcher. Dressen should have pinch-hit for Newcombe. He didn't, possibly because it was already known that, for a pitcher, Newcombe was a very good hitter. But he grounded out. So did Furillo. And Reese flew out.
Bottom of the 9th. It is an inning we are still talking about, 70 years later to the day. The Dodgers go into it with a 4-1 lead. Just 3 more outs, and they will face the Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series, the next day, at Yankee Stadium.
Ernie Harwell was broadcasting the game on television for NBC. Some of the Yankees were watching, and Mickey Mantle, a rookie a few days before his 20th birthday, asked who they should be rooting for. He was told, the Giants, because the World Series share was based on the gate receipts, and the Polo Grounds had 24,000 more seats than Ebbets Field. So the Giants winning would mean more money for the Yankees, regardless of whether they got a winner's share or a loser's share.
The Dodgers had to get 3 more outs, allowing 2 or fewer runs. But Newcombe was gassed. He allowed a single to Dark. He allowed a single to Mueller. Now, the tying run was at the plate, in the form of a future Hall-of-Famer, Irvin. Newk got him to pop up to Hodges. But Lockman doubled to left, scoring Dark, and sending Mueller to 3rd.
There was a break in the action, because there was a sprain in his ankle. He was replaced by Clint Hartung.
Dressen knew he finally had to take Newcombe out. He got on the bullpen phone. Clyde Sukeforth, the pitching coach, previously the scout who found Robinson, answered. Dressen could choose between Erskine and Branca, 2 righthanders, to face, potentially, the next 2 batters, both righthanded, Thomson and Mays.
As soon as Sukeforth picked up the phone, Erskine threw a pitch in the dirt. Sukeforth told Dressen this, and told him that Branca was pitching well. Dressen said, "Send in Branca."
The announcement came over the public address system, "Now coming in to pitch for Brooklyn, Number 13, Ralph Branca." Number 13, the traditional unlucky number. Thomson was a good hitter against a fastball, but only against a fastball. And Branca had only a fastball. And he'd already given up a home run to Thomson in Game 1 of the Playoff.
Red Barber was broadcasting the game for the Dodgers, over WMGM, 1050 on the AM dial. My grandmother, then living with my grandfather and mother on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, knew the details. She knew that Branca was the wrong choice to face Thomson. She turned off the radio. John Sterling, later the Yankees' radio announcer, was then 13 years old, and likes to say, "You just can't predict baseball." That day, Grandma predicted baseball. Because, in this case, it wasn't that hard to do.
Thomson was at bat. Mays was on deck. He may have been Willie Mays, but he was 20, a rookie, and very nervous. There's no guarantee that Mays would have done anything good. He could have made the last out.
Thomson stepped into the box. Branca's 1st pitch was a strike call on the outside corner. It was 3:58 PM. Russ Hodges had the call on the Giants' radio station, WMCA, 570 AM:
Bobby hitting at .292. He's had a single and a double, and he drove in the Giants' first run with a long fly to center. Brooklyn leads it 4–2. Hartung down the line at third, not taking any chances. Lockman with not too big of a lead at second, but he'll be runnin' like the wind if Thomson hits one.
Branca throws. There's a long drive, it's gonna be, I believe... (dramatic pause)
I don't believe it! I don't believe it! I do not believe it! Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left-field stands! And this blamed place is goin' crazy! The Giants! Horace Stoneham has got a winner! The Giants won it, by a score of 5-4, and they're pickin' Bobby Thomson up, and carryin' him off the field!
More than any home run, more than Bill Mazeroski's in 1960, more than Carlton Fisk's in 1975, more than Bucky Dent's in 1978, more than Kirk Gibson's in 1988, more than Joe Carter's in 1993, more than any hit by David Ortiz in 2004, this is the most talked-about home run in baseball history. The only other serious contender for the title is Babe Ruth's apparent called shot in the 1932 World Series.
There's a picture taken from center field, as Thomson touched home plate. Jackie Robinson was standing behind 2nd base, making sure Thomson did. Was he thinking about the moment in 1908, at 2nd base, on that plot of land if not at that stadium, when Fred Merkle failed to touch the base, costing the Giants the Pennant?
It didn't matter: Thomson did touch all the bases, including the plate, Robinson ripped off his cap, and made the long walk, all the way back to the blockhouse in center field, with the Giants' clubhouse on one side and the visiting team's on the other.
There's another photo, showing Branca sprawled on the steps up to the clubhouse, with former Dodger star, now coach, Harry "Cookie" Lavagetto, sitting next to him, a cigarette in his hand.
A priest was in the Dodger locker room, Father Pat Rowley. Branca asked him, "Why me?" Rowley told him, "Because God knew your faith would be strong enough to bear this cross." Rowley was there because his cousin was Branca's girlfriend, Ann Mulvey. They were soon married. Branca lost the Pennant, but got the girl.
The game, and the Giants' comeback to get there, are called "The Miracle of Coogan's Bluff." They almost kept it going, taking 2 of the 1st 3 games of the World Series against the Yankees. But the Yankees took the next 3 for the title.
Taking a line from "Concord Hymn," Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1837 poem about the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775 that started the American Revolution, Thomson's homer became known as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World."
