1951 Giants/Dodgers Pennant Race

0:00And that's the end of the first half, as the team said to the locker room, the Spartans lead the Bulldogs by a score. You guys stink! Jeez, Coach, we're only down a couple of points! No, I mean, you guys really smell. You need to hit the showers. And here, I got every one of you new bars of soap from the Sterling soap company. Each bar is artisan crafted using natural ingredients and essential oils. They also have shaved soaps, cologne, beard balm, and a whole lot more. Now get in there! But Coach, we have another half to play! I don't care, I can't stand to be around you. A few minutes later. Alright, bring it in tight. You guys are still playing terrible, but you're smelling great out there. Now listen, you're gonna need to stock up for the rest of the season. We got a lot of tough games left. So go to sterlingsoap.com after the game. That's STIRLINGSOP.com. You got that? Yes, Coach? Great! SterlingSOP.com on three. One, two, three. SterlingSOP.com! In the upper hand. 허팝 safety skills of commercial engineering and pest testing conducted by the

1:09VOC, LCSA Mechanics Unit. Spread it. Someone. Move! Wind. σα. Hide. Unftoiel. Jared Princess. olanator. Beispiel S fürsf Shh Wolf. I'm a huge fan of sports, I'm a great fan of crazy, great fan of crazy, hey! I love believing, I love believing. This podcast is part of the Sports History Network. Your headquarters for the yesterday year of your favorite sport. You can learn more at sportshistorynetwork.com. Hello, old sports, and welcome to the Hello Old Sports Podcast on the Sports History Network. I'm Dan Newman, I'm joined as always by my brother and co-host Andrew Newman and Andrew. How are you doing tonight? I am doing good. I'm looking forward to this episode and I have a feeling that 20 years from now, they'll

2:10be talking about this afternoons here, as yet unknown, but the man in the hour are about to meet. So this is an interesting one for us because we've done a lot of things, covered a lot of topics that are, I mean, we've done some topics that are well known and we're going to do the first Super Bowl in a few months here. But we probably, this is probably the topic that we have done in over 130 or whatever episodes that we've done. It would have been great if this was, if this was episode 157 by the way. Yeah, we should have waited a year and done it like that. You're right. But this is probably the one that's, you know, the most well-covered and written about and ever talked about, written about everything of anything we've ever done. This is the 1951 National League Pennett Race and the three-game playoff between the Dodgers and the Giants. It does not suffer for being un...

3:12It does not suffer from obscurity from a historical point of view. No, and I think, you know, a lot of stuff we do is stuff that maybe other people haven't done or not never, but like, that's not necessarily well-trodden ground, especially for like, sports history podcasts. And some of this stuff, it's like, rushes up against well-known stuff, but maybe we bring a little more detail or a little more clearing up some of the popular misconceptions or like, you know, everybody pretends this, but really it's this. I don't think on this one we necessarily have like a different slant on it. This to me, I mean, obviously we're doing it because it's 75 years ago this October, but this to me is more just like, this is one I want to talk about. And I know it's not going to be particularly novel in terms of saying things nobody else has ever said, but like, I feel like we've earned this one to talk about something

4:13that a million other people have talked about. But, you know what, too, there's plenty of people who, it's not like, oh, we're talking about, you know, something that everybody, this 75 years ago, there's plenty of people who aren't super familiar with this, who we're going to listen to this podcast. Well, and there is a real piece of trivia that I'm going to lay on you that I'm sure you don't know. Okay. Do you know who was on deck? Yeah, that's another one. That is one that that's that's when you have to respond to somebody with something filthy when they say that just to get them to stop the joke we're making is that Willie Mays was on deck when Bobby Thompson hit his his famous home run in that third game, the three game playoff. And it's an interesting piece of trivia because Willie Mays was a rookie. He hadn't really done much as a major league yet, but people will say that to you sometimes as if it's the most obscure fact that's ever been pulled out.

5:15And it's like, if you're a baseball fan, you kind of know about this time period, it's something that you really should know about. It's like, you know, it's like if somebody where it came to come to you and go, you know, a lot of people don't realize this, but the president after Clinton was bush, like, if you're a baseball fan, you know, like a history person, you know that, but people will sometimes bring it up to you like it's like this nugget that only they've uncovered. And for whatever reason, it's really always bothered Andrew. So there's also this remind there's a, I don't like go around brandishing like, oh, I know a lot about whatever because you know, it's not something that comes up in day to day what it like talk, but like, there's a scene in the West Wing and the guy is being portrayed as being smug. But like, they're talking about some issue. I think a guy who's trying to defect from North Korea and the military guy is explaining why they can't let it happen. And somebody says to him, so what's your point? And he just says that I know more about this than you do. And sometimes when it comes to this stuff, I want to like, you know, well, you know, the

6:16Dodgers, this or whatever, and it's really maize was actually on deck that I was like, I just want to be like, I know more about this than you do. I don't know what I'd expect to get from that except maybe punched, but you know, well, and there's a division here too because, you know, obviously these two teams left New York quarter century before I was born, which I actually feel like it should be longer than that. I feel like to say it was a quarter century before I was born. It's actually makes it seem like it was relatively recently, you know, recent, but historically speaking, Andrew is the giants fan and I'm more of a Dodgers fan as far as like our interest in the team historically. Well, it's just to right now what I'm watching kind of and if you're harkening back to my Ray Hand or Ray Handley episode, right, talked about this. The thing I'm kind of watching in the gym and stuff right now is the 81 giants. And I was thinking today knowing we're doing this episode, I'm like, in 1981, this was 30 years ago. Right?

7:17Yeah. 1981 is now 45 years ago. So it doesn't seem that way, but yeah, I just, I think the thing was the Dodgers are such well-trodden. I use that expression twice in the first three minutes of the episode. Like everybody talks about the Brooklyn Dodgers. Everybody talks about the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1957. 1941 to 1957 if you really want to go out like, and obviously there are a million things there. I've always kind of been like, okay, a ton of people talk about that. And especially in the context of them moving. And like, yeah, and the giants move too. And it's like, it's its own story. And there's obviously we could do an episode all on that at some point. But I've just always gravitated more towards that for two reasons. One because it was the less covered one. Are you shushing Thumper? I am shushing Thumper. I don't think Thumper has made an appearance on a podcast in a few years. I'm actually, I'm home alone this week other than Thumper.

8:19And so I decided to record upstairs and Thumper's making sure everybody knows he's still around. Well, and my sister-in-law, Dan's wife, sent me a video last week of Dan's son pretending to do a podcast with me. She says, like, what do you do? He said, I'm doing a podcast with Uncle Andrew. We're going to talk about the next. What about the next? I love you, Nick. Yeah, he was on the steps and I was at a town too. I was at the Saber convention and Allison sends me a thing. And it's him plugging his headphone jack like into like a water bottle straw. And she goes, Thomas, what are you doing? Doing podcasting. Who are you doing podcasting with with Uncle Andrew? What are you talking about? Going to talk about the next. And he goes, what are you going to say? He goes, I love you, Nick's. I sent that to a friend of mine and he said, same dude, I love you, Nick's too. So anyway, the giant A, it was something that's, you know, they're the less covered one.

9:23And obviously they have a lot of history going back to the 1880s. And two, as if there were a video podcast, I would be able to test two by my shirt. I've always been endlessly fascinated with the polo grounds to the point where, and I'm not the only one who's done this, but about five years ago, I went to the former site of the polo grounds. The only part of that that still exists is a staircase that led from the train to the like upper entrance to the polo grounds that they actually recently renovated, because it was like kind of in disrepair. And it's not like a staircase people need to take now, but they picked it up. They, and it was nice because the team, they got a bunch of donations. And it was basically every team that was ever attended there donated. So the jets donated the mets, the San Francisco giants and the Yankees. All donated to refurbish the staircase. And the reason it's a little bit, and then there's plaques to home plate and everything. But the area where the polo grounds was is the site of a fairly infamous high-rise tower

10:33now that's considered one of the, it's not a place you just stand around whistling, basically. I made sure I went in the middle of the day. I made sure I kept it moving, but you know, it was fine. Nobody said or, you know, didn't eat anything to me. Like I said, I'm not the only one who would do that. But just sort of the perception of the area now would probably indicate that that's not the best thing to do. But I was like, I have to be able to do this at least once. Yeah. And the other thing is is that just from a New York point of view, there are certain, you know, when you hear people say, well, the greatest moments in New York sports history, it's like, you know, there's five or six things that people tick off. It's the Rangers in 94. It's Willis in 70. It's, you know, it's the Jets. The Metz with Buckner. It's the, you know, Giants winning 2007 with Eli and, you know, and that 1951 pennant rate pennant, pennant when gets put on that list also.

11:38And Andrew's making a face because I think he's trying to say that there's another one that belongs at the top of the list now. And I wholeheartedly agree. I think that list could be reviewed now to possibly include Oji Ananobi. I was watching a clip online the other day of a guy who was catching fish showing them that clip and then throwing the fish back in the lake. It's like taking fish out to show them Oji Ananobi's tip in anyway. Yeah, it's, so to sort of get back on the rails a little bit here. It's even 75 years on two teams that long ago left the city, you know, almost, almost 70 years ago, 70 years ago next week or next year rather, left. You know, you think about how many great baseball moments have happened in New York since 1951, how many championships the Yankees of one since 1951, including 1951, which we'll

12:38talk about at the end of this episode. There is something about this that even people who aren't particularly interested in sports history or whatever. I think the fans of the giants and Dodgers now have opinions on this. And when you consider that it's a continent away in 75 years ago, you know, it's one of those things that's just, I don't, I don't think it's ever going to totally fade into oblivion. No, it's not. And it's not. And it always will remain, you know, part of the fabric of, like I said, like we were saying, New York sports. So I guess, where do we want to start here? I mean, do we want to, do we want to give a little bit of sort of background of kind of what led these teams to where they were in 1951? Yeah. And I think it makes sense to start with the giants. So obviously we'll tell basically the post-World War II history of the teams, but the giants,

13:44obviously the legacy New York team going back to the 1800s, you know, really certainly until the 20s, the giants were New York's team. They were the big team in New York, especially when you consider Brooklyn a separate entity, which when we talk about 19th century baseball, New York versus Brooklyn was one of the biggest, if not the biggest baseball rivalry there was, you know, playing in Upper Manhattan, playing at various iterations of the polo grounds. Early in the 20th century, John McGraw comes in, McGraw's there for 30 years, giants went a bunch of pennants when the couple worlds, when one more World Series in 1905, when a couple in the early 20s, sort of their sort of pinnacle before the Ruth Yankees, the changing of the guard Yankees move right across the Harlem River, kind of take over the narrative of baseball. But the giants are still there. They win a championship in 33 right after.

