Like the old Metropole in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” New York’s Polo Grounds was filled with memories. Just days ago, Bobby Thomson passed away at the age of 86 and it was Thomson who became one of the first coast-to-coast instant celebrities with a dramatic ninth-inning home run there in 1951. For years, you see, New York boasted of three outstanding baseball teams including the Giants, Dodgers and Yankees.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, the Giants were truly the darlings of Gotham. The legendary John McGraw, who first gained fame as a player on the ancient Orioles, was the great manager who brought the Giants into the 20th century as stars. So great was McGraw and so powerful were the Giants at one time that he (and they) declined to play the champions of the other league for the title.
That “other” league was the American League, which had a team called the Highlanders. That squad shared the Polo Grounds with the Giants, playing home games when McGraw’s club was on the road. As it happened the Highlanders began to draw the wrath of McGraw when a new set of owners started collecting players to help them rise from the also-ran status to the top of the baseball world. One of those youngsters was originally signed from a Baltimore (of all places!) orphanage. His name was George Herman Ruth but his teammates just called him “Babe.”
At any rate, the team became known as the Yankees. By 1921 they were no longer very welcome in the Polo Grounds. Within a couple of seasons the Yanks had moved out, settled in Yankee Stadium, and started their reign as baseball’s preeminent team.
Still, the Giants had many more good years left in the great old horseshoe shaped field nestled under the elevated railway at Coogan’s Bluff. One of their ace pitchers, Carl Hubbell, would help boost his chances for a Hall of Fame position by striking out five consecutive batters in an All-Star game including Ruth and Lou Gehrig of those hated Yankees. Later on, one of the great players of any era, Willie Mays, would begin his career at the Polo Grounds just a few seasons after Jackie Robinson broke the “color line” for the 1947 Dodgers.
Ah, those Dodgers. It was back in 1913 on a lot formerly known as “Pigtown” that Charles Hercules Ebbetts set up a ball park on Flatbush Avenue which he graciously named for himself. It was a typical neighborhood park that quickly became beloved by the citizens. Although for a generation the Dodgers were among the worst teams in the league, their rabid fans loved them unconditionally.
That fan base took a dramatic turn upward when Robinson became the first black major league starter, a second baseman with a good bat, flying feet, and the courage to turn his cheek enough to make general manger Branch Rickey’s gamble pay off for the African Americans who had long been forced to play professionally in the Negro Leagues if they wanted to play at all.
After World War II, the resurgent Dodgers were annually vying for the right to play in the World Series and the Giants had risen again as their major competitors, just a few years after the powerful St. Louis teams of the 1930s and ’40s had “gotten old” in the pursuit of success.
In fact, in ’51 the Giants and Dodgers were tied as the season ended and a one-game showdown at the Polo Ground would decide who got to play the Yankees in the “subway series” that year. Brooklyn took an early lead and the Dodger fans were licking their chops with a 4-2 advantage in the ninth inning. Just three outs and the N.L. pennant would be theirs. Ralph Branca was pitching for the Brooks but the Giants had managed to put runners on first and third before Thomson came up to bat. He had a good year, with over 30 home runs in that “pre-steroid” era and as a right handed hitter could clearly see the short porch looming just beyond the third base line just 325 feet away.
Branca wound up and Thomson lofted a line drive into the left field seats, just far enough for a homer that won the flag for the Giants. Announcer Russ Hodges yelled “The Giants win the pennant!” five times on the air before saying anything else.
Thomson, who was born in Scotland, lived nearly six decades after, passing away a couple of weeks ago, but forever popular for that home run, the first one hit on national coast-to-coast television.
Although the Giants may have stolen the sign for the pitch by somebody stationed with binoculars and a walkie-talkie in the distant scoreboard, Thomson always insisted he did not know what was coming.
In those days before “Late Night with David Letterman” or the “Tonight Show,” Thomson took bows on “The Perry Como Show.” Then, he went back home to spend a quiet evening with his mom.
And, joined the rest of the Giants by losing the World Series to the Yankees.
Larry Hypes is a teacher at Tazewell High School and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.
Columns
August 28, 2010
Trigger man of ‘The Shot Heard ‘Round the World’ had lifelong memory
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