The day after the game, October 4, 1951, the New York Daily News ran a front-page game recap under the headline, "The Shot Heard 'Round the Baseball World"; and a New York Times editorial that same day called Thomson's homer "the home run heard round the world." According to baseball historian Jules Tygiel, "These two phrases merged in the popular memory," and the Thomson blast became "The Shot Heard 'Round the World."
Indeed, it was, literally, heard around the world: American troops, fighting in the Korean War, and stationed in various bases in Europe and Asia, and on ships at sea, heard it on Armed Forces Radio. So did writer George Plimpton, a Giants fan studying at Cambridge University in England.
Giant fans were happier about this than they were about winning the World Series 3 years later, because it was against the hated Dodgers. Dodger fans were more crushed by this than they were about losing any World Series to the Yankees, because they hated the Giants more. And, 70 years later, Dodger fans now elderly are still hearing about it.
Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.
-- Red Smith, in the next day's New York Herald Tribune. If Red wasn't the greatest sportswriter ever, this paragraph certainly shows why he's a contender for the title.
-- Red Smith, in the next day's New York Herald Tribune. If Red wasn't the greatest sportswriter ever, this paragraph certainly shows why he's a contender for the title.
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The Dodgers did recover. They won the Pennant in 1952. They lost the World Series to the Yankees. They won the Pennant in 1953. They lost the World Series to the Yankees. The Giants won another Pennant in 1954, and beat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. It would be the team's last until 2010, as they developed a habit of painful close calls similar to those that the Dodgers had faced.
Finally, in 1955, after going 0-7 in World Series play, 0-5 against the Yankees, "Next Year" finally came for Brooklyn. The Dodgers beat the Yankees in the World Series, thanks to a great catch by Sandy Amoros -- a left fielder -- and a shutout by Johnny Podres in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium. They won another Pennant in 1956, but the Yankees, needing revenge over the Dodgers for the 1st time, got it.
After the 1957 season, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. The move was made by Walter O'Malley, who had been the lawyer that the Brooklyn Trust Company had hired to manage their share of the team's ownership. He had bought the bank's share, and either bought out or dominated the remaining part-owners.
He needed another team in California, to save money on travel costs. Giants owner Stoneham, as unhappy with the condition of the Polo Grounds and its neighborhood as O'Malley was with the size of Ebbets Field and the condition of its neighborhood, was going to move the team to Minneapolis, where their top farm team was. When O'Malley suggested San Francisco, Stoneham went for it. The rivalry went to the West Coast, and while they're now 425 miles apart, it has been every bit as nasty as it was when the gap was 13 miles.
The teams' bereaved fans were united in 1962, by a new team, the New York Mets, whose fans, those old enough to remember the Giants and Dodgers as New York teams and not, hated the Yankees every bit as much as the older fans among them hated each other.
Ebbets Field hosted "midget auto" races for 2 years, and was torn down in 1960. The Polo Grounds hosted a Heavyweight Championship fight between Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson, then became the home of the AFL's New York Titans from 1960 to 1963 (they became the Jets in 1963), and the home of the Mets in 1962 and '63. It was torn down in 1964, just days before its replacement as the Mets' and Jets' home, Shea Stadium, opened. The same demolition crew that tore down Ebbets Field tore down the Polo Grounds, with the same wrecking ball, painted to look like a baseball.
The Dodgers have since won the World Series in 1959, 1963 (over the Yankees), 1965, 1981 (over the Yankees), 1988 and 2002; and won Pennants but lost the World Series in 1966, 1974, 1977 (to the Yankees), 1978 (to the Yankees), 2017 and 2018.
The Giants won Pennants in 1962 (history repeating itself, a Playoff won over the Dodgers, although there was no dramatic home run, and then they lost the World Series to the Yankees), 1989 and 2002, before winning the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014. And there have been times from 1962 onward that the Giants have spoiled Playoff berths for the Dodgers, and the Dodgers have done it for the Giants.
In 2014, Travis Ishikawa hit a bottom-of-the-9th home run to win the NL Championship Series for the Giants, echoing Thomson's homer. But it was against the St. Louis Cardinals, not the Dodgers; and it was in Game 5, not a deciding Game 7. Fox broadcaster Joe Buck used the phrase "The Giants win the Pennant!" only once.
The rivalry continues: This season, they have both won over 100 games, and, on the last day of the regular season, one will win the National League Western Division, and the other will host the NL Wild Card Game. At this writing, it remains undecided. (UPDATE: The Giants won the Division, but the Dodgers beat them in the NL Division Series, scoring a run in the top of the 9th to beat the Giants 2-1 in San Francisco in the deciding Game 5.)
Branca, a native of Mount Vernon, Westchester County, New York, eventually found out about the Giants' cheating, and was upset about it. Thomson always claimed he never saw a signal about what pitch was coming. He didn't have to: He knew that Branca only had a fastball.
Nevertheless, Branca and Thomson became friends, and often did autograph sessions at memorabilia shows together.
Thomson, born in Glasgow, Scotland and raised in Staten Island (hence his nickname, "The Staten Island Scot"), died in 2010. He was cremated, and there is no gravesite. Branca died in 2016, and was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, Westchester County, the same cemetery as Babe Ruth and Billy Martin. He was 90.
Willie Mays, who became one of the greatest players who ever lived, is the only player from the game still alive.
But the Bobby Thomson Game, and the Shot Heard 'Round the World that won it, will live forever.
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