Sports Then and Now

Bobby Thomson raced around the bases and into baseball immortality with his pennant-winning home run in 1951.

One hundred and seventy five players in baseball history have hit more home runs than the 264 blasted by Bobby Thomson during his 15-year major league career. However, it is arguable that no one has ever hit a more memorable homer than his “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” that lifted the New York Giants into the 1951 World Series.

Thomson passed away Monday at the age of 86 after a long illness, but his home run in the ninth inning of the final game of a three-game playoff between the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers will live on forever.

The 1951 National League playoff race was to its generation what the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox race was to fans 27 years later. The Dodgers led the Giants by 13 games on August 11th, only to watch the lead disintegrate over the final seven weeks as Brooklyn went 26-22 in their final 48 regular season games.

At the same time, the New York Giants went 37-7 after August 11th to catch the Dodgers and force a three-game playoff. Read the rest of this entry →