Thomson, Bobby (1923—)

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Thomson, Bobby (1923—)

Robert Brown "Bobby" Thomson played major league baseball from 1946 through 1960. On October 3, 1951, as a New York Giant, he belted a home run to win the National League Pennant in his team's final at-bat. That "shot heard round the world" became what many consider the most dramatic event in the history of American sports. The home run capped a thrilling pennant race between the New York Giants and their bitter rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. In front of a national television audience, Thomson and the Giants reveled in their victory just as New York delighted in its place at the cultural center of a thriving postwar America. But Thomson's home run retained significance well beyond the 1950s. Beginning in the 1970s, as Major League Baseball increasingly cloaked itself in the garb of nostalgia, the shot heard round the world symbolized a simpler America, where an average guy who lived with his mother on Staten Island could drive to Manhattan one autumn afternoon and return home a hero.

Bobby Thomson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 23, 1923. At the age of two, he moved with his mother and five siblings to join his father James in New York. James Thomson was a cabinet-maker who had moved to America to seek a better living. The Thomsons would struggle financially throughout Bobby's youth on Staten Island.

Thomson first played professionally, without much success, in the Giants' minor league organization in 1942. He then postponed his baseball career to join the U.S. Army Air Corps. After spending three years stationed in Victorville, California, he went to a Giants training camp for returning serviceman. The Giants assigned him to their Triple-A affiliate in Jersey City where he played for one year. After an outstanding rookie season with the Giants in 1947, Thomson showed only occasional flashes of brilliance. Critics accused him of harboring a nonchalant attitude that adversely affected his play. By 1951, Thomson seemed destined for an average career on a mediocre New York Giants team.

In the early part of the 1951 season, neither Thomson nor the Giants had improved. The Giants lost 12 of their first 14 games. Over that period Thomson hit a dismal.193. Although the Giants recovered from their disheartening start, in early August they found themselves a distant second, 13 1/2 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. The press and most fans predicted that the championship would go to Brooklyn. But on August 11, the Giants started a 16-game winning streak fueled by Thomson's hot hitting and climbed within reach of the Dodgers. The Giants caught the Dodgers with one day left in the season, and after the season's final game, the two teams remained tied for first place. New York and Brooklyn split the first two games of a three-game playoff series. The winner of the third game would take the National League pennant.

The deciding game started inauspiciously for the Giants, as they fell behind 4 to 1, thanks in part to Thomson's poor base running. The Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe appeared indestructible until the bottom of the ninth inning. After three base hits the Giants closed the gap to 4 to 2 and had base runners on second and third. With the winning run coming to the plate, and his pitcher clearly tiring, Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen made a call to the bullpen for Ralph Branca. With one out, Bobby Thomson stepped into the batter's box. Thomson watched Branca's first pitch blow past him for a strike. Branca's second pitch came in hard, high, and inside. Thomson lashed out at the ball, and it shot off his bat toward the left field wall. Russ Hodges, the Giants announcer, called the action on WMCA radio: "There's a long drive … it's gonna be … I believe … The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! I don't believe it! The Giants win the pennant!" Thomson claimed his feet never touched the ground as he circled the bases.

The shot heard round the world immediately gained legendary status, epitomizing New York's and America's postwar optimism. The series was the first sporting event to be telecast live from coast to coast, and its dramatic finish affirmed New York's place as the de facto capital of a thriving American culture. New York sportswriter Red Smith captured the euphoric sense of disbelief. "Now it is done," he wrote, "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." Bobby Thomson's home run spoke for a city and a nation where the impossible had become the attainable.

Bobby Thomson played solid baseball for eight more years, but never recaptured the glory of 1951. Following the 1953 season, the Giants traded him to Milwaukee. He played briefly for several other teams before retiring in 1960. Thomson settled in New Jersey with his wife Elaine and their three children, where he worked as a paper products salesman.

In the 1970s, amid salary disputes and escalating ticket prices, Major League Baseball began to market itself through nostalgia, attempting to connect the contemporary game to a mythical past. Thomson's homer became the crowning moment of that myth. The shot heard round the world symbolized a time of innocence and purity, when players played for the love of the game, and the fans loved their players—a time when the tall, plodding, immigrant son of a cabinetmaker could swing a bat and become a hero.

—Steven T. Sheehan