Bobby Thomson, who hit the famed "Shot Heard 'Round the World"that won the 1951 National League pennant for the New York Giants, has died. He was 86.
I was born during that pennant race, in late September of 1951. My father (and the rest of his family) were long-time Giant fans. I am told that whenever he went to visit my mother while was in the hospital after having me, his pals would gather in her room because she had a radio and they could listen to the ball game. So some of the games from that race were among the first things I heard.
I would be mightily impressed if your first words were:
“The Giants win the Pennant”
“The Giants win the Pennant”
“The Giants win the Pennant”
“The Giants win the Pennant”
“The Giants win the Pennant”
Who?
…what’s a pennant? And what giants?
Way before my time, but I thought it was nice how he and the pitcher of that moment, Ralph Branca, used to do appearances together.
Alas, that particular class of baseball moment–a decisive head-to-head meeting, in a concluding regular-season tie-breaking playoff game, between the two best teams in the league–is now actually impossible. Under the present system, the two best teams in the league are always guaranteed to advance to the postseason, regardless of divisions, tied or not.
As Bob Costas put it in Fair Ball,
Actually they wouldn’t even bother playing the game.