Shot Heard 'Round the World (baseball)

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, the "Shot Heard 'round the World" is the term given to the walk-off home run

Walk-off home run

In baseball, a walk-off home run is a home run that ends the game. It must be a home run that gives the home team the lead in the bottom of the final inning of the game—either the ninth inning, or any extra inning, or any other regularly scheduled final inning...

hit by New York Giants

1951 New York Giants (MLB) season

The New York Giants season saw the Giants finish the regular season in a tie for first place in the National League with a record of 96 wins and 58 losses. This prompted a three-game playoff against the Brooklyn Dodgers, which the Giants won in three games, clinched by Bobby Thomson's walk-off...

outfielder

Outfielder

Outfielder is a generic term applied to each of the people playing in the three defensive positions in baseball farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder...

Bobby Thomson

Robert Brown "Bobby" Thomson was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Staten Island Scot", he was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants , Milwaukee Braves , Chicago Cubs , Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles .His season-ending three-run...

off Brooklyn Dodgers

1951 Brooklyn Dodgers season

The Brooklyn Dodgers led the National League for much of the season, holding a 13 game lead as late as August. However, a late season swoon and a hot streak by the New York Giants led to a classic three-game playoff series...

pitcher

Pitcher

In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throwsthe baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the...

Ralph Branca

Ralph Theodore Joseph Branca is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball.From 1944 through 1956, Branca played for the Brooklyn Dodgers , Detroit Tigers , and New York Yankees...

at the Polo Grounds

Polo Grounds

The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...

to win the National League

National League

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...

pennant

Pennant (sports)

A pennant is a commemorative flag typically used to show support for a particular athletic team. Pennants have been historically used in all types of athletic levels: high school, collegiate, professional etc. Traditionally, pennants were made of felt and fashioned in the official colors of a...

at 3:58 p.m. EST on October 3, 1951.
As a result of the "shot", the Giants won the game 5-4, defeating the Dodgers in their pennant playoff series

1951 National League tie-breaker series

The 1951 National League tie-breaker series was a three-game series played at the conclusion of the 1951 Major League Baseball season between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers...

, 2 games to 1. It is one of the most famous moments in Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

history.

The phrase shot heard 'round the world

Shot heard round the world

The "Shot heard 'round the world" is a phrase that has come to represent several historical incidents. The line is originally from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" , and referred to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War...

is from the poem "Concord Hymn

Concord Hymn

"Concord Hymn" is an 1837 poem by American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was written for a memorial to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.-Background:...

" (1837) by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

, originally used to refer to the first clash of the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

and since used to apply to other dramatic moments, military and otherwise. The use of the phrase with regard to Thomson's home run may have been inspired in part by the high number of U.S. servicemen who listened to the game on Armed Forces Radio while stationed in Korea

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

.

Thomson's homer, and the Giants' victory after overcoming a double-digit lead in the standings by the Dodgers in the weeks preceding the playoff, are also sometimes known as the "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff

Coogan's Bluff

Coogan's Bluff is the name of a promontory located in upper Manhattan in New York City, starting at 155th Street. Rising abruptly from the Harlem River, it is colloquially regarded as the boundary between the neighborhoods of Harlem and Washington Heights....

The game

Polo Grounds

The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...

The tiebreaker was not a playoff in the current postseason

Major League Baseball postseason

The Major League Baseball postseason is an elimination tournament held after the conclusion of Major League Baseball's regular season. It consists of one best-of-five series and two best-of-seven series...

sense, but an extension of the regular season – game statistics counted in the season records (several one-game tiebreakers

One-game playoff

A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff or play-in game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a post-season tournament...

have been played under the same circumstances). It had to be played because the Giants and the crosstown rival Dodgers finished the regular season with a 96-58 record.

On August 11, Brooklyn had held a 13½-game lead on the Giants, but the Giants turned around and won their next 16 games. While Brooklyn finished the season on a 26–22 clip, the Giants put together a streak almost unequalled in baseball history and went 37-7 in their last 44 games. Only a 14-inning victory over the Philadelphia Phillies

Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...

, the previous year's league champions, on the last day of the regular season enabled the Dodgers to force the best-of-three showdown.

