http://www.silive.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/08/bobby_thomson_immortalized_by.htm
Bobby Thomson, the New York baseball legend who called Staten Island home and hit perhaps the most famous home run of all-time -- the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" to win the 1951 pennant for the New York Giants -- died Monday night at the age of 86.
Immortalized in Giants and baseball lore with the "Shot Heard 'Round the World". One of the most famous HR's in baseball history. I wasn't even born, but as a Giants fan hearing Russ Hodges call of the shot and reading about the history of the Giants famous comeback that season -- The Little Miracle of Coogan's Bluff -- is timeless and just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
The Giants closed a 13 1/2 game deficit on July 4th of that season to force a three-game playoff that culminated in Thomson's HR. A 20-year old rookie CF Willie Mays--whose call-up aided the Giants comeback season enormously--knelt nervously, admittedly trembling under the stress, in the on-deck circle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_Heard_'Round_the_World_(baseball)
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, winning 37 of the last 44 games, including the last seven in a row. Only a 14-inning victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, the previous year's league champions, on the last day of the regular season enabled the Dodgers to force the best-of-three-games showdown.
Brooklyn won the coin toss to decide home-field advantage in the series. Controversially, manager Charlie Dressen 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.
1951 World Series Giants Win Pennant
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