14:44Was it, yeah, 33 right over the senators, right? Yes. That was the first post McGraw World Championship. All leaves in 32, giants win, you know, they make a couple more World Series against the De Maggio Yankees. But the 40s are not a particularly great time for the giants there, mostly a second division team. If I'm correct, I'm looking at the numbers here. Yeah, they're like a fifth, sixth place team. Next war, eighth place in 1946, fourth place in 1947, fifth and 48, fifth and 49 at 73 and 81. And the 1950, they make a big jump to 86 and 68. I think where you really start the narrative is in 1948 when Leo DeRochia takes over. Yeah. Leo DeRochia, who had been a player with the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Cardinals

15:47and then had been hired by Larry McFail to manage the Dodgers. I think 38 was his first year and led the Dodgers to a World Series in 1941, coached them through the war management through the war years. And then in the 1947 season was fire or was suspended a full year for gambling and right in the middle of, you know, right in the midst of Jackie Robinson. And we're going to talk about DeRochia and Robinson in a little bit too, I'm sure. But right in the middle of, you know, Jackie Robinson coming to the Dodgers to break the color barrier, something which DeRochia was supportive of, DeRochia gets suspended for a year for consorting with gamblers. Bert Shotten takes over leads the Dodgers to the World Series against the Yankees. They lose in seven. DeRochia comes back for the 48 season and they're sort of, you know, they're not terrible,

16:52but they're not what they've been the previous year. And halfway through the season, the Giants, Harstonum probably calls Branch Ricky to say, we know that Shotten is still under contract to you, but now that DeRochia's back as manager, would you mind if we talked to Shotten about taking our managerial job? And Prince Ricky goes, had you like to interview DeRochia? So DeRochia basically switches teams a week or so after he's managing the Giants and the Dodgers in 48, he's managing the Giants. And if you're, you know, if you're maybe not super familiar with the era, nothing is perfect, obviously, if you're looking for a comp from the next generation for DeRochia, Billy Martin, you know, in terms of sort of the stature, the pugnaciousness, former players, I know that he had the huge drinking problem that Billy Martin did, but he certainly had a nightlife, he wasn't a, you know, go to bed with a glass of milk, kind of guy,

17:54but also it was kind of a brilliant tactician and thought everybody was, you know, trying to make him look bad and he wanted to prove them right and think, or, you know, also incredibly thin skinned from everything you hear. So DeRochia, you know, you'd like to say how DeRochia came in and turned them around immediately, it was a little bit more of a slow build, but as you look at the numbers, I just quoted, you know, they climbed from eighth and 47 and 46 to fourth and 47, fifth, and then they're in third and 50, you know, behind the Phillies and the Dodgers that year. But I don't think going into 1951, anybody necessarily thought, oh, this is the year for the Giants, you were looking at, you know, the Dodgers at Perennial, we won the pen in a couple of times, the Phillies were really the WizKid Phillies in 1950. So, you know, you look at the team and it's a lot of names that you go, of course, this was a good team, but I don't know that the consensus was that they were anything

18:57special going into 51. Yeah, one of the things that DeRochia decided when he took over was that it wasn't his kind of team. He wanted, there was sort of big lumbering, powerhitter types. He decides that he wants a much more running running team, you know, sort of a, you know, the classic National League pitching and defense and speed type of team. It's so much so that he eventually is willing to cast aside Johnny Mays, Hall of Famer, who ends up going to the Yankees. Johnny Mays, who in 1947, so the last full year before DeRochia got there, Johnny Mays had led all of baseball with 51 home runs and 138 RBIs had hit 40 home runs in 48, but DeRochia really does not like Johnny Mays as type of player, sort of poor fielding, big power hitting first baseman and at an old timers, they're not an old timers, they had like the city cup

19:58between the giants and the Yankees. Casey Stangel and Johnny Mays are talking and Johnny Mays says the Casey goes, you know, I'm not playing much and Stangel says over here, you'd be playing. And so Mays ends up clearing waivers getting all the way to the Yankees and the way the waivers worked in those years, you started with the last place team in your league and had to go all the way through that league and then down to the last place team in the other league. So there's always been some question about just exactly how Mays was able to bypass all those waivers. To get all the way to the Yankees and I remember a giant fan that I knew once upon a time, still many decades later wondering why exactly that had been able to happen, but that's another story. Is that a reference to our grandfather? Yeah, and I'm not lying about that. He goes, and he ended up on the first place team in the high league, Danny. How did that happen? That's our, our mother's father grew up in the Bronx actually, but you know, was it was a

21:04giants fan and became a Met's fan. Obviously by the time we knew him, he was a Met's fan. And what's a big baseball fan for 40 years? And you know, he's been gone 16 years now, but he, we probably missed you, maybe a little bit more than me, but like, you know, if he'd hung around maybe 10 years longer, we might have gotten a lot more because we had been a lot more interested. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, we were probably, especially you were a lot more interested in baseball in the 50s than most 10 year olds were, but like still, you know, an accurate. But yeah, he, every now and then he would, he would, because I think I one time I asked him if he went to the polo grounds and he said he'd been there a couple of times. And then somebody said, I think I said something about Epits Field and he said, who had the time to go all the way out there? That didn't change. So yeah, so, you know, maybe just talk a little bit going into this, this 51 team with the giants and we'll get to the Dodgers in a second. It's, the other thing too is they made a big trade

22:08going into the 51 off season. They made a trade, actually going into the 50 season, they basically acquired the middle infield from the Boston Braves who would won the NL penance, the year before they trade after the 49 season, they trade away four players and they bring in Alvin Dark and Eddie Stanky, both of whom are all stars Stanky who would actually want to pen it with Brooklyn in 48, want to pen it with with the Braves in 49 and then before the 50 season, he goes to the Giants. So they're gradually taking, they're gradually taking the shape of what the roachers looking for. The other thing too is that they are probably other than the Dodgers, the team who is most making the use of integrating and signing black players, Monty Irvin, Hall of Famer, Hank Thompson, who'd been a star in the Negro leagues. They have a third basement, a guy who doesn't

23:13actually play all that much, but guy named Arty Wilson, who had been a multiple time batting title winner and and all star in the Negro leagues is on the team is sort of a utility player. They've got in the minors, a guy who never actually makes it to the to the white major leagues, Ray Dandridge, who is considered, he's in the Hall of Fame and he's one of considered one of the greatest the third basement in Negro league history. He's actually sort of a mentor to Mays and the minors and is in Minneapolis, the Giants triple A team at 37 years old throughout the 51 season. So other than maybe the Dodgers, the Giants probably the team in major league baseball, who has been most not only quickest to integrate and bring in black players, but also has made use of those players to push them forward the most. Yeah. And obviously we kind of made light of people using it as a trivia question, but also a this is the year a 20 year old rookie willy Mays comes

24:16up. Um, plays in a, you know, it's a full season for me plays an on hundred and 21 games. So, you know, not every single game, but he's he's there for most of the season. Um, it would turn out to be really his only full season until 1954 because of the Korean War, but he wins. Does this the actual rookie of the year back then or is this a retroactive thing? No, the first rookie of the year was this was, was, uh, uh, Jackie Robinson in 48. Oh, yeah. Or 47 I should say. And then I don't know when I think that, um, I think that the first year of the rookie of the year or the first couple of years, it was only one award. And then at some point they started giving one per league. Yeah. The first couple of years actually it was Jackie Robinson and Alvin dark. The other guy would just talked about it. And then, um, um, starting in 49, it was one, one per league and May is wins it in 51. Like you said, so I'll just go through the lineup real quick. And this is, you know, the primary guys at each position,

25:21uh, catcher West, Westroom, first basement, whitey lockman, uh, second basement, Eddie Stanky, shortstop, Alvin dark, uh, third basement, Hank Thompson, and the outfield of Montiervin, Willie Mays and Don Mueller. Uh, and then they also, because he'll come up in a little while, a body Thompson, uh, they have listed as utility, but he played in 148 games. I think just, you know, yeah, Thompson had been the regular Thompson. No, Pete, just Thompson Thompson had been the regular, center field of the year before. And he'd been moved over to make room for Mays. So throughout the course of that season, he placed some center, he placed some quarter outfield, he placed some third, looking at the baseball reference page, he appears in 148 games, which is like fourth most on the team. So yeah, he doesn't play, he doesn't play the most at any one position, but he plays, uh, and bats and, and contributes probably, you know, he's, leads the team in home runs, he's second in RBI's to Montiervin. So yeah, maybe not a part of that, you know, main eight,

26:24but one of, if not the most important player on the team in 51, even before the home run. And then they have three guys who are starters the entire year. So I'll just mention to those, there's other guys who get a couple of guys who get double digit starts, but the three main starters are Sound Magley, Larry Janssen and Jim. Yeah, two 23 game winners, Magley 23 and six, Janssen 23 and 11. This is one year before Hoyt Wilhelm would come to the team as a rookie. And I believe, uh, Wilhelm, no, he actually didn't win rookie the year in 52. But anyway, one year before they bring in Hoyt Wilhelm, Magley is the ace. He's 23 and six. He finishes fourth in MVP voting. He is known as the barber because of his willingness, if not, god, eagerness to throw the ball very close and to hit guys and often occasionally to hit them in the head. Magley, who actually ends up going to the Dodgers later in the 50s and pitching in a world

27:26series with them, but he is the ace and he is also responsible for some of the, uh, some of the fricuses between the two teams throughout the 1951 season. Should we move over and set the stage on the Dodgers before we get into the actual narrative? Yeah, why don't we go ahead and talk about the Dodgers? You want to kick us off? All right. So the Dodgers obviously a little bit of a different scenario. Um, you know, we've talked about the 41 team before that wins the pen and but it's not really in any significant way. What you think of as the sort of boys of summer 47 to 56. Yeah, the only one really there in 41 is P. We Reese 47 is their first year, uh, with Jackie Robinson, they win the pen and 47 48 is that, um, is the, they finish in third in 48. That was the year the, uh, braves would have won the pen in 48, but they still win 84 games. 49, they win 97 games, they lose again in the world series to the Yankees. And then in 50, they win 89 games, they finish in second,

28:31just two games back of the Philly. So in the last five years, 47, 49, they won the pen and 50, they lost it by two. And for even if you want to go back to 1946, they only finished two games out of the pen and then so by 1951, they are the team, you know, it really they are by I think 49 probably, but if you look at the, the roster, catcher Roy Campanella first-based Gil Hodges, second-based Jackie Robinson, shortstop P. We Reese, third-basement Billy Cox, outfield of Ferillo Snyder and Andy Pafko is who they have listed there. Um, the rotation, the three big pitchers, Nukem, preacher row and Ralph Branca are the three that get above 25 starts. And then Erskin has 19 starts as well. Most of the team is between, most of the starting lineup is between 27 and 32 years old. Snyder is only 24, but everybody else is no older than 32

