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Oct 03, 1951: Bobby Thomson's dramatic HR
Shot heard ‘round the world'
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK - "Branca throws. There's a long fly. It's gonna be I believe... THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!"
So many things came together that day to make Russ Hodges' radio play-by-play from New York's Polo Grounds arguably the most dramatic recording in sports history. It was the perfect storm; A New York Giants comeback from 13½ games down in August, a Brooklyn Dodgers' collapse, the third game of a best of three playoff to decide the pennant, the Giants' last chance in the bottom of the 9th down 4-2, two men on, one out. Second baseman Bobby Thomson with an 0-1 count. The next pitch he put in the left field seats. Oh, and there's the little thing about stealing signs from center field with a telescope, but that's another story.
Bobby Thomson hitting a home run wasn't so unusual. He hit 32 of them in 1951, 264 in a 15-year career. Thomson also had over a thousand RBI (1,026) in his career, and was a lifetime .270 hitter. Still, what happened at 3:58 p.m. Eastern Time on October 3, 1951 was as dramatic as anything that had ever happened in sports. The discovery of an audio recording of the play-by-play only intensified the drama. It's ironic that a recording of the radio broadcast is saved for posterity in that that game was one of the first to be televised nationally, but the TV broadcast was apparently not recorded.
http://www.todayinbaseball.com/cms/100310-thomson
Shot heard ‘round the world'
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK - "Branca throws. There's a long fly. It's gonna be I believe... THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!"
So many things came together that day to make Russ Hodges' radio play-by-play from New York's Polo Grounds arguably the most dramatic recording in sports history. It was the perfect storm; A New York Giants comeback from 13½ games down in August, a Brooklyn Dodgers' collapse, the third game of a best of three playoff to decide the pennant, the Giants' last chance in the bottom of the 9th down 4-2, two men on, one out. Second baseman Bobby Thomson with an 0-1 count. The next pitch he put in the left field seats. Oh, and there's the little thing about stealing signs from center field with a telescope, but that's another story.
Bobby Thomson hitting a home run wasn't so unusual. He hit 32 of them in 1951, 264 in a 15-year career. Thomson also had over a thousand RBI (1,026) in his career, and was a lifetime .270 hitter. Still, what happened at 3:58 p.m. Eastern Time on October 3, 1951 was as dramatic as anything that had ever happened in sports. The discovery of an audio recording of the play-by-play only intensified the drama. It's ironic that a recording of the radio broadcast is saved for posterity in that that game was one of the first to be televised nationally, but the TV broadcast was apparently not recorded.
http://www.todayinbaseball.com/cms/100310-thomson