Brooklyn won the coin toss to decide home-field advantage in the series. Controversially, manager Charlie Dressen

Chuck Dressen

Charles Walter Dressen , known as both "Chuck" and "Charlie," was an American third baseman, manager and coach in professional baseball during a career that lasted almost fifty years, and was best known as the manager of the powerful Brooklyn Dodgers of 1951–1953...

opted to play only the first game at home, rather than the last two; he reasoned that if the Dodgers won their only home game, they would need to win only one out of two on the road.

The Giants won the first game 3-1 at Ebbets Field

Ebbets Field

Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball park located in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, USA, on a city block which is now considered to be part of the Crown Heights neighborhood. It was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League. It was also a venue for professional football...

, with Thomson spearheading the New York offense with a 2-run home run off Branca. When the series moved to the Polo Grounds, the Dodgers won the second game 10-0 on a complete-game shutout by rookie hurler Clem Labine

Clem Labine

Clement Walter Labine was an American right-handed relief pitcher in Major League Baseball best known for his years with the Brooklyn & Los Angeles Dodgers from 1950 to 1960...

.

For the third game, the Giants' 23-game winner Sal Maglie

Sal Maglie

Salvatore Anthony Maglie was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. He played from 1945-1958 for the New York Giants, Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, and St. Louis Cardinals. Maglie was known as "Sal the Barber", because he gave close shaves—that is, pitched inside to...

would face Brooklyn's Don Newcombe

Don Newcombe

Donald Newcombe , nicknamed "Newk", is an American former Major League Baseball right-handed starting pitcher who played for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers , Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians .Until 2011 when Detroit Tigers Pitcher Justin Verlander did it, Newcombe was the only baseball...

in a battle of aces. In the first inning, Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

singled home Pee Wee Reese

Pee Wee Reese

Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from to . A ten-time All Star, Reese contributed to seven National League championships for the Dodgers and, was inducted...

for the first run of the game. In the bottom of the seventh, Thomson tied the game with a sacrifice fly

Sacrifice fly

In baseball, a sacrifice fly is a batted ball that satisfies four criteria:* There are fewer than two outs when the ball is hit.* The ball is hit to the outfield....

, scoring Monte Irvin

Monte Irvin

Monford Merrill "Monte" Irvin is a former left fielder and right-handed batter in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball who played with the Newark Eagles , New York Giants and Chicago Cubs .-Biography:Although born in Haleburg, Alabama, Irvin grew up in Orange, New Jersey, one of five...

. In the eighth, the Dodgers touched the exhausted Maglie for 3 runs and headed to the bottom of the ninth with an apparently secure 4-1 lead.

Newcombe, however, was showing the effects of overuse in the season's final days. He had pitched a complete game the previous Saturday, then thrown 5⅔ innings in relief the next day in the season finale. Pitching on only 2 days' rest and tiring badly, he attempted to take himself out of the game, only to have Robinson talk him into trying to finish the inning.

The Giants shortstop Alvin Dark

Alvin Dark

Alvin Ralph Dark , nicknamed "Blackie" and "The Swamp Fox", is a former shortstop and manager in Major League Baseball who played for five National League teams from 1946 to 1960. Named the major leagues' Rookie of the Year with the Boston Braves when he batted .322...

singled to start the rally. As Bud Greenspan pointed out in Play It Again, Bud (p. 78-83), the Dodgers may have made a crucial strategic mistake. First baseman Gil Hodges

Gil Hodges

Gilbert Ray Hodges was an American Major League Baseball first baseman and manager. During an 18-year baseball career, he played in 1943 and from 1947–63, spending most of his career with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers...

was playing close to the bag, but with a 3-run lead, the normal strategy would have been to position for a possible double play. With a large gap in the right side of the infield, Don Mueller

Don Mueller

Donald Frederick Mueller is a retired outfielder who played 12 seasons in American Major League Baseball . The first ten of those years were spent with the New York Giants, for whom he batted over .300 for three consecutive seasons and led the National League in hits in 1954...

placed a single through that gap, past the diving Hodges, and Dark ran from first to third. Instead of a possible rally-killing double play, the Dodgers found themselves facing the potential tying run at the plate with 2 on and nobody out. But with a chance to drive in a run, Irvin, who led the NL that year with 121 RBI, chased the first pitch and popped out (Greenspan argued that could have been the season-ending 3rd out).