29:36and they're at least 27. Um, Nukem is young in the, in the rotation and preacher row is old, but and Brank is 25 as well, but in the actual every day lineup, they're all right in that late 20s, early 30s sweet spot. So they lost the pen and they won the pen and 49, they lost it, um, narrowly to the Phillies in 1950, they go into um, Philadelphia comes to town, um, at the very end of the season, two games remaining with the Dodgers, one game back. And on, Saturday, September 30th, uh, Brooklyn and Philadelphia face off at Ebbets field and they go into the top of the ninth inning tied. Yeah, they go into the, the, okay, so Saturday, September 30th, Brooklyn wins seven to three. So now they go into the final game of the season, a game back of Philly. So a, a victory by Brooklyn would tie it and then they would go presumably,

30:39I, yeah, not presumably, they would have gotten into another three game playoff similar to what's played here in 51. They would have played a three game playoff against Philadelphia in 1950. Well, the Dodgers, the game is tied all the way until the, um, the top of the sixth Philly scores a run in the sixth. P we reach, it's a home run at the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. And then in the top of the tenth and one of the great moments in Philly's history, Dick Sistler, son of hall of famer George Sistler, hits a three run home run off of Don Nukum to give the Philly's a four to one lead, um, and then the, uh, the Dodgers go one, two, three in the tenth inning Philly wins the pen and by two games. It shot and leaves the team after 1950 and was replaced by Charlie Dressin, who would manage the team in 1951. And for a couple of years, there after Andrew talked a little bit about just how awesome this 50s Dodgers 50 early 50s Dodgers team was a future Hall of Famers

31:47and MVP's Campy Hodges Reese Robinson, Carl Ferillo, who's not a Hall of Famer, but would be an all-star a couple times when a batting title Duke Snyder, who's an all-time great and then they trade mid season for an all-star outfielder named Andy Pafko, who had appeared in a, who had been a four-time, four, had been an all-star with Chicago, the Cubs, four years previously, the four previous years, and had been a world series with the Cubs in 1945. And the Dodgers trading for Pafko is sort of seen as like, God, could they even get any better? It's like, it's like kind of like what the Dodgers did in trading for Tariq Scubal a couple of days ago here. It's like a team full of weapons has added sort of one weapon in the one week spot they had. And then like you said, the pitching Nukem, who's a future MVP, preacher Row, they're really the big two and then Brankas, maybe the third guy, but Brankas a little more mediocre, 13 and 12 record on the season. I guess the only other

32:55thing I would say is that this Dodgers Giants rivalry has been building throughout the last 20 or so years. And for the longest time, the Giants were seen as the big guy and the Dodgers were the stepbrother. And Hall of Fame manager, first baseman had that famous line, Bill Terry, in the 30s when they asked him about Brooklyn, he said, oh, Brooklyn's still in the league. And then there was even, I think it was in 19, I was looking at some 1938 at a Pat's diamond bar in Grill in in Brooklyn. The day after the same day that the Dodgers defeated the first place Giants 13 to five, fanatical Dodgers fan named Robert Joyce shoots and kills a fellow patron and the bartender, got to just two people died after following an argument over that day's game. That's obviously a little extreme, but the rivalry between these two national league teams who play each other 22

34:00times a year, keep in mind at this point, it's heating up and going into the early 51 season, both teams are chock full of Hall of Famers and are legitimate pennant contenders. Yeah, and I don't know that there is a there's definitely not a modern comp for this, you know, the quick thing people be like, oh, imagine if the Yankees and Metz were in the same league, this is not even comparable to that. First of all, there's eight teams in the league. There's two teams in the same city. Now, I know Brooklyn even then kind of considered themselves separate, but there's fans everywhere of each team, obviously, it's going to be more concentrated in Brooklyn for the Dodgers, but it's not, you know, there's fans everywhere of each team. You're in a much more siloed environment where it's like, that's pretty much what you're going to hear about is the three New York teams. So it's not like, you know, you're going to encounter a ton of guys who go, I'm a Cincinnati fan, like, you know, certainly in different eras, one of them

35:01has been a lot better than the other one or, or, you know, one or the other is a pennant contender. I mean, there probably wasn't too many times when both of them maybe in the, well, I was going to say, was there a time where neither of them were a contender for an extended period of time? Probably not really, maybe in the teens, but you're going back now. Yeah, and the Giants made three world series in the teens. So, yeah, no, not the teens even. I'm actually Brooklyn made one in 16 in 20. So yeah, wouldn't be that either, you're right. Yeah, and I mean, you know, even in the 1890s, I mean, they played each other in the world series in 1889 was Brooklyn was still in the American Association. So yeah, it's usually been the Giants, but one of them's been good for the whole time. Maybe like a little bit in the late 20s, early 30s is like it. Half of the years, yeah. But, you know, so it's, there, the only comp I can come up with is kind of like in like a British soccer, like half the teams play in London. It's not spread out,

36:01like we think of for modern American sports. So it's like, it's that kind of thing, but I was going to say Alabama, Auburn football, where it's like, it's just kind of a way of life. It's really the only sport that matters to most of the people there. And that's the other thing too. It's an era where, you know, even as late as 1951, there's really pro basketball really is it. It's very, very infant stages. You know, football is sort of in the ascendancy, but not for a little while longer. And you know, it's just it's really baseball is the team sport. So that's, you know, that it's really hard to compare anything modern to the Giants Dodgers rivalry. And the other thing I wanted to mention about the Dodgers before we move into sort of the season is this is also the first year after Walter O'Malley muscled Branch Ricky out. And you know, got him where he wasn't

37:02going to come back as team president and basically said, you may as well sell me your shares. Ricky does obviously has a few more acts in him in Pittsburgh, but Walter O'Malley gets the control of the Dodgers that he would, you know, assert for the rest of his, the rest of his life, which would ultimately lead them to California, but, you know, here in his first sort of coup as an owner, he gets he gets Branch Ricky out the door. So I don't know where you want to start. I think the most important thing about the early season part of the season is that the Dodgers get off to an incredible start. And the Giants start two and 12. So the Giants are sort of they're struggling right from the outset in 1951. Yeah, yeah, the Giants get off to a pretty horrendous start. And it's not, you know, they start to play better fairly quickly, but I'm I'm glad they're yeah, they get off to

38:04a brutal start. They're two and 12, like you mentioned, they're already seven games out of first place at that point. And needless to say, we're in the 18 era. No, you know, you win the pennant, you go to the World Series, there's no playoffs, there's no wild cards, there's no any of that. Pennant winner goes to the World Series. They're in eighth place or seventh, they're no higher than six, really, all the way through, you know, late May, when they finally get, they don't recover even to the 500 mark by until Saturday, May 26th, when they get to 19 and 19, and they're in fifth place at that point. And May 26th is the day after Willie May's first joins the team makes his major league debut. He's essentially playing every day. He struggles quite a bit. Initially, he's hitless in his first three games before hitting a home runoff Warren Spahn on May 28th, 1951 for not only his

39:13first major league hit, but also his first major league home run. He then proceeds to not get another hit in that game or for the next three until finally in early June. He has a couple of multi hit games in a couple of giants victories. So some argue that maybe May's is the spark for the team. And he contributes, obviously, but they had also sort of started that long climb back to 500 long before that. And he, I think people, you know, given the era and the fact that he did play in the Negro leagues, people kind of sometimes for his 20 years old here. Like he wasn't like, it wasn't a Jackie and not the Jackie Robinson played much in the main Negro leagues either, but like this wasn't a guy who had six or seven years under his belt. And then, you know, was finally able to get into the major leagues. How many Negro league games did he even play? It's a very small amount. He plays one year, 1948 for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro

40:20American League. He plays in 13 games. Doesn't hit any home runs six RBI's. It's it's it's funny because a couple of years ago when they decided to count Negro league games as major league games. And there's a lot of sort of, you know, a lot of going on with that whole that whole thing. But the thing was it actually kind of hurt May's because it didn't end to his home run. Did it mean it hurt marginally? Still willy maze. But it didn't end to his home run total. And it basically, it did, you know, his his batting average in that season was considerably lower than it was in the rest, you know, for his career average. So it actually kind of kind of hurt his kind of hurt his career is it actually drops his batting average by a point. So anyway, but yeah, one year in the Negro leagues as a teenager and then two years in the minor leagues before he makes it to the giants. So as you move into early June, I find this here. So on June 12th, they win a game. And

41:29they actually it's funny to say this, but they they win to get to 28 and 26. And they actually move into second place at 28 and 26. And would not go below that the rest of the year, which I think is it's interesting to think there were two games over 500 and maybe they were in like a five way tie for three way tied for second place. But it's just interesting. Yeah. And you got a figure too. I mean, this is an era where the rest of the national league is, shall we say not great. The only other team with a winning record is the St. Louis Cardinals. But they've sort of passed their prime. They made it to what three four world series and five years in the mid 40s. The Braves have been, you know, they had their one good year, but they're on the downside, including trading, stanky and dark to the giants before the 1950s season. You know,

42:34if you think about it, you're in the middle of a what a one two three. I want to say an eight year span where one of these two teams is going to win the national league pennant. So there's not a lot of competition beyond New York City limits for the national league pennant for these next several years. You know, there's a good episode idea of the like as we were talking about how New York dominant baseball is in this but Philadelphia in like the 30s and 40s for baseball would be an interesting story. But um, so just fans didn't think so. No, yeah, you're right. So just to sort of move forward a little, they're, you know, they're in second, but they're and they're gradually getting further above 500, but they're really not, they're losing ground. As they're staying in second and they're moving up a little bit, they're losing ground. To the point where on July or on August 11th, then they lose for the fourth straight game.

