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65 years ago today, shock waves were sent through the baseball world that still resonates to this day – Bobby Thomson hit the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” that stunned the Brooklyn Dodgers and gave the National League Pennant to the New York Giants and a ticket to the World Series.
Midway through August, the Dodgers looked like they were going to pull away with pennant with relative ease, up as much as 12.5 games at one point, until the Giants put together one of the great late season runs in Major League history. They finished the last 44 games of the season with a 37-7 record and forced a best out of three playoff series with Brooklyn.
Game One at Ebbets Field went to the Giants by a 3-1 score. The following day, now at the Polo Grounds, the Dodgers trounced the Giants 10-0 on the strength of four home runs to tie the series at one game a piece.
Game Three stayed at the Polo Grounds and the Dodgers broke a 1-1 tie in the eighth-inning on a wild pitch scoring Pee Wee Reese and RBI singles by Andy Pafko and Billy Cox to give Brooklyn a 4-1 lead.
As they headed into the bottom of the ninth inning, the Dodgers reliable ace Don Newcombe was still on the mound, but got off to a shaky start giving up two singles to the first two Giants (Alvin Dark, Don Mueller) of the inning. After enticing Monte Irvin to pop up to third base for the first out, Newcombe would give up a double to Whitey Lockman that scored Dark and sent Mueller to third base. With the right-hitting Thomson now due up, Dodgers manager Chuck Dressen replaced Newcombe with right hander Ralph Branca. With an 0-1 count, Thomson would take Branca’s next pitch and deliver himself into baseball immortality with a shot that just cleared the left field wall, to the agony of left fielder Pafko, as seen in the main photo.
And just like that Brooklyn hearts were once again broken and shattered while Thomson gleefully circled the bases in front of a incredulous crowd of 34,320 and the NL Pennant went to the Giants, amazingly.
Unfortunately that was the last of the good times for the Giants that season, as they would lose to the New York Yankees in six games in the World Series. But despite the final setback, Thomson and his 1951 teammates were responsible for one of the most iconic moments in baseball history and one that has lived through the ages timelessly with the call of Giants announcer Ross Hodges screaming into his microphone, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”.