However, Whitey Lockman

Whitey Lockman

Carroll Walter "Whitey" Lockman was a player, coach, manager and front office executive in American Major League Baseball.-Role in miraculous 1951 comeback:...

followed with a double down the left-field line, driving in Dark and advancing Mueller to third. Mueller slid awkwardly into the bag and broke his ankle, forcing the Giants to send in Clint Hartung

Clint Hartung

Clinton Clarence Hartung was a right-handed pitcher and right fielder in Major League Baseball who played with the New York Giants from 1947 to 1952. His name has become associated with promising rookies who have undistinguished careers...

to pinch-run for him. Dressen finally pulled the spent Newcombe and went to the bullpen, where Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine

Carl Erskine

Carl Daniel Erskine is a former right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn & Los Angeles Dodgers from 1948 through 1959...

were warming up. Dodger bullpen coach Clyde Sukeforth

Clyde Sukeforth

Clyde Leroy Sukeforth , nicknamed "Sukey," was a former Major League Baseball catcher, coach, scout and manager who was best known for scouting and signing the Major Leagues' first black player in the modern era, Jackie Robinson.Sukeforth was born in Washington, Maine...

noticed Erskine bouncing his curve and instructed Dressen to bring Branca into the game. The move has bewildered baseball historians to this day (and, combined with the positioning of Hodges, was possibly at least the second questionable decision by Dressen that inning, and resulted in Sukeforth being fired shortly thereafter). Branca had pitched and lost Game 1 of the tiebreaker on a Thomson home run (something Dodgers' fans were painfully aware of at the time) and had given up several home runs that year to Thomson, who had hit 31 during the season. However, in Dressen's defense, he had few decently rested pitchers available; in the last regular-season game alone the Dodgers sent 7 men to the mound.

Branca's first pitch was a fastball down the middle for a strike. His second pitch was a fastball up and in to Thomson, intended as a setup for his planned next pitch, a breaking ball down and away. But Thomson yanked the fastball down the left-field line and toward the invitingly close outfield fence, with the foul line a mere 279 feet from home plate (unmarked), and a roll-up door in the 17-foot wall with a 315 marker posted, some 30 or 40 feet out from the foul line.

Andy Pafko

Andy Pafko

Andrew Pafko is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball. From 1943 through 1959, Pafko played for the Chicago Cubs , Brooklyn Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves . He batted and threw right-handed...

, the Dodgers' left fielder, rushed toward the fence, thinking the rapidly sinking line drive

Line drive

In baseball, a line drive is a type of batted ball, sharply hit, and on a level trajectory. The threshold between a line drive and a fly ball can be subjective....

might bounce off the wall. Instead, the ball disappeared into the stands for a game-ending 3-run home run, just above the 315 marker. With one swing of Thomson's bat, near-certain defeat had turned into sudden victory and a pennant for the Giants.

Seeing the ball disappear over the fence, Thomson hopped crazily around the bases, then disappeared into the mob of jubilant teammates who had gathered at home plate. The stunned Dodger players trudged off the field - all except Robinson. No doubt knowing of "Merkle's Boner" 43 years earlier, he watched to be sure Thomson touched every base before he too headed for the clubhouse.

As has often been pointed out, waiting on deck to bat behind Thomson was a young man who would hit many home runs of his own: a 20-year-old rookie named Willie Mays

Willie Mays

Willie Howard Mays, Jr. is a retired American professional baseball player who played the majority of his major league career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his...

The broadcasts

Several television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

and radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

broadcasters captured the moment for baseball fans in the New York City area and nationwide. Excerpts from three radio accounts were played during the second hour of the October 6, 1991 installment of the Costas

Bob Costas

Robert Quinlan "Bob" Costas is an American sportscaster, on the air for the NBC network since the early 1980s.-Early life:...

Coast to Coast syndicated radio show. Russ Hodges

Russ Hodges

Russell Patrick Hodges was an American broadcaster who did play-by-play for several baseball teams, most notably the New York and San Francisco Giants.-Early career:...