43:35And while they're still in second place, there's still eight games over 500 at 59 and 51. They are now 13 games back of the Dodgers. They have 44 games to play and they are 13 games back of the Dodgers after 110 games on August 11th. The Dodgers play a double header on August 11th against the Boston Braves and they split the double header, but they win the first game. Ralph Branca defeats Warren Spawn, eight to one. And the Dodgers, like you said, are up 13, uh, 13 games. They are 70 and 35. So that's exactly a 66 winning percentage. That is the equivalent of a team today winning 108 games in 162 game seasons. So they are dominating the national league. Just previous to that, there had been a three game series between Brooklyn

44:37and the Giants over the course of two days, a double header on the eighth and a single, you know, a single game on the ninth and the on August 8th, the Dodgers beat the Giants seven to six, in tenettings on a a walkoff single by the third basement, Billy Cox scoring Andy Pafko. And after this sweep of the Giants, like you said, they go up 13 to nothing and yeah, deroture tells his team they have to wake up. After this sweep, he gets on his team and tells them that they have to wake up. And uh, it was these guys this the time when the Dodgers are screaming through the wall that the Giants are dead. I think that it might be. Um, and maybe this is a good time to talk about that a little bit. I'm trying to find the exact date that that was, um, I think, uh, I think it very well might have been right around here where the, the, the,

45:46the, the Dodgers led by Jackie Robinson are taunting deroture taunting the Giants saying that the Giants are dead. And I don't know, maybe now we want to talk a little bit about their relationship between Robinson and deroture. Yeah. So, and, and you'll be able to fill in a lot more of these gaps. But so the thing I think you have to realize is Leo Deroture may have been the first person to have a huge rivalry with Jackie Robinson that wasn't based on race really. Um, Deroture in spring training in 47 as the Dodgers manager before he got suspended. Was the one who had to deal with the Dixie Walker petition. And he was the one who basically led the Dodgers players in 1947. No, what they could do with their petition to not play with a

46:48black player. And basically said, you know, he can play, he's going to play. And let me tell you, there's more coming from a baseball standpoint. Um, Deroture gets suspended. Obviously, Robinson has that year in 47. They go to the world series. Deroture comes back in 48 and Jackie Robinson apparently, you know, had a lot of speaking engagements in the off season and came into spring training overweight, certainly not an anomaly for the time. But Deroture was not thrilled with this. He said he was skinny for shot and then he's fat for me. Yes. And I actually, I couldn't find this, but I'm sure I could find if I look, I swear I saw somewhere that in 1948, the Dodgers put Jackie Robinson on waivers. And I couldn't find it in my research for this most recent episode that we're doing now, but I could swear I've seen in the past

47:52that they put him on waivers at some point in 48. Yeah, that would have been interesting. Yeah, wouldn't it been? It would have been a lot different. Um, but uh, so Deroture then obviously ends up with the giants and they, and again, you can fill a lot of this in, but they did not like each other and they would talk a lot of, um, they would say a lot of things to each other. Deroture, Deroture was an object of derision because he was dating at first. She was married, which in some story telling of Deroture getting suspended in 48, the cover story for him being suspended in 48 was because he was being seen around with Lorraine Day, who was married at the time. The gambling thing was the real story. Um, Deroture was an object of derision, um, for that and Jackie Robinson would often make references to Lorraine Day, um, while, uh, while yelling at Leo Deroture, um,

48:56yeah, and I've heard, I think that what I'm saying, I can't say either, uh, I can't even get close to either of them here. Um, well, well, the thing, I mean, the thing that, the thing that apparently Robinson, you should say to Deroture, the, the clean version of it is, hey, Leo, are you wearing Lorraine's perfume? I think I smell Lorraine's perfume. Apparently he said other things that were worse also. And my favorite, I have to tell this one, my favorite one is, because it's just a weird thing to say, but Deroture Robinson was at the plate and Deroture yelled, my something to you Robinson and Robinson turned to him. And I'll get to a serious point about this in a matter, but Robinson turned to him and said, give it to Lorraine. She needs it more than I do. Um, and this is where I understand like all jokes like, I understand the, the need to tell the Jackie Robinson 1947 story. There's a really good, I watched it in preparation for this. There's an HBO documentary,

49:58which in itself is 25 years old. And they talk about, by 1951, Jackie Robinson was a couple years released from that. There were other black players in the league, certainly not saying they didn't face racism or that, you know, blacks were fairly represented in baseball because they weren't. But by 1951, Jackie Robinson was free to be a normal baseball player, which meant getting into it with opposing managers and opposing players, especially the giants, it meant getting into fights on the field and complaining about umpires. And there's an extent to which some people who loved him when he was the martyr who took all the abuse as soon as he started to push back a little, they were like, well, we don't care for this anymore. But Jackie Robinson to me is a much more interesting figure that doesn't deserve to have his life reduced just to the first three months of the 1947 season. And we're seeing the, we're seeing the version of Jackie Robinson here,

50:58it's like, Leo DeRosha wasn't yelling yet on like Ben Chapman was on the Phillies in 1947. Leo DeRosha was yelling at him because he hated him, he hated the Dodgers and he was trying to win the pennant. Well, and let's also be honest, it is objectionably a really jerk thing to do to insult the guy's wife. Like, you know, so it's, I mean, you know, everybody talks about well, Robinson was a fierce competitor, Robinson was a fierce competitor. And I think that's been always, people say that to talk about how much he wanted to see justice and equality and wanted more blacks and baseball. And that's all true too. But he was also just a really like, you know, he could be a really nasty fiery competitor on the baseball field having nothing to do with his Rachel consciousness. And he rubbed a lot of other black players the wrong way. Roy Campanella and he Roy Campanella had the favorite, famous line they were arguing one day in

52:00the locker room. And Robinson was making some point about something and Campanella goes, you know, something Robinson, you're not just wrong. You're a loud wrong. That was always like so yeah. And just and nothing too is, I mean, those were the times, you know, sometimes a guy through at another player's head because he was a racist. He didn't like blacks and sometimes a black player through it. Another black player's head and sometimes a white player through it. Another white player said just because it was the third inning and they didn't want to waste four pitches walking a guy. It was, you know, Dodgers Giants especially was really, really fierce. And it wasn't all about big societal issues. Sometimes it was just good old-fashioned 50s baseball. So, should we get back to mid August now? Yeah, well, yeah, go ahead and then I'll, I want to sort of tell the story starting on August, August the 12th here. So you can do that. The short

53:01version of this is that Dodgers, the Giants rather are 59 and 51. They're 13 games back. They reel off 16 straight victories between August 12th and August 27th. They close the gap to five games, which is still significant in late August. But in the span of 16 games, they make up eight. Now, if you're doing the math, the Dodgers didn't play terribly in that stretch. The Dodgers would have gone eight-nate. But the Giants went 16 and 0. So August, the, wait, we talked about that three games sweep of, uh, at Abbott's field, that Saturday they go back to the polo grounds. They get shut out by Philly. So they've now lost four in a row and they are still the full 13 back. The following day there, they've got a double header scheduled against the Philly's. And in the first game, it's

54:05salmagly pitching for the Giants and a guy named Russ Meyer who's actually a future Dodger pitching for Philly. Philly is down to, I'm sorry, the Giants are down to nothing in the bottom of the third and Monty Irvin, who is a great, you know, guy who many people thought would be the first black player in Major League Baseball. Monty Irvin was having his best season as a giant by far. You know, over 100 RBI's, you know, that type of thing. It's a three-run home run off of Jaco Thompson. And, uh, the Giants win that game three to two. They go on, as Andrew said, to win the next, uh, what is it? What is an 18 game win streak? Is that what we said? No, 14. You get 16. You're right. Sick. I think you're right. I think it's 16. Yeah. They go on to win the next 15 as well. When the winning streak begins, uh, you know, they are, like you said, uh, 59 and 51. And then there

55:11are, yeah, so 16 to row up to 75 and 51 by the time they finally lose a two-nothing game on August the 28th to, um, to Pittsburgh. I want to talk about one game here real quick, which is on August the 15th against the Giants where Willie Mays makes one of the, the greatest plays, um, defensive plays possibly of his career. With one out on the top of the eighth, Billy Cox is on third. The pitcher Ralph Brank is on first. Carl Farrillo is batting. Um, uh, Farrillo hits a fly ball to right center. Um, Mays has to make a, has to run a long way to get the ball. And it seems deep enough to bring in the runner from third. Mays makes a complete pivot on the dead run. Pegs the ball directly to the catcher West Westroom in perfect position to tag Cox. Um, the, the catcher West, Westroom had not even, didn't even expect it was going to get the ball. So he's

56:12still at his catcher's mask on. They said after the game, or after the play rather, um, Cox set, staring at the plate in disbelief. Mays is greeted by his teammates on the dugout steps. Gets a novation from the crowd the next time he, uh, he comes to bat. West, Westroom hits a home run. And then the giants win the game. Um, three to one. And that is perhaps the first great, uh, first great defense of play of Willie Mays's career. And by the end of August, they are, you know, it's still, you know, Dodgers are still comfortably ahead. It's still seven games. But in the course of just about three weeks, the Dodger, the giants rather have cut the lead in half. Yeah. So after the 16 game win streak, I mean, the giants never, they've lose two games in a row one time after that. So it's not like they settle back down to earth. But so they went 37 and seven, the rest of the way, including that 16 game. So even after the 16 games was over, they went 21 and seven.

57:18Right? Or yeah. So I mean, that's still 750 baseball. So you're right, though. It's, it's six. It's back up to seven. It's six. The lowest it gets is five games during the stretch into September. You know, the couple of four game win streaks. This is neither here nor there. But there's a note here that the only time they lost consecutive games was they lost the second half of a double header to the Cardinals on September 11th. And then there was a rain out on the 12th. So then on the 13th, it says rain makeup is part of a three team double header. So they played the Cardinals like to finish their series. And then the Cardinals played the Boston Braves later that day. Oh, I've heard of this. Yeah. Yeah. That's something used to see more of I think, you know, in the 19th century. But yeah, I heard about that. Yeah. So as of September 13th, let's just go there. They're still are September yet. They're still six games back. They're 84 and 57, which

58:24would be they have 13 games to play and they're six games back. So yeah, they cut this deficit from 13 down to, you know, six or seven or whatever it was eight after that win streak. But they really have not shaved much of it off in the intermediate in the intervening three weeks. You know, until we get to the 15th of September. And that's when they really start to to go on another tear and and continue to really make up the distance the rest of the way. Yeah. So there's probably another piece of this that we should should get into now. Yeah. So before we, you know, get into the end of September and then the playoff, I don't know when this first came out. It was, I believe decades later. I think that's right. The giants, I think on the on the the word of Sal Evar's who was a reserve catcher for them. And was there also somebody else who was

59:29signed or reserved or something like that? Yeah, there was a guy who I'll find the name because it was the, you know, you and I were both hooked at the same. What was that? And shans. That's right. That's what it was. Hank shans. Yeah. Basically came out years later. Has not been really categorically denied as it did not happen. When they were at home at the polo grounds, the giants were stealing signs. Essentially the conceit of it is. And if you're at all familiar with the polo grounds, first of all, good job. The center field, dead center field, 483 feet from all plate is also where the club houses are. You can actually see the staircase. Like if you look at pictures, the staircases are in center field to go up to the to the club houses. Was that this shans, I believe, would sit in the clubhouse in Leo de Rocher's office with a telescopic lens.

