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We welcome back Bill Schaefer today with an interesting segue to Vince Jankoski’s series on double plays. Bill reminds us of a fantastic twin killing initiated by Bobby Thomson in the final series of the 1951 pennant race that may very well have changed the course of baseball history.  We see Bobby above, locked in a jubilant embrace with manager Leo Durocher, one that only a pennant celebration can elicit! -GL

Bobby Thomson’s Doubleplay Saved His “Shot” Legacy

Beginning play on September 9, 1951, the New York Giants were 82-55. The Brooklyn Dodgers were 87-47. The second-place Giants trailed the first-place Dodgers by six and a half games in the standings. They would play the Dodgers one final time on that Sunday at Ebbets Field. After trimming seven games off Brooklyn’s thirteen-and-a-half game lead on August 11, highlighted by a 16-game winning streak, they could not now fall seven and a half games behind their bitter rivals with only sixteen games remaining and have any chance to win the National League pennant.

The Giants came into the final two-game weekend series with the crew from Gowanus Canal on a four-game winning streak, having beaten the Phillies and sweeping through the Braves at the Polo Grounds, thus reducing Brooklyn’s margin to five and a half games. Thoughts of emerging on Monday, September 10, only three and a half games out of first place was heady wine! However, Don Newcombe had other ideas and twirled a brilliant two-hitter, blanking the Giants 9-0 on Saturday, September 8. Suddenly, the rosy numbers game turned ugly, and fans knew that now the Giants had to win Sunday’s finale, or everything was lost.

A grim battle was unfolding, with Sal “the Barber” Maglie laboring to gain command in the early innings and Ralph Branca pitching smoothly, yielding only a two-run homer to Monte Irvin in the fourth inning. The Giants were leading 2-0 in the Dodgers eighth, but Sal was fatigued. He always pitched well against Brooklyn — but their wrecking crew line-up could put a team away in a hurry. With one out, Snider doubled high off the right screen. Then Jackie Robinson lined a triple to center. Score 2-1, tying run on third. Menacing Andy Pafko dug in. He exuded power and had no fear of pitcher or circumstance. Maglie was pitching on fumes.

On Sal’s first pitch, Pafko exploded out of his rocking chair crouch and smashed a bullet ticketed for the left field corner, extra bases and a tie game with the go-ahead run on second base for sure. But wait! With lightning-like reflexes, Bobby Thomson, playing third, miraculously backhanded the drive on the short hop, tagged Robinson sliding back to the base and fired to Whitey Lockman at first to complete an incredible double play and end the inning!

A weary Sal Maglie, gaining a second wind, retired the Dodgers in order in the ninth inning. And the Giants lived another day. The lead was again five and a half games. 

The magnitude of the play, with only 16 games remaining, was expressed by Dick Young in Monday’s Daily News, on September 10,

“If by some miracle the Giants go on to snag the National League flag, Giants fans will not remember Monte Irvin’s homerun or that Sal Maglie won his 20^th. They will remember Bobby Thomson’s game-saving play.”

He was so right!

The Giants, supercharged by the win, went on to win 13 of their final 16 games, a playoff ensued and a famous homerun immortalized Bobby Thomson. But without the amazing pennant-saving double play initiated by third baseman Robert Brown Thomson 24 days earlier, there likely would be no famous homerun in the record books.

And “The Staten Island Scot” would have been remembered only as almost as fast as Mickey Mantle in full stride. A pretty good outfielder. When concentrating, a good hitter with power. And a handsome lad born in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

(Bobby was a curious third baseman. He possessed a powerful but erratic arm with amazing reflexes that gave him big play potential.  But his glove inconsistency almost cost the Giants in the playoffs. His dWAR in ’51 well below average).

A play across the diamond changed a pennant race and made possible:

                 “THE SHOT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD.”

Bill Schaefer

Sources: ‘51 schedule almanac Giants, Dodgers; Bobby Thomson, Wikipedia; Bobby Thomson baseball ref; Some Catch, book, by Bill Schaefer, Gary Livacari, editor.

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