October 1, 1951: Thomson, Giants get best of Branca, Dodgers in NL playoff opener

At 9:30 on the evening of September 30, 1951, the New York Giants, having clinched a tie for the National League pennant that afternoon in Boston by winning their seventh straight game, arrived at Grand Central Station to a welcoming crowd of approximately 2,500. Forty minutes earlier the Brooklyn Dodgers, who salvaged a tie for first on the strength of Jackie Robinson‘s 14th-inning home run at Shibe Park, returned to an estimated 11,000 at Penn Station. A three-game playoff would begin the next afternoon at Ebbets Field. “It’s a new season,” Giants vice president Chub Feeney said. “We eliminated six teams and now we play for the championship. Just like hockey and basketball.”1

Giants manager Leo Durocher chose sinkerballer Jim Hearn as his starting pitcher for Game One, adding, “I’ll have everybody in the bullpen today except Sal Maglie and Larry Jansen.”2 Durocher’s rival manager, Charlie Dressen, chose between youth and age: “It might have been Clem Labine, the youngster, but in the clutch Dressen preferred (Ralph) Branca’s experience,” observed a sportswriter.3 Branca had already pitched in Sunday evening’s game, giving up two runs in 1⅓ innings. From August 12, when the Giants’ comeback started, Hearn had a 7-2 record, while Branca went 3-9.4

Thirteen-year-old Dodger fan Sheldon Goodman got the festivities started in Brooklyn overnight by scaling the Ebbets Field fence and evading the Dodger security.5 Then, “(t)he girl at the switchboard downstairs said she had to fight her way through a mob to get into the park at 7:45 a.m.”6 Things grew only more hectic later that morning: “Up McKeever Place, down Sullivan Place and along Bedford Ave. the fans pushed and pulled in the obviously doomed attempt to squeeze what some estimated to be 50,000 persons into a ball park designed for fewer than 35,000. Within two hours after tickets went on sale at 9 A.M., all 17,400 reserved seats were sold out.”7 One Dodger rooter from Youngstown, Ohio, said, “Me, I’m the only Dodger fan in town, in the county. Why? Guess it’s them (Red) Barber and (Connie) Desmond fellas.

They won me over.” A Giant fan in line proclaimed, “All year I’ve been taking a beating, but today is my day. We’ll take them in two straight. Then Yankees – look out!”8

The Ebbets Field crowd of 30,707 included General and Mrs. Douglas MacArthur, five months after returning to the United States from Asia. The five-star general, who had attended Yankee, Giant and Dodger games throughout the 1951 campaign, said, “I have shooed three teams along this year and here they are all under the wire. I can’t lose.”9

New Yorkers unable to get a ticket could watch the game on WOR-TV, while fans across the United States could watch on the NBC network in a TV milestone. Twelve years after the first major-league baseball game was telecast from Ebbets Field, the Dodgers’ ballpark hosted the first coast-to-coast network baseball broadcast as microwave relay and coaxial cables transmitted the first playoff game over the NBC network. “Some of the local frenzy over the Dodger-Giant play-off may rub off on the rest of the country,” the Herald Tribune predicted.10

Prior to the game, the Dodgers physician injected Roy Campanella‘s right thigh muscle with Novocain. The Brooklyn catcher had injured it during the Phillies game and, according to the Daily News, was “limping at a crab’s pace.”11

Robinson, in honor of his previous evening’s performance in Philadelphia, received an ovation from the Ebbets Field crowd when he stepped to the plate with two outs in the first – and, when Pee Wee Reese ended the frame by being caught stealing, was given a second ovation when he walked to the plate to complete his at-bat to open the bottom of the second.12

The Dodgers got on the board two batters later, with left fielder Andy Pafko‘s two-out solo home run into the lower left-field stands. It was Pafko’s 17th home run for the Dodgers since being traded from the Cubs on June 15.