1:00:36And from there, he was able to see the sign that catchers was calling. He would relay that to the bullpen via an electronic buzzer. And then the bullpen would signal the batter via a system of throwing baked balls in the air. The only thing I would say about this is the only way I would say we do not have the full story on this is there is virtually no way all of that happens consistently in between the time that the signal is given and that the batter has to hit the ball. Yeah, you wonder how much, yeah, how much the actual story of what of the mechanics of it has been embellished by history. And so the one thing I will say, the whole everything we know about this story for the most part comes from Hank Chans and Sally Vars to very fringe characters in the

1:01:38history of the game of the story otherwise, who are naturally going to talk about how important and intricate their role in it was. So nobody like Thompson, I think has said that, you know, yeah, did I get a sign here and there, yeah, but not in the playoffs and whatever, like, do I think it happened to some degree sure? And there were some signs being stolen, I think. I can't imagine this was being done on every pitch just because again, the amount that this must have taken for a match if you were a batter trying to deal with all this, yeah, so the, you know, and like I said, we would recommend this, it's out there, this HBO documentary that they did a bunch of years ago, there's a few points that sort of get made on the one hand, they were only stealing signs at home, they didn't have the infrastructure to do it on the road. So you can't attribute it entirely to that and sort of like Andrew was saying, you know, not

1:02:39every player did it every time, both for, you know, strategic reasons or whatever reasons. On the other hand, this 16 game winning streak, 13 of the games are at the polo grounds. So, you know, if they're doing it at home, there's reason to believe that it, that maybe it's not just a coincidence that they go on this crazy winning streak. On the other hand, they also, in September, they're on the road a lot more from September 5th to September 20th, they play, I don't know, however many, you know, 14 or 13, 14 road games during that, during that time period, and they, you know, they win two, they sweep Chicago in two straight games, they sweep Pittsburgh in two straight games. Later in September, they sweep Philadelphia in, you know, in a two game series, they beat Boston on the road, beat the Dodgers on the road, you know, on October 1st in the first game of the three game series.

1:03:42So, this isn't done entirely on the, you know, this isn't done entirely at the polo grounds. On the other hand, Ralph Branca makes the point that if it didn't help you, why do it? So, that's important too. And they talk about it. There's another HBO sports documentary that's only about the Dodgers that came out a few years after this. And the whole second half of it is mostly about, it's a two, it's a two-parter. And the whole second half of it, a lot of it's about them moving in 57, but the first episode ends with this. And you could tell a few years if gone by, Branca's probably been asked about, I don't know, for these a little less diplomatic. And that's where he says, you know, of course, it had clay feet. And that's when he says, you know, they say, oh, it didn't help. It's them. Why would you do it? So, you can't totally dismiss it that way either. When you look at the hard numbers, a lot of the pitching got a lot better. You know, a saber article that says, before July 20th, the Giants pitching staff went at 3.470

1:04:46R.A. at home and 4.49 on the road. From July 20th to the end of the season, their ERA was 290 at home and 293 away. So obviously, dramatic drops both at home and on the road. So, I think what we're left with is this. They probably, it's pretty clear they were stealing signs to some extent during the 1951 season. How much it helped? How much of an outlier it was from what other teams were doing at the time. And whether or not they were doing it during that playoff series, all seem to be open questions. This may be a, you know, any surviving Brooklyn Dodgers fan, I will not begrudge this, but like for everybody else, it's one of those I'm kind of like, let's just put that, you know, like, let's not let that ruin the memory of the story. But maybe that's not the right

1:05:52take to have. Well, and there's also the point that gets made that it wasn't necessarily against the rules at the time that there was nothing in the rules to prevent it. There was no binoculars. We're not illegal in 1951. So it was a much more wide open, wide open as far as made rules, loopholes at the time too. We like stories from 70 years before that where guys would cut from first to third when the opposite looking. No, it's true. Yeah, I've heard presentations and read things where it's like, there's certain types of cheating, which we love. And then there's other types of cheating, which we uphore. And I mean, you know, that's maybe a different type of conversation. But yeah, there's always a sort of a line between what is, what is gamesmanship and what is felonious. Yeah. So should we get back to mid September here? Yes. Let's get back to mid September. There's one game from late September, one Dodgers game that I want to highlight. But you go ahead and I'll get to that at the appropriate time. All right. So starting on Friday, September

1:06:57fourth, there's still six games back. And they win five in a row all on the road. They sweep a three game series with the clubs. They win two games against Pittsburgh. And then they win the first game of the two game series against Cincinnati to cut the lead to three games as of Tuesday, September 18th. However, they lose on Thursday, September 20th, three to one. And the Dodgers must have played a double enter that day because the lead goes back to four and a half on September 20th. The giants have played a hundred and forty seven games. So they have seven games left. And they are four and a half back after this game. And then the giants continue to on 20th go ahead. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. The 20th, they lose to Cincinnati. So they're four and a half back. They come home on the

1:08:0022nd of Saturday and they win. And again, there must have been the Dodgers playing a makeup game because they go from four back to four and a half back to three back. They win again the next day. They continue to be three back to playing the Boston Braves. And then on Monday, September 24th, they win four to three. It cuts the lead to two and a half with, but there's still only four games to play. So they've they've cut it to a two and a half game lead, which is the smallest it's ever been. But there's only four games to play and the giants are getting ready to hit the road for two games in Billy and then two games in Boston against the Braves. And the Dodgers get swept in a double header on the 25th against the Braves. They're up one game after they get swept the following day on the Wednesday the 26th, the giants beat Philly 10 to one. And the Dodgers beat Boston 15 to five.

1:09:08So the two teams, they both hold serve. They're still up a game. It's a blowout. But Jackie Robinson, and this is it at, you know, at Braves field that the the current day home of the Boston University soccer and whatever else teams, Jackie Robinson steals home laid in a blowout against the Braves. And that leaves to on September 27th, 1951, which is a Dodgers lost to the Braves. And you have to keep in mind that, you know, the Dodgers are feeling a lot of tension. And the Braves are angry. The Braves are out of it. They're, you know, they're just kind of waiting to to be for the season to be over. There's only tied about 2000 just under 2100 fans watching this game in person at Braves field on September 27th. It's three to three in the bottom of the eighth. And with two

1:10:10runners on the Braves, Earl Torgeson hits a ball to Jackie Robinson. And Robinson throws the ball to Campanella to get the tag to try and make the out at the plate. Robinson throws a bit outside. Campanella has to stretch for the ball. And Braves pitcher by the name of Bob Addis, spikes Campanella. And the umpire calls Addis safe. Campanella protests. He gets ejected. The coach, the third base coach are the bench coach cookie, Lavagetto, another famous name from Brooklyn Dodgers. History also gets ejected. The umpires decide that they are going to clear the Dodgers bench, meaning they send every Dodgers player and coach with the exception of those who are playing and the manager, Charlie Dressen, one of the coaches, they're allowed to stay on the bench. Everybody else is ejected. And they have to even they're not ejected from the game, but they

1:11:14have to go to the clubhouse and watch the and you know, not be allowed on the bench during the rest of the game again, a game that ends up being a squad, excuse me, a four to three Braves victory over the Dodgers. After the game, Jackie Robinson and Jackie Robinson Campanella and maybe some others kick down the door of the umpires dressing room to start cursing them out. Boston police have to show up and keep order and the tensions are really rising. The Dodgers lose again the next day to Philadelphia and on Friday, September 28th, they lose in a walkoff to Philadelphia on Friday, September 28th. And as of that point, both teams are 94 and 58 and the national league is tied for the first time since Saturday, May 19th. And I don't even know if it was the Dodgers, the giants

1:12:22that the Dodgers would have been tied with at that point. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Remember how horrible the giant started? No, you're right. So there probably wasn't them that they were tied with on May 19th. Absolutely. I can like child check baseball. They were tied with the Braves. There you go. The other interesting thing about that that Boston ejection is that one of the players sent to act to the dressing room is a late season Dodgers call up a guy who never actually appears in a major league game, a guy by the name of Bill Charman, the future Hall of Fame shooting guard for the Boston Celtics of the 1950s and 60s. That has led to a misconception that Bill Charman was one, it was the only player ever to be ejected from a game without playing in one in the major leagues. It's actually not true. He was, he does not ever play, but he was never actually ejected. He was just sent back to the, um, to the dugout. So little, little trivia, a basketball Hall of Fame are involved in all of this too. Guys being sent back to the dressing room is a very wrestling

1:13:27thing, not a very baseball thing. This is true too. So the interesting thing is all of this is happening with both of them on the road. So we go into, you know, it's an interesting situation. Like there's, now you get a couple of days off and they switch places. So the giants go to Boston and the, the Dodgers go to Philly. And I'd like to imagine they passed each other on the train and gave each other the finger, probably somewhere around New York actually. Um, although, according to this, the giants had two days off. So they probably went home for a day or so. But, um, so we go to Saturday, September 29th. Uh, they're tied going into this game. The giants win three to nothing up in Boston. It's salmagally against Warren Spawn. Giants get, uh, get the win there. The Dodgers win, uh, in Philadelphia, five to nothing.

1:14:28Nukem gets the win. Oh, actually over Robin Roberts. So I have a, I've got those two pitching matchups there. Yeah. Two Hall of Famers. Yeah. They're both beating Hall of Famers. So they hold serve there and they go into Sunday, September 30th, 1951. The pennant hangs in the balance, uh, on this day, you have the giants in Boston to play the braves again. And the Phillies in, uh, the Dodgers in Philadelphia to play the Phillies. Well, through the giants, Braves game first, because that's the easier one and chronologically it was over first. Um, the giants win three to two. Larry Jansen gets his 22nd win of the season. Um, it's three to one. Go ahead. Complete game victory for Jansen. It's three to one. The Braves get a run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Um, I don't know if we'll want to go through play by play to see how close the, wow, they'll just do it real quick. Let's just see if they got close in the bottom of the ninth third. That was. So in the bottom of the ninth, they got a double, a single, a ground out, a

1:15:34ground out, a single. So they were, you know, they were threatening Warren Spawn came into pinch run apparently. And then the last batter of the game flew out. So the Dodgers, the giants win with tying and winning runs in scoring position in the, uh, in the end of the game. So the giants move half a game up very briefly. They get on the train thinking they're going to win the, uh, national league pen and, you know, in this crazy comeback because the Phillies are up ford enough thing and sticks to one early, um, in the game, they are up eight to five as late as the eighth inning. So the giants are on the train home, you know, celebrating potentially winning the pen in the Dodgers are down big early. They climb back against the Phillies, but they're still down eight to five going into the eighth inning. Uh, Pafko leads off with a ground out, Hodges singles,

