The other side of "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" story

THE SHOT: FROM THE DODGERS POINT OF VIEW

What a remarkably poignant and moving story from the perspective of legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. It truly demonstrates the value of displaying dignity in both victory and defeat.

Over the years, both Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca were certainly role models for their behavior during what had to be one of the the biggest "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" moments in baseball history.

Scully sure knows how to make it hard to hate the Dodgers.
WHAT AN AWESOME STORY.

FROM ESPN.COM

By Ramona Shelburne
ESPNLosAngeles.com

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=5472666

LOS ANGELES -- Vin Scully has been responsible for some of the most memorable calls in baseball history. Kirk Gibson's home run, Don Larsen's perfect game, Hank Aaron's 715th home run, Bill Buckner's muffed ground ball.

The Hall of Fame broadcaster was merely in the building for Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951.

Scully said that as soon as the ball was hit, he'd looked down to the club seats at Branca's fiance.

"Ann, Ralph's wife to be, was sitting in the club box," Scully said. "I knew she was there, so when the ball was hit and everything went crazy, I instinctively looked down there.

"I can remember it in order. Ann, when the ball went in the seats, opened up her purse, and rather calmly, took out a handkerchief, closed the purse, opened the handkerchief, and then buried her face in the handkerchief. I'll always remember that."

Branca, who was 25 at the time, handled the moment with tremendous dignity.

"To me, and again I'm coloring this perhaps out of friendship, the fellow who came out of that incident 10 feet tall was Ralph Branca," Scully said. "He was subject to every old-timers day, recreating the home run, blah, blah, blah. Their names were completely linked, you couldn't say one without the other.

"Although it was very easy to take bows, and Bobby [Thomson] did it very well. He didn't gloat or anything. He was a very unassuming hero. Ralph to me really carried the cross exceptionally well. One of the reasons, I think, I don't think it was the first Saturday, but certainly by the next [weekend], Ralph and Ann were getting married.

"I always thought, out of the ashes of this thing, Ralph just kept growing in stature because he took it so well."

In his book, The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard 'Round the World Joshua Prager relates how he was able to initially deal with the defeat. As they were leaving the park an hour or so after the game..

Ann sat in the backseat in tears, her father's second cousin Francis Rowley, a Jesuit priest, come to console her. Rowley turned to Branca.

"Forget it, Ralph" he said,..."It could have happened to anyone. You did your best."

Branca's mind cleared. He had lost the pennant.

A need to make sense of his lot welled in Branca. He had once been a great pitcher. And at twenty-five, he remained a good man. He did not smoke, did not cheat, and save an occasional highball, did not drink.

And so he answered Rowley, a man of the cloth, with a desperate and familiar question. "Yes, Father," he said "but why did it have to be me? Why me?"

Father Rowley,....he did not hesitate with his answer. "The reason God picked you to throw that pitch," he said, "was because He knew that your faith was strong enough to withstand the agonies that would follow. That you would know it was His will and you had done your best and no one could ask more of any man."

Branca listened. Here in a sedan in an empty parking lot in Harlem was an answer that made sense, that jibed with scripture and his world view and his sense of self, an answer elastic enough to accommodate all that was sure to follow. Here was a reply tantamount to a reprieve. The home run was a crucible. Fiancée at his side, Branca drove off.

Even fifty years after the moment, when a 2001 Wall Street Journal story alleged Giants sign stealing during that season came out, Branca maintained a high level of class and dignity. He and Thomson remained friends until Thomson's death. Thomson never admitted to knowing what pitch was coming from Branca.

Sad News for Giants fans....Bobby Thomson died today

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

WILL BIG BROWN BE THIS GENERATIONS BIG RED?

We'll soon find out, in one respect he is now one step closer with the news that his most worthy challenger, Casino Drive, has been scratched.

Big Red is now in a Belmont field that seemingly has only one remaining threat to win in Dennis of Cork. When Secretariat blistered through the 1973 Belmont field, only Sham was considered worthy enough to upset the Triple Crown express.

What Secretariat did as far as winning the Triple Crown in and of itself was not so surprising, it was the way he did it. Winning the Derby over Sham, with the phenomenal performance of successfully faster quarter times and and the under 2 minute total race time, whetted people's appetite.

In the Preakness, he goes from fourth to first in the blink of an eye, while rounding a turn, an astounding feat of acceleration past his peers.

In the weeks leading up to the Belmont Stakes, Secretariat appears on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated, achieving rock star status and setting the stage for the Belmont Stakes.

With the entire horse racing world and most of the rest of the sports viewing public now engaged, Secretariat stands ready to make his immortal run to history.

Now understand that, normally the phrase "and down the stretch they come", with any number of horses thundering down the homestretch vying for victory, is about as spine-tingling, hair on the back of your neck standing, awe-inspiring phrase as we have in sports.

But literally no sports call, short of the call of Bobby Thompson's home-run to culminate the "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff", can makes me to this day stand steadfastly still--a body-trembling, jaw-dropping paralysis--filled with a combination of emotion and inspiration, quite like the following track announcers call that brings Secretariat down the back stretch and into horse racing immortality:

“Secretariat is widening now, he is moving like a tremendous machine! Secretariat by twelve. Secretariat by fourteen lengths on the turn....Secretariat is all alone, he’s out there almost a sixteenth of a mile in front of the other horses.....He is into the stretch, he leads the field by eighteen lengths....Secretariat has opened to a twenty-two length lead. He is going to be the next Triple Crown winner! Here comes Secretariat to the wire! An unbelievable, an amazing performance! He hits the finish, twenty-five lengths!”



Secretariat gave us a chance to turn away somewhat from some of the "more important" events of the day.

We had virtually wrapped up our involvement in Vietnam and some of the emotional scars that divided our involvement in that war were still open and raw.

We had President Nixon in office and the Watergate scandal was developing as a daily distraction.

We had what would later form the so-called misery index of high unemployment, high inflation and high interest rates combined with low self esteem, low national pride and lower expectations for the future. Our leaders seemed clueless to find solutions to our nations problems.

Sound familiar? Sound like history repeating?

But for a couple of weeks at least--in a way that sports does as well as any past time in this country can do in a positive way--Secretariat provided an uplifting backdrop to temporarily escape from some of the madness going on in our lives.

And he gave us a chance to hope and dream again, when for a time it seemed like we had forgotten how to nestle into dreams without waking up to our real-life nightmare.

Well maybe today, Big Brown has his chance to be this generations "Big Red"--to do for this country's sports viewing public what Secretariat did for our generation 35 years ago--provide hope and inspiration. It's a tall order, but we really didn't expect Secretariat to do that for us.

But that's one of the reasons why they run the races and play the games...and it's one of the reasons why we watch...because you never really know in advance when you're going to witness history in the making.

Go Big Brown, rise up and make history.....