|
OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
 |
|
BIG MOMENT  Bobby Thomson makes sport history |
A personal view of a 'Shot Heard ‘Round the World'
of TheColumnists.com
Bobby Thomson died
Aug. 17 at 86. Stan Isaacs was a 22-year-old sports reporter
covering the fabled “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”
home run by Thomson that won the 1951 playoff for the New York
Giants over the Brooklyn Dodgers. He may be the only reporter
who covered that game for a New York paper who's still alive.
Here is a recollection of that experience.
It is Oct. 3, 1951. I am in the Polo Grounds. The fabled, much
beloved by many, often maligned by many, Polo Grounds in the
upper reaches of Manhattan. It is an overcast day for the celebrated
third game of the National League playoffs between the Giants
and the Dodgers.
I am a Giants fan, and my assignment for The New York Daily
Compass is to cover the Giants clubhouse at the end of the
game. It has been 14 years since the Giants won a pennant and
it seems like an eternity to me--an eternity of suffering Giants’
defeats, ineptness, frustrations, humiliations.
I leave the press box to go to the clubhouses with the Dodgers
ahead, 4-1, as the Giants are about to come to bat in the bottom
of the ninth inning. I walk from the press box in the upper stand
behind home plate toward the right field section that leads to
the clubhouses in center field.
By the time Alvin Dark, the Giants’
leadoff hitter in the ninth inning, moves into the batters’
box, I am ensconced on the long runway in right field. This is
the runway fans walk up from the street upon entering the Polo
Grounds, moving out of the shadows into the light. At this point
the huge, spanking greensward of the old, oval-shaped ball park
comes into view in the gap between the upper and lower right
field stands. Now I am crouching down, peering between those
stands to see the unfolding action.
Dark sends a ground ball single past the lunge of Dodgers’
first baseman Gil Hodges. Don Mueller swats another ground ball
to Hodges’ right and into right field just below me. Monte
Irvin fouls out and the old demons of close-but-not-close-enough
agitate me. Whitey Lockman then slices a ball on a low line to
the opposite field. A double. . Dark scores. Mueller slides into
third base.
There is a delay. Mueller hurt his ankle sliding into the base
and Clint Hartung lumbers out to replace him. Dodger manager
Charley Dressen brings in Ralph Branca to replace starting pitcher
Don Newcombe. During the delay I talk to a light-skinned black
man wearing cream-colored slacks and a porkpie hat. He is also
a Giant fan. We are instant soul mates.
The broad-shouldered Branca, No. 13 on his back, trudges in from
the Dodgers bullpen. The walk from the bullpen in left-center
field to the mound at the Polo Grounds is the longest walk in
baseball for a relief pitcher. It is a walk that heightens the
drama.
Branca pitches to Thomson with Willie Mays in the on-deck circle.
Thomson lets the first pitch, a good pitch to hit, go by. He
then swings on Branca’s next pitch. He hits a low line drive
toward left field. I have to bend down as much as I can to follow
its flight. I am hoping the ball will hit the upper stands for
a home run or miss the upper stands overhang and bounce off the
left field wall. I dread--and this would be the final crusher--that
the ball will not carry far enough and drop into the hands of
Dodgers left fielder Andy Pafko.
The ball misses the upper stands, and in
its downward flight it falls just over the top of the wall into
the front row seats of the left field stands. Home run. Giants
win, 5-4. Giants win the pennant. (At the time I do not hear
Russ Hodges’ legendary “The Giants win the pennant…”
radio call).
It will be called the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”
I shout an unintelligible whoop and sprint down the ramp, down
a flight of stairs to the Giants’ clubhouse with plenty
of time to spare to join the other reporters. After five minutes
or so, we enter in the midst of merriment and delight.
I revel in a scene that is as much a joy for me as a time to
interview the celebrating Giants in the raucous clubhouse. Thomson
seems dazed as he responds to questions. After awhile I go over
to a funereal Dodgers clubhouse across the way. The never-to-be
forgotten scene is of a distraught Branca lying across a few
steps while his teammates tiptoe around him.
At the time of his despair people wondered if Branca would ever
recover from the ignominy of throwing the home run ball that
Thomson turned into the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”
There was no need to worry. For a time Branca stiffened when
the subject came up, but he learned to relax. He soon came to
see that he was the party of the second part and they could make
money by appearing at signings together. They became almost a
tandem at such affairs and at banquets, autographing balls, bats,
posters.
And then there was the laughable promotion by MasterCard in 2002
to select the greatest moments in baseball history. MasterCard
was more interested in numbers than in fashioning an authentic
list. So it was that most of the events people voted on were
not moments; they occurred mostly in the post-television age;
and were events likely to draw votes in certain quarters, i.e.
listing Ichiro Suzuki’s outstanding 2001 rookie season as
a way of attracting votes from Japan. Yes, Japanese citizens
were eligible to vote.
The Thomson-Branca moment did not make the final top ten. Cal
Ripken’s feat of playing in the most consecutive games (that’s
a lot of “moments”) was voted No. 1. Baseball was made
to look ridiculous anew for selling out to a commercial entity.
As the contest drew to an end, the MasterCard people sent Thomson
and Branca on a round of radio talks to promote the contest.
That night they were at Shea Stadium to appear on a Mets’
pre-game show. I was in the Mets clubhouse and watched Branca,
a regular visitor to the Mets because manager Bobby Valentine
was his son-in-law, leading Thomson around, introducing him to
players.
I was in Valentine’s office where the talk got around to
the MasterCard promotion. Branca vented his anger. “It’s
ridiculous that our moment is not high in the running.”
he said. “Was Suzuki a moment? Was Ripken a moment?”
I could hardly suppress a smile. Here was Branca--the victim
of a day that has lived in infamy for him, for the Dodgers and
their fans--angry that his “moment” was not being awarded
with the votes of the fans. Ah, baseball.
|
|
Many years later I wrote a column on one of the anniversaries of the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” and mentioned that in my generation there were three dates on which people could recall where they were. These were the day Franklin Roosevelt died--April 12, 1945; Pearl Harbor Day--Dec. 7, 1941, and the day Thomson hit the home run.
I interviewed many people and all had ready recollections. One man said a mouthful. “It was about nine years later,” he said, “and I was listening to that game on the radio while in the navy. I was stationed at Pearl Harbor.”
©2010 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted Aug. 30, 2010.
TO ACCESS STAN ISAACS' ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS
ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: ISAACS
ARCHIVE
You can comment
on this column online via our TALKBACK page. Please address your e-mail message to either
"The Editors" or Stan Isaacs at Syndpack @ aol.com.
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|