' call, which was the most famous of the three, was played last, but only to the extent of Thomson's climactic at bat

At bat

In baseball, an at bat or time at bat is used to calculate certain statistics, including batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. It is a more restricted definition of a plate appearance...

. The segment of Red Barber

Red Barber

Walter Lanier "Red" Barber was an American sportscaster.Barber, nicknamed "The Ol' Redhead", was primarily identified with radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball, calling play-by-play across four decades with the Cincinnati Reds , Brooklyn Dodgers , and New York Yankees...

's version started with the final out of the Dodgers' ninth and continued through both the live Schaefer Beer

Schaefer Beer

Schaefer Beer is a brand of American beer. Schaefer Beer was first produced in 1842 by the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company. The name "Schaefer" is derived from the last name of founding brothers Frederick and Maximiliam Schaefer....

commercial read by his broadcast partner Connie Desmond

Connie Desmond

Cornelius "Connie" Desmond was an American Major League Baseball radio broadcaster, primarily for the Brooklyn Dodgers.Desmond began hiscareer in 1932 as the voice of the minor league Toledo Mud Hens...

and the entire bottom half of the inning. The portions from Gordon McLendon

Gordon McLendon

Gordon Barton McLendon was a radio pioneer and pirate radio broadcaster. He has been coined the Maverick of Radio. McLendon is widely credited for perfecting, with great commercial success, the Top 40 radio format during the 1950s and 1960s which was first invented by Todd Storz and for developing...

's broadcast included his buildup to the first pitch, Maglie's strikeout of Carl Furillo

Carl Furillo

Carl Anthony Furillo , nicknamed "The Reading Rifle" and "Skoonj," was a right fielder in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers...

to start the game, Thomson's baserunning blunder in the bottom of the second and the decisive homer. Copies of the audio and/or visual of the telecast are currently not known to exist.

Some sources claim additional radio broadcasts were done by Al Helfer

Al Helfer

George Alvin Helfer was an American radio sportscaster.Nicknamed "Mr. Radio Baseball", Helfer worked six World Series, ten All-Star Games, and regular season broadcasts for several teams and the Mutual network...

for the Mutual

Major League Baseball on Mutual

Major League Baseball on Mutual was the de facto title of the Mutual Broadcasting System's national radio coverage of Major League Baseball games. Mutual's coverage came about during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. During this period, television sports broadcasting was in its...

network, by Buck Canel

Buck Canel

Eloy "Buck" Canel was an American Spanish language sportscaster of Major League Baseball games. Canel was born in Argentina when his father was working for the Spain consulate in that country. He won the 1985 Ford C. Frick Award. He began his career in journalism...

and Felo Ramírez

Felo Ramírez

Rafael Ramírez is the Cuban-American Spanish language radio voice of the Miami Marlins. Ramirez is also a boxing expert, having broadcast fights for Latin American radio and television audiences since 1948 .Ramírez was born in Bayamo, Cuba, and is commonly known as "El Orgullo de...

for a Spanish language

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

network, and by Nat Allbright

Nat Allbright

Nathan Matthew "Nat" Allbright was an American sports announcer who specialized in doing play-by-play radio broadcasts of games that he had never seen, using information sent using Morse code from the stadiums where the games were played to provide listeners with vivid recreations of the actual...

in a studio re-creation for the Dodgers' secondary network in the South. Harry Caray

Harry Caray

Harry Caray, born Harry Christopher Carabina, was an American baseball broadcaster on radio and television. He covered four Major League Baseball teams, beginning with a long tenure calling the games of the St...

was in the Giants' radio booth with Hodges and may have also participated in the broadcast.

Ernie Harwell

William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell was an American sportscaster, known for his long career calling play-by-play of Major League Baseball games. For 55 years, 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell called the action on radio and/or television...

called the game for Giants television flagship WPIX

WPIX

WPIX, channel 11, is a television station in New York City built, signed on, and owned by the Tribune Company. WPIX also serves as the flagship station of The CW Television Network...

—the independent station's broadcast was carried nationally on the NBC network, the first coast-to-coast live telecast of a Major League Baseball game—and his description of the home run was a simple shout of "It's gone!" almost at the moment Thomson's bat struck the ball. Harwell later admitted he had probably called it "too soon", but fortunately for him, the call proved to be correct. "And then," Harwell recalled, "the pictures took over."