1:16:41Cox singles, Rubber Walker hits a double scores two runs and suddenly it's eight to seven. Rubber Walker, the backup catcher who pinch hits for the pitcher. Carl Ferillo hits a single that scores a run to make it eight to eight before, uh, Reese, uh, ground into a double play or a fly, it's, it flies into a double play, I guess. Um, so it's eight to eight. They've come back and now the game goes into extra innings. Did you have anything to say before I kind of went through this? No, I've got a little bit on the extra innings too, but I think suffice it to say to introduce this, somebody, I don't know whether it was Rachel Robb. I think it was actually Rachel Robbins and said that this and it's going to be these next four innings that we talk about that this was Jackie Robinson's favorite game that he ever played as a pro. This was probably the baseball moment that he was the most proud of the baseball game and the performance that he was the most proud of and we'll, we'll get to why now. So we go into the ninth, it's eight to eight,

1:17:43or just bottom of the eight. It stays eight to eight. Um, and it remains that way to 10th through the 11th to 12th through the 13th. Yep. Leave Robinson's made a couple of very nice defensive plays. Is that correct? Yeah. So first of all, on the 11th, um, with a runner on base, Andy Seminick laces a shot to left center, but with two outs, but Andy Pafko makes a running game saving catch to keep the Dodgers alive. In the bottom of the 12th, um, Robin Roberts in the 12th inning is batting for himself. So a pitcher who's pitched 12 innings and given up eight runs, by the way, is batting for himself. Um, in the last day of the season for these guys, yeah, and is that right? Is that, I just want to make sure, do I, do we have that right? Did, did, did Roberts come in in relief for it? He pitched the whole game. Um, oh, no, he did not, I'm sorry, he did not pitch the whole game. Bubba church started and then Carl's ruse and then, um, Roberts actually pitches, uh,

1:18:46six and two thirds innings blows the save gets the loss to bring his record to 21 and 15. It's also funny here because just looking at the Dodgers pitcher, like, pitchers, like, basically in this game, every sort of Dodger pitcher name from this era that you would know pitches. Preacher row, Ralph Branka, Clem LaBine, Carl Erskine, Don Nukum, all the really weren't well-known pitchers for the Dodgers, including five and two thirds scoreless from Nukum in this game, even though the winning pitcher is a guy named Bubba Bud Podbellion. Nonetheless, in the 12th, Roberts bats for himself gets on base, um, uh, Richie Ashburn hits into a fielders choice. Second and third, they intentionally walk, um, a guy by the, uh, by the name of Willie Jones, then they get a strikeout with, so there's two outs and a guy named Eddie Wakeis, who is, um,

1:19:46sort of a, uh, he's a, he's a somewhat well-known, um, well-known player in major league history because he was, when he was a Chicago Cub in 1949, he was shot by an infatuated fan. Um, well, he was with the Chicago Cubs and it is, uh, that, um, that story is, um, considered to be one of the inspirations for the book and later movie, The Natural, uh, with Robert Redford. Anyway, Wake, got him, sorry. No, no, when you said The Natural, I was thinking of something different, gone. Oh, okay. So Wakeis comes up, smashes a low liner to the right of second base. Jackie Robinson dives to the ball, um, lands hard with the ball in his glove and tosses the ball towards second base, but it is ruled a catch, um, fillies and fillies fans long dispute the fact that Robinson actually caught the ball. In fact, one fillies player is, um, is ejected for, um,

1:20:51for how vociferously he's arguing Roberts, um, and, and, and a banquet that winter, Robin, Robert sees Robinson and says, Jackie, you didn't catch the ball that Wakeis hit. Um, so then we go to the 14th inning, um, and Roberts retires two future Hall of Famers, recent Snyder, and then Robinson gets a hold of a high fastball to, uh, home run, gives Brooklyn a nine eight lead Bud Podbelly and closes it out in the 14th. And thanks to the fielding and hitting heroics of Jackie Robinson, the Dodgers have beaten the fillies to set up a three game playoff for the National League pennant. So, and this is very important to mention, this was Sunday. Game one of the World Series was Thursday. Just to kind of explain, all we're about to talk about now happens between that. This is how quickly, like,

1:21:52I'm going to say it now, so don't forget to mention it later. There, there are things where like you hear about how close things were in history. Like the one that always, the moon landing would stock and the Ted Kennedy Chapacwittic thing all happened within like two weeks of each other in 1969. Well, there was a, in January of 73, in like three days, it was Nixon's inauguration, the Roe v. Wade decision, LBJ died. I think there was even a fourth thing all in that like same thing. Oh, and that was the other thing in that 69 to also the Tate La Bianca, the Charles Manson murders. They were all going about the shot heard around the world and the Willie, uh, the Mickey Mantle tearing his knee on the storm drain in the outfield happened within 24 hours for each other. Yeah, more or less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was the next day. Man, I got hurt in game two. Oh, did he? Yeah. So whatever, the, uh, I was trying to find when this coin toss was and I can't find it, but

1:22:58it presumably did not happen between Sunday night and Monday, presumably it happened earlier than that. But we are set up now for a playoff. These count as regular season games, just like they did all through history until they did away with regular, you know, playoff game tie breakers when they went to the 16, uh, playoff situation. But the, it's the third one of these ever. The Dodgers had played one in the 46 season against the Cardinals. The National League rules were two out of three. The Cardinals won two straight games in 1946. And in 1948, there was a one game playoff in the American League between the Indians and the Red Sox that was won by the Indians who went on to win the World Series. So this is the third one of these in a five year period. And I think it would be quite a while before there was another one. Um, I think 62, the Dodgers

1:24:01and the Giants. Yeah, I think so because it was like a rerun, but they were in a different continent or different coast and everything. So the Dodgers win the tight win the coin toss for this. And basically your two choices are you can play game one at home and games two and three on the road. Or you can play game one on the road and games two and three at home. And it's easy to say why is it done like that? But when you think about they had these rules in place, not anticipating it would be two teams who played in the same city. So if you had a tie breaker between the Cardinals and the Boston Braves back then train travel, the World Series is happening in three days one way or another, you can't be going back and forth. So they kind of did have to do this because if you did it, and if you did it two and then one, you have the opportunity that one team wouldn't even get a home game. So as weird as it seems now, it does make sense that they would do one two. Yeah, no,

1:25:07absolutely. What does it make sense is the Dodgers choosing what they chose, which is we'll play game one at home. Um, yeah, and I didn't find anything about their thinking there. Maybe there never wasn't anything put out about their thinking. That's just what they chose. And especially, I guess they didn't know ahead of time they were going to use all their pitchers and a 14 in a game in game one. I get the day before. I guess their thought was well, if we win in game one at home, all we have to do is go to the Apollo grounds and win one game. There's also just wasn't much of a track record of history with this kind of stuff. I don't know how many people were studying different splits between home and road and all of this stuff back then. Um, so they end up the Dodgers win and decide we'll play game one at home at Ebets field and play games two and three at the Apollo grounds. So game one is the next day Monday afternoon, Monday, October 1st, obviously all afternoon games at Ebets field in Brooklyn, Ralph Branket

1:26:11pitches for the Dodgers and Jim Herndt for the Giants. And the Giants win the game three to one. The big play. Go ahead, sorry. No, I would just note that one of the other things is that this is the first baseball game every ever broadcast coast to coast on television. They had planned to do it with the World Series instead. But when this three game playoff comes up, they do it. So the very first game ever and the first ever baseball game broadcast at all had been at Ebets field. I think like 13 years earlier. And now the first coast to coast broadcast is is also emanating from Ebets field in 1951. So the Dodgers get a run in the bottom of the second inning in the top of the fourth after Monteerven gets hit by pitch. Um, Bobby Thompson hits a two run home run to give the Giants a two one lead. They would add a run in the eighth inning. Um, and would end up winning the game three to one. So the Giants have one three to one. Says here, Bill Dickey was at the game

1:27:13scouting them because we should mention the Yankees of one, the American League pennant, uh, in, in a surprise to no one. So the Yankees are just getting ready for the World Series, which is going to be on Thursday Yankee Stadium one way or another. Uh, they're going to be playing one of these teams on Thursday. Um, so they move from Ebets field to the polo grounds for game two. Um, this is Tuesday, October 2nd, 1951 at the polo grounds. And the Dodgers hammer the Giants tend to nothing. They get two runs in the first. It's six to nothing by the end of the sixth inning. They pour it on, uh, home runs from Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Andy Pafko, and Rub Walker, and they win going away, tend to nothing. The Giants, by the way, commit five errors in this game. You mentioned Rub Walker, Campanella, who's a honest way or has now completed his first, at first of what would be three National League MVP seasons over the course of five years,

1:28:1751, 53 and 55 plays in the first game, but is not doing well. Let's take a shot in Nova Kane. He goes hit list. So they end up going through Rub Walker instead of Campanella for the second game. And ultimately, the third game, I, you know, like you mentioned, it's a, it's a blowout for the Dodgers, you know, a complete game. So a complete game shut out victory for Clem LaBine, who is best known as a reliever. And even at the time, is best known as a reliever. In the 51 season, he had only started in six games and would be mostly a reliever for most of his career would never start more than nine games throughout his entire major league career, a career that actually ends with a few games with the Metz in 1962. And that was something you saw a little

1:29:17bit in those days where in a post season setting, a manager would throw out a guy who had previously been mostly a relief pitcher. The previous year in game one of the World Series, the Phillies facing the Yankees had sent their, their ace relief pitcher Jim Constantine to the mound to pitch game one of the World Series. Constantine, who was MVP of the 1950 season had not started a single game in 1950, 49 or 48. And he'd actually missed all the 47 seasons. Guy, you hadn't started a game in three years, four years and was the best reliever in all of baseball. The Phillies start him in game one. And then the following year in 1952, the Dodgers send their rookie of the year, a pitcher named Joe Black, who'd been a star in the Negro leagues. Also, Joe Black had only started

1:30:17two of his 56 games in the 1952 regular season, but actually starts three games just in the 52 World Series. So my point being is this whole sort of weird phenomenon of starting a relief pitcher in a key postseason game, even though we barely pitched as a starter all year. That's a, that's a common thing for a little while in the early 1950s. The other thing that's interesting is you just got to think about coming out of game one, winning at Ebbets Field. That's got to be the best the Giants have felt in months. They, they hadn't had a lead on their own. They, the best they'd been able to do was to be tied all season that hour or so after they won game one 54 and the Dodgers were down. But in general, yes, you got, you got to figure it. And so game three is set up so perfectly because the Giants make this big comeback Dodgers win it Dodgers tie it back up on the Robinson

1:31:18Heroics going into game, you know, in game one 54. Then the Giants win. They're finally in the driver's seat for the first time all year. Then they go back to the Polo grounds and not only lose but get completely blown out in game two. So that brings us to this October 3rd, 1951. And the anticipation going into this game, the only other thing I can think of maybe is like when it was Ali Frazier or something like you talk about like just like the the tension in the anticipation going into this game with two New York teams, it's got to be one of the greatest days in the history of sports. It is October 3rd, 1951. The game is at 130 as I'll have all the other ones. Sound mag Lee against they start Don Lucham for the Dodgers.