With one out in the top of the fourth, Branca hit Monte Irvin with a pitch. After Whitey Lockman flied to center, third baseman Bobby Thomson came to bat. In John Drebinger’s words, “Thomson arched a powerful drive into the left-field stand and though it was a beautiful Indian summer afternoon the Flatbush horde was plunged into gloom deeper than a moonless night on the Gowanus.”13

Thomson, Frank Conniff declared in the following afternoon’s Journal-American, “has suddenly smelled money, or been bowled over by the idea that he can become a big wheel around this town, or been hit over the head by some occult occurrence that finally opened the way to greatness for him.”14

The Giants extended their lead in the eighth, when Irvin led off with a home run to left, his 24th of the year and his league-leading 121st RBI. When Lockman then reached second on center fielder Duke Snider‘s error, the Giants threatened to break the game open, but Branca got out of the eighth without giving up another run. The Giants clearly had Branca’s number, however – they’d hit 10 of the 18 home runs Branca had surrendered to that point in 1951. After Bud Podbielan relieved him in the ninth, Branca “wandered about the locker room avoiding the waiting newspaper men and muttering to himself, ‘(O)ne pitch, just one pitch.’”15

Hearn held the Dodgers hitless for the final 4⅓ innings, striking out five and walking two over the course of the game. He was assisted by the Giants defense, which pulled off four double plays in the final six innings. “Jim Hearn, whose pitching used to be considered by the Dodgers pretty much in the nature of an extension of batting practice, came back (Monday) to practice a bit of five-hit necromancy,” wrote the Herald Tribune’s Harold Rosenthal.16

Giants coach Herman Franks declared, “For the first time this year, we came through these doors to play the Dodgers confident of winning. Now we got ‘em locked up. They’re dead.”17

A Brooklyn bus driver said the following morning, “That loss yesterday was just to lull the Giants into a feeling of over-confidence, false security. We got them just where we want them.” When a Giants fan on the bus replied that the Dodgers “shoulda stood in Philadelphia,” the driver snapped, “You subversive!”18

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com.

NOTES

1 Lou Miller, “Giants Over the Shock of That Brook Recovery,” New York World Telegram & Sun, October 1, 1951: 19.

2 Leonard Shecter, “But Lippy Always Has That Maglie!” New York Post, October 1, 1951: 35.

3 Al Buck, “Giants 6 to 5 Choice in Playoff,” New York Post, October 1, 1951: 36.

4 Baseball-reference.com 1951 season game log pages for Jim Hearn and Ralph Branca.

5 “Fan, 13, Hoists First One Over Ebbets Fence,” New York World Telegram & Sun, October 1, 1951.

6 Bill Roeder, “MVP Candidates Out in Open; Playoff Is Their Election Day,” New York World Telegram & Sun, October 1, 1951: 18.

7 Julian Fox and Richard J. Roth, “50,000 Mount Big Push for 35,000 Seats,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 1, 1951: 1.

8 “Faithful Smash Gates in Ticket Run,” New York World Telegram & Sun, October 1, 1951: 2.

9 Barney Kremenko, “Reese Happy to Delay Trip to Old Ky. Home,” New York Journal-American, October 1, 1951: 18.

10 “Playoffs Seen on TV 1st Time Coast-Coast,” New York Herald Tribune, October 2, 1951: 23.

11 Dick Young, “Hearn’s 5-Hitter Chills Dodgers, 3-1,” New York Daily News, October 2, 1951: 52.

12 Al Laney, “What World Series? Flathush Concerned Only with Giants,” New York Herald Tribune, October 2, 1951: 24.

13 John Drebinger, “Giant Homers Win from Dodgers, 3-1,” New York Times, October 2, 1951: 32.

14 Frank Conniff, “Robert Thomson Sees the Light,” New York Journal-American, October 2, 1951: 19.

15 Ed Sinclair, “Dodger Clubhouse So Quiet One Could Hear Branca Pound Wall,” New York Herald Tribune, October 2, 1951: 24.

16 Harold Rosenthal, “Giants Beat Dodgers, 3-1, on Home Runs by Thomson and Irvin in First Play-Off,” New York Herald Tribune, October 2, 1951: 1.

17 Rud Rennie, “Giants Happy and Confident After Opening Victory Over Dodgers in Play-Off Series,” New York Herald Tribune, October 2, 1951: 24.

18 J.F. Wilkinson, “Loyal Fans Explain That Loss: “IF–!” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 2, 1951: 3.