Red Barber

Meanwhile, Dodgers announcer Red Barber

Red Barber

, calling the game for WMGM-AM

WEPN

WEPN is a 24-hour sports talk formatted radio station in New York City featuring national and local sports talk programs and live broadcasts of sports matches. It is the New York affiliate for ESPN Radio...

, straightforwardly said, "Branca pumps, delivers - a curve, swung on and belted, deep shot to left field—it is—a HOME RUN! And the New York Giants win the National League pennant and the Polo Grounds goes wild!" This was followed by about a minute of amplified crowd noise. Barber, who was known for a relatively low-key play-by-play approach, later criticized the famous Hodges rendition as being questionable journalism.

Russ Hodges

Russell Patrick Hodges was an American broadcaster who did play-by-play for several baseball teams, most notably the New York and San Francisco Giants.-Early career:...

, broadcasting the game on WMCA-AM

WMCA

WMCA, 570 AM, is a radio station in New York City, most known for its "Good Guys" Top 40 era in the 1960s. It is currently owned by Salem Communications and plays a Christian radio format...

radio for Giants fans, seemed perhaps the least likely man to immortalize the play; the broadcast was not national and Hodges was considered calm-voiced rather than excitable. Nonetheless, it was his call that captured the suddenness and exultation of the home run:
The main reason the WMCA call was recorded and saved for posterity was that a Brooklyn-based fan asked his mother to record the end of game. An urban legend says that Lawrence Goldberg was a Dodger fan who sought to torture a friend who was a Giants fan by capturing and replaying Russ Hodges' heartbreak from a Giants' loss. In reality, Goldberg himself had been a Giant fan since childhood.

Gordon McLendon

Furthermore, only a tiny minority of people actually heard the Hodges call live. Most heard Gordon McLendon

Gordon McLendon

's call on the Liberty Broadcasting System

Liberty Broadcasting System

The Liberty Broadcasting System was a U.S. radio network of the late 1940s and early 1950s founded by Gordon McLendon, which mainly broadcast live recreations of Major League Baseball games, by following the action via Western Union ticker reports. The sound effects were very realistic, and many...

, which was carrying the game nationally. McClendon's account (complete with a similarly hair-raising yell of "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!") remains the only complete broadcast account of the third game. That recording is available on Harwell's "Audio Scrapbook". His own call was not recorded. The McClendon call, in addition to being similar in tone to Hodges' call, is also a better-quality recording, having been recorded professionally instead of on a home recorder.

Afterward

Afterward, sportswriter Red Smith

Red Smith (sportswriter)

For other uses, see: Red Smith Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith was an American sportswriter who rose to become one of America's most widely read sports columnists.-Career:After graduating from Green Bay East High School, site of Packers home games until 1957, Smith moved on to...

opened his recap of the game for the New York Herald Tribune

New York Herald Tribune

The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...

with the following lead:

"Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again."

The official attendance of the third game was 34,320, a shockingly low number considering the importance of the game, the location of the opposing team (just a 45-minute subway ride from the Polo Grounds), and the bitter rivalry between the two teams. However, most historians agree this figure represents only the number tickets sold before the game, and does not account for the New Yorkers and Brooklynites who had left work early and gone to the Polo Grounds. Careful study of photographs and film of the event show that the 56,000-seat stadium was nearly full, and McLendon's live broadcast features him commenting more than once that the Polo Grounds was packed.

An article recapping the game in the New York Daily News

New York Daily News

The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

on October 4 was accompanied by the headline, "The Shot Heard 'Round the Baseball World". The phrase quickly spread to other media, and soon became a widely-recognized slogan for Thomson's homer.

The Giants advanced to the 1951 World Series

1951 World Series

The 1951 World Series matched the two-time defending champion New York Yankees against the New York Giants, who had won the National League pennant in a thrilling three-game playoff with the Brooklyn Dodgers on the legendary home run by Bobby Thomson .In the Series, the Yankees showed some power of...

, but their miracle season would end on a down note, with the team losing to the New York Yankees

1951 New York Yankees season

The New York Yankees season was the 49th season for the team in New York, and its 51st season overall. The team finished with a record of 98-56, winning their 18th pennant, finishing five games ahead of the Cleveland Indians. New York was managed by Casey Stengel. The Yankees played at Yankee...

in six games.