1:32:22Yep. Before the game, Gil Hodges and his wife are coming to the ballpark and they encounter Bobby Thompson and they wish each other luck and they say, you know, I'm glad I get a chance. I forget which one says it because I'm glad I get a chance to say hello now because one of us is going to be off. I'll say I believe in here today and we may not get a chance to see each other later. I'll talk a little about the broadcasts towards the end. This game is on a ton of broadcasting. I made reference at the beginning of the episode to the clip. Today's hero as yet unknown but the man and the hour are about to meet. That's Gordon McClendon from the Liberty broadcast which is the one full broadcast that survives. And although there are some, that's a little bit of a recreation, isn't it? Isn't I don't think so? Okay, well, we can talk about the broadcasts in a little bit. But so the game starts and Brooklyn gets a run in the top of the first.

1:33:24Robinson singles in Peewee Reese. There's no scoring in this game after that until the bottom of the seventh inning. I didn't know if you had anything on this specifically you wanted to talk about between now and the bottom of the seventh inning, but there's no runs between then. No, it's a pitch. I don't want to want to three innings. It's a pitcher's duel. It is a battle between two of the toughest meanest pitchers of the 50s. Nukem and Magley. Nukem is really starting to tire in the later innings. How many pitches does Nukem end up throwing in this game? Exactly a hundred. But he's pitched, you know, pitched a whole season in an era where pitchers armed fatigue was not something that was very, anybody was very concerned with Robinson at one time tells him you keep pitching out there until your f-ing arm falls off. But they finally get to somebody finally breaks through the giants.

1:34:33The giants finally break through in the bottom of the seventh when who else Bobby Thompson hits a a sack fly to center field to score money, Irvin to make the game one to one going into the eighth. Yet did he wasn't a sack flyer? Was it a hit? Because it says here double to left feel then fielders choice. Then fly ball. Oh, no, you're right. It's a hit. You're absolutely right. It is a hit. I'm reading that wrong. It's a base hit. Absolutely. We're looking at you're looking at baseball reference. I'm looking at the play by play from baseball reference. Yeah. It's worded confusingly. So we go to the top of the eighth. Sound Magley still in the game. It's one to one. The giants have just tied it up. Single from Peewee Reese or first batter of the ending is Carl Ferrell O who lines out to the pitcher. So one out. Peewee Reese singles followed by a single from Duke Snyder.

1:35:34There's a wild pitch while Jackie Robinson is up which scores a run to give the Dodgers the lead. Then they walk Robinson to reset up a force play. Andy Pafko singles score. Jackie Robinson. Gil Hodges pops up. Billy Cox singles. And after a ground out from Rubu Walker, the Dodgers have now taken a four to one lead into the bottom of the eighth. So there's six outs away and three runs up. Six outs away and three runs up going into the whether that would be the eighth inning, bottom of the eighth. Bottom of the eighth. Nukem comes in. He retires the side in order. He gets Bill Rigny who comes into pinch hit to strike out. Hank Thompson comes into pinch hit for sound Magley. He grounds out and then Eddie Stanky pops it up. So one, two, three inning for Nukem.

1:36:39So going into the top of the ninth now Dodgers go down pretty much without without any fuss here to Larry Janssen. Ground out, ground out, fly ball. So it's four to one bottom of the ninth inning. The Dodgers are three outs away from winning the pen and I believe there's announcements made about picking up your press passes for for game one of the world series the next day if you're a if you're press going to cover the game. They don't make that announcement until after the first out. So so the the bottom of the ninth Almond Dark singles off of Nukem. The next batter Don Muller or Mueller notices that Dodger first baseman Gile Hodges is playing close to the bag. It was an odd strategy because there was very little chance of dark attempting to steal because when you're down three runs, why would you try and steal a base and maybe potentially run yourself out of the inning. It does let him. Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. So

1:37:45especially so then Mueller hits a slow ground or the Hodges is right just outside of his reach. Had Hodges been playing wider than the business from the Saber game story on the game. Had the first baseman had he been playing a little wider of the bag. He might have started a double play. However, it it becomes a single right with dark taking third then Monty Irvin their best hitter. Fals out to Hodges and that is when the announcement was made in the press box that the world series credentials could be picked up later that evening at the Bill Moore hotel. Which is an odd time because the time run is still coming to the plate. But it's first and third one out. Up comes Whitey Lockman, Nukem still in the game. Lockman doubles. Alvin Dark scores. Mueller goes to third base. So it's second and third now with one out. The tying run is its

1:38:46second base. The winning run is about to come to the plate. On the play, Don Mueller is hurt sliding into third base. So they go to tend to him. They ultimately end up sending Clint Hartzong into pinch run. Who's a live pitcher? Talk about a free ride to being involved in one of the greatest place in baseball history. Yeah, he went into pinch run at third base. Yeah, and he's so he had been this is interesting. He had been a pitcher most of his career Hartzong. But then in 51 did not actually pitch at all. He just gets in about 20 games as a pinch hitter, back up right fielder, that type of thing. But they send him in to pinch run and you're right because in the famous rush. I just call they say Hartzong down the line of lockman, down the line of second, not taking any chances. Hartzong without too big of a lead at third. And so yeah,

1:39:49he literally scores a run in this game and he will forever be immortalized as one of the names along with Branka and Thompson and lockman that's named as part of this. But all he does is just go into pinch run at third base. So while they're doing this and for most of his inning, Ralph Branka and Carla Erskin have one bullpen and Dresson is on the phone with the bullpen coach. So that's an interesting note though. The bullpen coach is Clyde Soukforth, who was a long time scout in all sorts of things for the Dodgers and is in fact widely considered to be the guy who discovered Jackie Robinson. So not just any random old guy that's Clyde Soukforth, one of the you know under no underrated figures in the history of baseball's reintegration out there in the bullpen. Dresson is asking, you know, how do they look and he says they both look good. And

1:40:51right as they're on the phone, Erskin bounces a curveball and they decide we don't really want any past balls here. We you know, so they decide to go with Branka. So Branka comes in. Bobby Thompson would later say he hadn't even noticed that they had changed pictures. Yeah. Bobby Thompson takes a was it a strike on the inside corner is the first pitch. Yeah. And also keep in mind he had holmered off of Branka to basically win the game two days earlier. And then on the second pitch, he sends one into the left field, he sends one deep into left field. The polo grounds had an overhang. The upper deck was actually shorter like the upper deck actually hung onto the field compared to the lower deck. So it wasn't as you saw very few lower deck home runs. There was

1:41:51actually there's a lot of stories of you know, we can talk about the dimensions of the polo grounds. But there were actually a lot of stories of left fielders being under the ball ready to catch it at the polo grounds. And it landed in the upper deck, even though they would have easily quadded if the upper deck had not been there. And that is the famous, the giants win the pennant, the giants win the pennant rough Russ Hodges who would be the one of the giants broadcasts for another, I think almost 30 years follows the mouth to San Francisco actually ends up doing 49er games in the 60s and 70s also well. He's out in San Francisco goes crazy. And I never understood one of the things that he said until a couple years ago, one of the very first things he says is Haras Stonum is God a winner. And that was Haras Stonum, the owner of the giants who had taken over the team from his father, Charles Stonum shortly after they won the World Series in 33 and then had had a decade and a half

1:42:52of not ever winning a pennant. So that's one of the first things that Hodges says was Haras Stonum is God a winner. And for years and years, I heard that quote and didn't process what he was saying. And then just a couple years ago, reading a book about Haras Stonum, it was explained what he was saying. So that's one of the first things on Russ Hodges's mind is that Haras Stonum is God a winner. So I have some information on the different broadcasts and the actual like transcripts of these. Russ Hodges was doing the game for the Giants Radio WMCA AM. The quote is exactly, and I'm not going to as I begin this, I'm not going to try and recreate it, but we'll see if accidentally I do. He says Branket throws. There's a long fly. It's going to be I believe the giants win the pennant, the giants win the pennant, the giants win the pennant, the giants win the pennant. But I'll be hit it into the lower deck of the left field stands. The giants win the pennant and they're going crazy.

1:43:53I think that's where he says, hey, oh, they didn't include that. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I will not believe it. Bobby Thompson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left field stands. And again, that's why he's highlighting that it was the lower deck because it was actually hard to hit it into the lower deck. And the place is going crazy. The Giants, Haras Stonum is God a winner. The Giants win it by a score of five to four and they're picking Bobby Thompson up and they're carrying him off the field. Now, legacy has told us that the reason this call survives because this stuff didn't get kept back then. Like, they don't have the first 10 years of the Johnny Carson tonight show because they just the next day they taped over it. Like there's there's and they they thought there was no value. They literally said, why do we need this? There's legendary TV shows that we actually don't have every episode of. Because they just, they didn't think they weren't able really to keep it. They didn't think there was

1:44:59any value in it. You know, there's there's a guy who like has made his life work of like trying to get as many old WF broadcast as he can. And he's he found some from like the early 70s, but it's just the audio for whatever reason. But it's like, you know, so it's not, but anyway, telecast to the first two Super balls. So they the myth that has persisted for years is that we only have this call because a Dodger fan wanted to record it. So record the misery of the Giants announcer when they lost. We have it because a Brooklyn fan named Lawrence Goldberg asked his mother to tape record the last half inning of the radio broadcast while he was at work. Now the thing I have to say is how, how were they doing that in 1951?

1:46:03I called them up a tape recorder, I guess. What did a tape recorder look like in 1951? I agree. I have no idea how, but so and I feel bad for this guy because he captured the most famous call in baseball history. And for years, people have it wrong. Even though he was from Brooklyn, he was a Giants fan. He was a Giants fan his whole life. He asked his mother to record the last half inning so we could listen to it when he got home from work. So Russ Hodges, I guess later on, said, oh, it was a Dodgers fan who made the tape so we could hear when Brooklyn won. But that's not actually true. So obviously that's the most famous call. You also had Ernie Harwell, who called the game on Giants television. Ernie Harwell would go on to be the Tigers radio announcer for 40, 50 years. Did games with Hodges normally, but in this case, he was doing the game on TV and I have to love that it was on PIX. Yeah. Yeah, I ex still in New York is channel 11,

1:47:06it used to be the WB. Now it's the CW still sign felled on at 11 and 11, 30 every night. Actually, now it's 11, 30 like they moved it from 11 and 11, 30 to just 11, 30 and it was such a big deal. It made the papers. The kind of channel it is. But yeah, I'd rather think they're famous for it. I don't know if they still do it was they used to always do what was it Labor Day or whatever they would do the marathon of the Honeymooners. Oh, I tell you we're talking, they do the U-logs. Yes, they do. They do the U-logs. It's not on Labor Day. WPIX is like the most New York thing between sign felled, the Honeymooners, the U-log, Yankee baseball, giant. It is like, if you're not from New York, you don't get it, but PIX. It's all you need to say is something. PIX, PIX. So I love the fact that I can turn on the channel that had this game on us. So Ernie Harwell was doing the game for WPIX broadcast. His broadcast was also carried nationally on the NBC television network. The first coast to coast live broadcast.

