October 3, 1951.Although almost 5 years before my Mom and Dad were married, the date has a significance to me that bridges the gap between my Dad's youth and mine.
On that fateful (at least from a Brooklyn Dodger fan's perspective) autumn day in New York's Polo Grounds, the Giants capped the most improbable comeback in baseball history when Bobby Thomson pulled an 0-1 Ralph Branca fastball into the left field seats to seal a 5-4 victory and propel them to a World Series date with the Yankees. (The Giants lost the Series in 6 games.)
I'd heard the story over and over from my Dad (mostly at my request as his baseball-loving son). "We were up 13 1/2 games on August 11th," a reference to the fact that the Giants put together a 37-7 run from that point on to force a three-game playoff with their cross-town rival.
To this day my Dad, along with millions of others both baseball fan and not, remembers exactly where he was at 3:58pm that day. "Back of a Long Island Light truck," -- he worked for the utility company at the time.
It always fascinated me that he had such vivid memories of something that happened so long ago. It's one of the many reasons why I fell in love with baseball growing up. So when I ran across this book -- "The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World" -- in an O'Hare Airport book store, I decided to pick it up.
It's a great read, although extremely packed with details surrounding the event. One of the central themes of the book is the revelation (or more accurately confirmation) that the Giants had been stealing signs beginning on July 20, 1951. While that was a very interesting sub-plot, I enjoyed most the tracing of Thomson and Branca's lives before, during, and after the most famous home run of all-time.
If you love baseball, or even just that particular moment in time, and are patient enough to get through the sometimes overwhelming details that Prager uses to bring the characters and events to life on paper, you should enjoy this book.
I am also now motivated to read the rest of the baseball books in my collection. On deck: "Wait Til Next Year" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
