The Shot Heard Round the World

On October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a three-run home run off Ralph Branca in the bottom of the ninth inning at the Polo Grounds to win the National League pennant for the New York Giants. The shot erased a 4-2 deficit and gave the Giants a 5-4 victory in the decisive third game of the pennant playoff against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Radio announcer Russ Hodges screamed "The Giants win the pennant!" four times, his voice cracking with each repetition.

The Giants had entered August trailing the Dodgers by 13 and a half games. Their comeback remains one of the most improbable in baseball history. They won 37 of their final 44 games to force the three-game playoff, and in Game 3 they trailed 4-1 entering the bottom of the ninth before singles by Alvin Dark and Don Mueller put runners on the corners.

Dodgers manager Charlie Dressen pulled starter Don Newcombe and brought in Branca, who had given up a home run to Thomson in Game 1 of the playoff two days earlier. Thomson swung at a high inside fastball on the second pitch and drove it into the lower left-field stands. Dodgers left fielder Andy Pafko pressed his back against the wall and watched it disappear over his head.

Thomson's teammates mobbed him at home plate. In the Dodgers' clubhouse, Branca lay face down on the clubhouse steps. The two men became linked for the rest of their lives, appearing together at card shows and speaking engagements for decades. They developed a genuine friendship out of a moment that defined one man's greatest triumph and the other's deepest wound.