The Shot Heard ‘Round the World – Is Silenced

Bobby Thompson passed away yesterday and with him goes a whole host of childhood memories of my youth. As a kid I was a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan and for the decade 1947-1957, I was pretty spoiled. The Dodgers won 6 National League (NL) pennants in that time and should have won 8. In 1950 they lost in the last game of the season to the Phillies and in 1951 Bobby Thompson hit a 3-run homer in the 9th inning with the Dodgers ahead 4-2 in the last game of a 3- game play-off because the season had ended in a tie.

The interesting thing about that 1951 season was that the Dodgers were 13 ½ games ahead of the second place Giants in August and still the season ended in a tie. I thought how could we lose? All we needed was to play .500 baseball for the rest of the year and we’re a shoo-in. Well, the Giants hardy lost a game from mid-August to October. They won 37 of their final 44 games. Quite a feat in baseball!

I hated the Giants! The rivalry with the Dodgers was one of the most intense in the NL, as it is today between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but not quite the same, since they are not in the same city now. Even though the Dodgers dominated the league in that decade, the Giants always managed to give them a tough battle no matter how bad a team they had. To top matters, my best friend and eventually the best man at my wedding was an avid Giant fan and he finally had his moment that dim day in October, 1951.

The Yankees went on to beat the Giants in 5 games in the World Series and over the years Ralph Branca (the Dodger pitcher who gave up the homer) and Thompson became good friends and appeared together at many functions when their playing days were over. I grew up to appreciate both of them over the years as good competitors who managed to etch their names into baseball history, even though neither made it to the Hall of Fame.

An interesting footnote to this story is that Yogi Berra, the famous Yankee catcher, attended that famous game with some teammates, eager to see which team they would face in the Series. After the Dodgers scored three times in the eighth inning to lead 4-1, Berra decided he had seen enough and left the ballpark to beat the traffic. That’s when he developed one of his most famous “Yogi-isms” which many of us still use today and will be indelibly engrained in our lexicon, “it ain’t over till it’s over”.

Don’t worry Bobby, you won’t be forgotten and they’ll still talk about your historic feat long after we’re gone. It still ain’t over.