Sign-stealing

In February 2001, Joshua Harris Prager of the Wall Street Journal reported that the Giants had positioned coach Herman Franks

Herman Franks

Herman Louis Franks was a catcher, coach, manager, general manager and scout in American Major League Baseball. He was born in Price, Utah.-Catcher with Cardinals, Dodgers and A's:...

with a telescope in the Giants' clubhouse during the latter half of the season, including the game itself, and had stolen the pitching signs of the Dodger catcher

Catcher

Catcher is a position for a baseball or softball player. When a batter takes his turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. This is a catcher's primary duty, but he is also called upon to master many other skills in order to...

, Rube Walker

Rube Walker

Albert Bluford "Rube" Walker was an American Major League Baseball catcher and longtime pitching coach....

, subbing for the injured Roy Campanella

Roy Campanella

Roy Campanella , nicknamed "Campy", was an American baseball player, primarily at the position of catcher, in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball...

in the playoff game. Prager concluded that the spy had signalled pitches to the Giants' batters, including Thomson, thus enabling Thomson to know in advance what pitch Branca was going to throw him. According to Prager's research, Franks was hidden in Giant manager Leo Durocher

Leo Durocher

Leo Ernest Durocher , nicknamed Leo the Lip, was an American infielder and manager in Major League Baseball. Upon his retirement, he ranked fifth all-time among managers with 2,009 career victories, second only to John McGraw in National League history. Durocher still ranks tenth in career wins by...

's office, which was positioned in the Polo Grounds

Polo Grounds

The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...

center field and offered a line-of-sight view of the catcher. A buzzer system was installed so that Franks could signal a player in the Giants' bullpen, located on the field of play in deep left field. The player would then signal the batter as to what pitch was coming.

However, acknowledging that sign-stealing was not made a violation of rules by Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

, and that it had been a part of baseball since the inception of signs as a means of communication between pitcher and catcher, Prager in an interview with CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

on February 3, 2001, left it to readers to determine if the sign-stealing, which Thomson denied, diminished the stature of the event. While the Prager article said that MLB had formally outlawed sign-stealing in the 1960s, his followup book in 2006, The Echoing Green, notes that the major leagues to this writing have not outlawed the practice.

The burden of uncovering sign-stealers is consigned to the opposing team, typically the visiting team. The fact that the visiting teams won the first two games of the playoff series raises the question of how effective the alleged sign-stealing really was. Nonetheless, Prager points out in The Echoing Green that Thomson hit over .100 higher after the sign stealing scheme began in July 1951 and "no doubt" received advanced notice of the two fastballs Branca threw at him that day.

Artifacts

Some of the artifacts from this moment have been accounted for. The Hall of Fame

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests serving as the central point for the study of the history of baseball in the United States and beyond, the display of...

has an exhibit dedicated to The Shot; reportedly, a majority of the visitors to the Hall ask specifically about the location of that exhibit.

The bat that Thomson used, and the shoes he wore, are at the aforementioned Hall exhibit.
The location of the ball is unknown. The father of documentary filmmaker and author Brian Biegel thought that a ball that he bought at a thrift store might be the ball from The Shot. Biegel then embarked on a project to attempt to authenticate the ball. Ultimately, he was unable to confirm his father's purchase as the historic ball. He chronicled this project in a book, Miracle Ball, that was released in May 2011, plus a documentary film.
Thomson's jersey is most likely in the collection of Dan Scheinman, a technology consultant and sports memorabilia collector who owns a small stake in the Giants. In 2005, he bought two 1951 Giants jerseys from Thomson, who told him he knew he had worn them in that year's World Series, but could not remember whether he had worn one of them for The Shot. According to ESPN.com writer Paul Lukas, Scheinman "wouldn't represent the jersey as being Shot-worn unless he could prove it, and he wouldn't disclose Thomson's sale of the jersey while Thomson was still alive." In September 2011, more than a year after Thomson's death, Scheinman told Lukas that he was now "about 90 percent" sure he had the historic jersey.

