STAN ISAACS
Out of Left Field
Revisiting the Shot Heard 'Round the World Bobby Thomson slugs the famous shot that still echoes
through the history of American sports
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
IT IS “the greatest
moment in baseball history” and it is to HBO’s credit
that it plays it for laughs as well as drama in its documentary
“Shot Heard ‘Round the World” that debuts Wednesday,
July 11 at 8p.m. (Eastern time).
The HBO people interviewed just about everybody from Canarsie
to Coogan’s Bluff--players, officials, luminaries and fans,
especially fans. There was hatred in New York City between Giants
and Dodgers fans in the years before those teams were spirited
out of town, and the documentary displays the pungent, homely
faces of fans decrying the opposition.
Giants fan Everett Parker: “I would have rooted for the
red Russians over the Dodgers. All I wished for them was 14-inning
games played in the rain.”
Dodgers fan (and actor) Joe Bologna: “I would never go to
the Polo Grounds. Never, even when the Dodgers were playing.
I hated the Polo Grounds, hated the Giants. That was part of
the fun, to hate. The hate is as important as the loving.”
There never has been a rivalry in baseball (and probably in all
of sports) as the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers rivalry. These
were two teams in the same city. People who knew each other as
friends, relatives, workmates could get along in matters of state,
but would argue loud and long about their teams.
The Giants had been the No. 1 New York franchise up until the
1920s when the Yankees emerged as the dominant entity. The Dodgers
were regarded as clowns until the 1940s when they went up and
the Giants went down. The Giants gained some respectability with
the arrival of former Dodgers manager Leo Durocher in the late
1940s and it all led up to the storied pennant race of 1951.
The Giants came from 13½ games behind the Dodgers in August.
When the teams tied for the pennant at the end of the regular
season, they played a three-game playoff. The Giants won the
first game, the Dodgers the second. The third--the epic third
game at the Polo Grounds--ended when Bobby Thomson hit a three-run
home run in the ninth inning to give the Giants a 5-4 victory
and the pennant.
Thomson hit the home run off Ralph Branca just after Branca had
come in to relieve the faltering Don Newcombe. Now, 50 years
later, Branca can say, “I still think it’s the greatest
moment in baseball history.”
Branca despaired after the incident. He lay stretched out across
steps in the clubhouse, miserable, ashamed. In the documentary
he says, “I let the team down. I let the fans down. I let
myself down.”
Branca recovered soon enough. By January he was teaming with
Thomson at a New York Baseball Writers shindig singing a takeoff
on the song “Because of You.” The duo sang a comic
reprieve of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”
events that brought appreciative roars. Because he got over the
event soon enough, Branca with Thomson formed a roving team picking
up bucks at baseball signings and banquets.
Both are beloved now. Oddly, Branca is more the jokester, Thomson
the serious one. Both were at the HBO preview last week and it
was a halting Thomson who spoke. He tried to make light of the
controversy about whether the Giants had stolen signs, that he
had been tipped off to Branca’s pitches. It it was difficult
for him because the memory of the sudden death of his 38-year-old
son a week earlier hung over him.
He said, “It was great, but it was only a game. The important
thing is family and I’m so proud to be here with my family
[his wife and other children]" and then words failed him.
There was quiet in the auditorium.
The HBO people, who keep winning awards for sports documentaries,
didn’t avoid the recent controversy about the Giants’
sign-stealing. A fuss was made about it because the sign-stealing
was revealed in an exhaustive story in the Wall Street Journal
earlier this year. The piece revealed some creative technology
used by the Giants at the Polo Grounds to relay signs from their
clubhouse in center field to their bullpen where they were relayed
by reserve catcher Sal Yvars to the hitter.
It was all very iffy. Several factors argue against demeaning
the Giants and Thomson’s heroics:
· The Giants played better on the road in the final days
of the season.
· They won on improved pitching rather than hitting late
in the season.
· Batters usually don’t hit home runs in batting
practice even when they know that soft pitches are coming.
· The day before the finale the Giants were shut out in
a 10-0 beating and scored only one run into the ninth inning
of the finale.
· Thomson denies getting the sign; he had hit a homer
off Branca in the opening game of the playoffs, not at the Polo
Grounds, but at Ebbets Field.
The documentary includes for probably the zillionith time the
shouts of Giants radio broadcaster Russ Hodges screaming, “The
Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant, the Giants
win the pennant…”
One of the Dodgers fans interviewed said, “To this day whenever
they play Hodges screaming, I run to the set to turn the damned
thing off.”
HBO is giving “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” multiple
showings. July 13 (1pm); 15 (11am); 17 (8:45am and 7:30pm); 19
(3:30pm) 23 (6pm) and 28 (noon). (all Eastern times).
You can comment on this column or contact Stan Isaacs with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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