JERRY IZENBERG
“The Giants is dead.’
….Dodgers manage Chuck Dressen, when the Giants trailed by 13 ½ in July
“The Giants win the pennant…the Giants win the pennant…the Giants win the pennant.’’
Russ Hodges, Giants broadcaster, saying the words my father longed to hear.
The New York-New Jersey area was the last city in all of baseball to have three major league teams—the Yankees the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. By 1951 they had divided their constituencies into three different worlds, Since the Yankees almost always won, they were the darlings of stockbrokers who also rooted for General Motors. Dodgers fans were always angry. They had a tinker toy-sized ball park (32,00 seats so tickets were harder to come by) and a fanatical hatred of all the cities other boroughs. And Giants fans had not celebrated a pennant since 1937. They were a collection of Biblical Jobs, praying like him for a miracle that had never come.
In mid-July of 1951 even my dad began to doubt them.
But suddenly it was as though the Giants had heard him and felt his pain. They went out and won 37 of their last 44 games to tie Brooklyn for first place and forced a three-game playoff. It was redemption for the time he had spent in the low leagues pursuing his own major league dream…redemption for hot summer nights on the front porch banging his ancient Phico radio when Buddy Kerr booted a grounder at shortstop… redemption for each time jenny Rucker took a called third strike…Redemption for every time the Giants finished behind the Cardinals ort the Reds or (God forbid) the Dodgers., I remember thinking with Newcombe pitching brilliantly and ahead in the ninthe,4-1 that my dad at home was about to demolish the old Philco radio.
But roughly 15 minutes before my dad’s dream turned into a head-on car cash, the Giants won and a guy born in Scotland and whose last game was played in Japan, was the improbable hero who hit the home run heard in any ball park from Little League to the bigs and this is how Bobby Thomson he remembered it for me years later in a one-on-one interview in his kitchen:
I remember I came in for our last at-bats and I threw my glove at the dugout floor, I felt we just weren’t good enough. The shadows were lengthening. We couldn’t even see what he was throwing.I knew we could not win.’’
But they did
Newk was tiring. The hits came. They sent in Ralph Branca but neither Bobby nor Leo knew it “.I was talking to Leo (Durocher) near home plate. Th crowd was so loud we didn’t hear the p.a. announcement and he told me `Bobby,if you ever hit a home run do it ‘now. And I thought `come on Leo get real.’ We talked and I never even saw Ralph warm up.
The Polo Grounds was a mad house. Branca’s first pitch was right down the middle, a called strike because Thomson stood just stood there“ I could hear our dugout groan in unison. It was a pitch I could have and should have hit.’’
Thomson swung at the second one. Swung? Hell, he nailed it. The ball headed briefly toward the foul line than the wind caught it and it curved further to the right. It dropped into the lower stand seats perhaps 320 feet away. It was neither a cheap home run nor a monster,
It wasn’t a home run trot. It wasn’t a rush of elation. I felt like I was soaring over the bases. I wasn’t even thinking about what I had done. When I turned for home I saw Alvin Dark jump into Leo’ arms. I was numb. It took another day to realize what I had done.’’
When the ball cleared the wall. I thought of my dad, I jumped up so quickly I knocked the table over and spilled beer on everyone, The excitement wasn’t for me . It was for my dad who in that instant retired Job in favor of Bobby Thomson. I ran for the bar’s only payphone. I knew he was elated when he married my mother and when my older sister was born. This was excitement with ruffles and flourishes. For him, this was revenge for years of countless curveballs that hung and rookie hot shots that crashed and burned on top of his dream.
It gave new meaning to the Yogi Berra catchphrase:
It ain’t over until the fat lady sings.’