Pop culture references

The Shot Heard 'Round the World ranked #2 of ESPN

ESPN

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

's SportsCentury Ten Greatest Games of the 20th Century and has been frequently used in pop culture. In the movie The Godfather

The Godfather

The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...

, when Sonny Corleone

Sonny Corleone

Santino "Sonny" Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather and its 1972 film adaptation. He also appears as an infant, as a young boy, and an adult in The Godfather Part II....

(played by James Caan) stops at the toll booth on the causeway, just moments before he's gunned down, the attendant is listening to Russ Hodges' commentary of the game seconds before Bobby Thomson hits the home run. This is an anachronism

Anachronism

An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...

since, according to the story, Corleone was killed in 1948.

The novel Underworld

Underworld (DeLillo novel)

Underworld is a postmodern novel published in 1997 by Don DeLillo. It was nominated for the National Book Award, was a best-seller, and is one of DeLillo's better-known novels....

by Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...

opens on October 3, 1951, when a young man named Cotter Martin sneaks in to watch the game. In baseball the ultimate fate of the ball Thomson hit is unknown, but in DeLillo's world, Cotter Martin wrestles this incredibly valuable treasure away from another fan he had just befriended.

The ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

television show Sports Night

Sports Night

Sports Night is an American television series about a fictional sports news show also called Sports Night. It focuses on the friendships, pitfalls, and ethical issues the creative talent of the program face while trying to produce a good show under constant network pressure...

used the Shot Heard 'Round the World in its episode "The Giants Win the Pennant, the Giants Win the Pennant", written by series creator Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Social Network, and Moneyball.After graduating from Syracuse...

and former Roseanne

Roseanne (TV series)

Roseanne is an American sitcom broadcast on ABC from October 18, 1988 to May 20, 1997. Starring Roseanne Barr, the show revolved around the Conners, an Illinois working class family...

writer Matt Tarses. When Sports Night anchor Dan Rydell (played by Josh Charles) finds out that his boss Isaac Jaffe (played by Robert Guillaume

Robert Guillaume

Robert "Bob" Guillaume is an American stage and television actor, best known for his role as Benson Du Bois on the TV-series Soap and the spin-off Benson, voicing the mandrill Rafiki in The Lion King and as Isaac Jaffe on Sports Night...

) had been at the Giants game, he wants to use him in a feature story, despite Isaac's protests. Dan eventually learns that, as a cub reporter Jaffe did cover the game, but missed the crucial ball - he was in the bathroom washing his hands because Branca was said to be notorious for taking his time warming up before pitching.

In the M*A*S*H episode "A War for all Seasons", the previously baseball-apathetic Major Charles Winchester is encouraged by Corporal Klinger to invest heavily in wagers that the Dodgers will win the pennant, and is subsequently heartbroken by the loss."I can not believe I allowed myself to invest in men named Duke

Duke Snider

Edwin Donald "Duke" Snider , nicknamed "The Silver Fox" and "The Duke of Flatbush", was a Major League Baseball center fielder and left-handed batter who played for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers , New York Mets , and San Francisco Giants .Snider was elected to the National Baseball Hall of...

, Newk

Don Newcombe

, and Pee Wee

Pee Wee Reese

". He initially listens to the game on the radio, which features a latter-day re-creation of Hodges' call. (At the very end of the episode the M*A*S*H people watch a Fox Movietone News replay

Rerun

A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...

of the game. When Thomson's home run scene appears, along with Hodges' recorded commentary, Winchester growls insanely, slashes the screen, and, still angry with Klinger, bellows, "Where is that Lebanese

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

mongoose?" Fade out.)

On an episode of The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years is an American television comedy-drama created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens. It ran for six seasons on ABC from 1988 through 1993. The pilot aired on January 31, 1988 after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII....

, during baseball tryouts Kevin Arnold is relieved of pressure upon knowing he will not make the team, and in his last at bat belts a home run as the call to Thomson's famous home run is heard.

In the movie Deconstructing Harry

Deconstructing Harry

Deconstructing Harry is a black comedy film by Woody Allen released in 1997. This film tells the story of a successful writer called Harry Block, played by Allen himself, who draws inspiration from people he knows in real-life, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to...

, Woody Allen

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

's character receives the ball, autographed by the team, as a birthday present from his girlfriend.

External links

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