Today In History

The NY Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, cross-town rivals, had tied for first place at the end of the 1951 season and were now knotted at 1 game apiece in their best of three tie-breaker series to determine the NL pennant. The Dodgers led the deciding game 4-1 entering the bottom of the ninth inning. In the bottom of the ninth, three of the first four Giants got base hits off Dodgers’ pitcher Don Newcombe, cutting the Dodgers’ lead to 4-2. With one out and runners on 2nd and 3rd base, the Dodgers were just two outs from the pennant when Ralph Branca relieved Newcombe to face the Giants’ Bobby Thomson. Thomson had hit a career-best 32 home runs that season with 101 RBIs, and had two hits already in this game. Should the Dodgers walk him to set up a possible game-ending double play with twenty year-old rookie Willie Mays on deck? …or should they follow standard baseball strategy and not intentionally put the winning run on base? Dodger manager Chuck Dressen elected to pitch to Thomson, and on the 0-1 pitch from Branca, Thomson hit a dramatic pennant-winning 3-run home run, forever known as the “Shot Heard Around the World.” As Bobby Thomson jubilantly circled the bases, Giants’ play-by-play radio announcer Russ Hodges gleefully and repeatedly proclaimed “The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!”.