1:48:12It says Harwell's description was not recorded. He later recalled simply saying, it's gone. Almost at the moment Thompson's bad struck the ball. I said to myself, if that ball drops into Paph Goes glove, I'm in deep trouble. He said after that, no further commentary was necessary. The pictures took over, which was television. Red Barber was doing the game for Dodgers Radio, WMGM. He straightforwardly said, Branca Pumps delivers a curve, swung on and belted deep shot to left field. It is a home run. And the New York Giants of one of the nationally pen and the Polo Grounds goes wild. And the Red Barber clip does survive. And that's they play that in that HBO special. And also it was said Red Barber, who was a guy who's kind of fancyed himself sort of like a newsman. He didn't necessarily like some of the boisterous. He later said that he was not a fan of Hodges call because he thought it was too loud and unprofessional and everything else.

1:49:14But did he just was calling it for giant? But Barber would never have done that for one of his teams, whether it was the Dodgers or later the Yankees. So then we also have Gordon McClendon, we were talking about before. Most listeners heard McClendon's call on the Liberty Broadcasting System, which a similar thing has got to exist with that name now that's troubling. But the Liberty Broadcasting System called the game. He said, similarly enthusiastic yell of the Giants win the pennant and preserved on Harwell's audio scrapbook remains the only professionally recorded broadcast account of the entire third game. So maybe it is. I've seen different different stories on that. It's not a recreation. And I'm looking at Wikipedia, but this is I need everything. Most of what Liberty did was recreations, but this was not a recreation. I'm going to listen to that at work tomorrow and react to it as if it's in real time. Incidentally, can I just Gordon McClendon? I don't know if you know anything about him.

1:50:18Really interesting guy, not really known as a sportscaster, but born in born in Oklahoma, but also lived in Texas, fought in World War II. He was known for his elaborate practical jokes on such people as J. Edgar Hoover and President Nixon. I know, obviously can take a joke. He owned a convertible for a time. He owned a converted fishing boat, which he used to beam into Sweden and other European countries for some reason. He was later a rock and roll DJ. He was in the oil business with his father, who was a former governor of Louisiana. What was that? Remember that guy was in prison, I'm sure. And he, of course, ran for Congress as a conservative Democrat in ran for the Senate in 1964 as a conservative Democrat. It's called that what that means.

1:51:27He ran on a platform of opposing civil rights act. Did get 43% of the vote. He was acquainted with Jack Ruby. Ruby told the FBI that McClendon was one of his six closest friends. This guy lived a life, I gotta say. The game was also broadcast by Al Helfer on the mutual broadcasting system. Buck Cannell and fellow Ramirez for a Spanish language network. I believe they had their table destroyed when Ralph Branca power bombed Bobby Thompson through it after the ninth inning. And this is interesting. Nat Albright in a studio recreation for the Dodgers secondary network in the South. Harry Carey then an announcer with the St. Louis Cardinals called the game for a St. Louis radio station. Pittsburgh pirates announcer Bob Prince was in the WMCA booth with Hodges and may also have participated in broadcasting the game. So he was there, but who knows

1:52:28if Russages let him talk. Yeah, think about all these broadcasting legends that were at this game. So a couple of things I just wanted to bring up here. And I have one thing too. I have a I have a I have a I have a in game thing. It was yours more of a broader point. Yeah, go ahead with the in game. So the even though Dresson will manage the Dodgers for two more years and win two more pennants, this is sort of like crystallizes some of the criticism of Dresson both by his players and by the general public. Ralph Branca later says that you could put everything that Charlie Dresson knows about pitching on a pinhead in bold type and still have room for the Constitution. The the many criticisms of Dresson after the game include that he should have walked Thompson because Thompson was a fastball hitter and Branca was a fastball pitcher. We talked

1:53:29a little bit about this. He should have had Hodges fill the hole between first and second instead of trying to hold Alvin dark on the bag. He should have pulled Clem LeBine early in the game to blow out because that would have maybe enabled the bind to pitch and relief in game three. When when Nukham told Dresson that he was starting to tire, Dresson should have pulled him and that would have allowed either Erskine or Branca to start the ninth inning. And then he had some sort of a feud with Clem LeBine which led to him using LeBine only sparingly in September and you know as the Brooklyn lead dwindled to zero. So lots of criticism for the on field decisions of Charlie Dresson in the wake of this loss. He'll only be the Dodger manager for two years before he's eventually replaced by Walter Allston. Walter Allston who would then go on to win four World Series with the Brooklyn slash Los Angeles Dodgers. And I mean to give Dresson his due,

1:54:30they go to the World Series in 52, 53 they go to the World Series that one of the best single season teams of all time. Yeah, they were like 105 and 47 that year or something like that. They won him back but the Dodgers then and for the rest of Walter Allston's tenure had a policy of only giving managers one year contracts. And Dresson was like I just wanted 103 games for you in the last two pennants. I'm one of three year contract. And Walter, they basically had a conversation where Dresson's like so you're saying you have no problem with the way of managing the team. You want me to come back. You just refuse to give me a three year contract in the mall. He's like we don't do it. And he said okay, let my contract expire. So to be fair to Dresson, it's not like he got you know dismissed. He just wouldn't sign keep signing one year deals. Allston signed 22 consecutive one year deals. Well, and then the crazy thing is is that he he goes and manages Dresson does. He kind of bums around the he coaches the senators for from 55 to 57. And then in 58, the Dodgers bring him

1:55:34back as a coach. And he's a coach with the Dodgers in 58 and 59 when they win the World Series. He then goes to leave to manage a couple more American league teams. And then a few years after that, Allston brings back to roacher as a coach and to roacher's a coach with the Dodgers. So God bless Walter Allston. He just keeps bringing back his predecessors as Dodger managers to coach with him. Oh, I had a couple of points on this. I talked about that Dodgers HBO special, not the shot around the world, special with the one on the Dodgers. And it's two parts and it ends with this. And they talk about I guess Dresson went into the locker room and just tore his jersey off and like like popped all the buttons off of it after this. Like he didn't undo his jersey. He just like ripped it off and all the buttons came flying off. They interview a woman in that documentary. And if I mispronounce anything, her name is Betty Boud Lord. And she's like a political and civic

1:56:37activist. She was born in Shanghai, China in the 30s. Her family like escaped to the US in the late 40s or whatever. And she like the late 40s early 50s was like as she was learning English. I guess she wrote a book called in the year of the Boer and Jackie Robinson about like, yeah, I've seen that book her life. Her efforts to learn English and become accepted by her classmates. And how she succeeds with the help of baseball and Jackie Robinson. In that thing, she's the last quote of the first episode. She says to this day, I have never watched another baseball game. So that was like it for her. She just couldn't get over it after that. Yeah. And sometimes you wonder if like it was just like she got older and got interested in other things and just, you know, was moving away from baseball anyway. But that's a little, that's a little nutty to say that. Yeah, I guess I guess that night on the radio Red Barber was quoting death figures from the Korean War to get people to keep it in perspective. Yeah, he said something like X number of

1:57:39boys were killed in Korea last week. You got to put everything in perspective. In that one, it's Larry King telling that he's like, didn't work, but it was worth it. It was a good try or whatever. So the two things I'll say here and I know we're going to want to wrap up. If I could go to a live sporting event ever in history, it would be this one. You know, given the venue, the time, the result, the importance. Now to me, and this is a theoretical thing, like if it's a difference between you could go to any sporting event that you already know the outcome of ahead of time or whatever, maybe it's different, but like I think if you said to me to sort of pick a game you could ever have picked to go to in history, I do think it would be this. I think it would be game three of this series in 1951. Yeah, I think the only sort of knock on it is that it wasn't back and forth as much. It was scoreless for so long. That's like the one thing.

1:58:41So I don't know, maybe I'd think more about like the 78 Yankees Red Sox playoff game or honestly, the Aaron Boone game would be up there. Aaron Boone game would be up there. Maybe even we didn't work out well for the Yankees, but the 60 Maserowski game, which was back and forth. But this is what do you always say? It doesn't take long to call the role. If it's not the head of the class, it doesn't take long to call the role. So and the other thing I would say, so I was watching that 51, especially the other night, and they're showing it's like news real footage. And it's a guy just sitting there at that game and just smoking a cigarette. And he just drops the cigarette and on the ground, there's like 40 other cigarettes. So you almost definitely are not familiar with this. I've never seen the movie, but I know the conceit of it. There was a movie that came out maybe a decade ago called The Purge. And the idea

1:59:42is that it takes place in like a version of the United States where they've basically solved crime. And their way to solve it is for 48 hours every year, all crime is legal, including murder. Like you can get away with whatever you want. And that's like people get it out of their systems, and then the rest of the year, there's no crime. I do think we should have something like that with smoking. I think this occurred to me watching this clip. I think there should be about a week where you can smoke in any public place you used to be able to smoke at a baseball game at the movie theater wherever. And then that's it. And then after that, you're not allowed to smoke anywhere. But that's what made me think that like. Well, it does kind of add to the romance of the whole thing when you see the cigarette smoke, rust cigarette and cigar smoke rising from the stands during all of this. It's funny because I don't know about you either, but it's like it's try as much as I can. I try really hard. But when I picture even being at that game,

2:00:47I can't I have to picture. I can't not picture it in black and white. It exists. When I picture going to that game and sitting there, it's I'm watching the game in black and white. So I guess let's just real quick. Literally the next day is game one of the world series. Ralph Branca shows up at Yankee Stadium and his picture shown taking pictures with Bobby Thompson. And this became a huge cultural woman in the immediately. I think Ralph, I think Thompson was offered like $500 to go on some show that night. Because this is still when the net, the entertainment, what we think of as Hollywood now was still in New York. And somebody offered him $5,000 or $500 and he's like, no, I want to go home. He lived in Staten Island. And then they said, well, I have a thousand and he's like, all right, well, for a thousand. And I did the inflation calculator. And it's like 28 grand now to show up on whatever show it was that night. I don't, yeah, forget who it was.

2:01:55But you know, it was that kind of thing. Branca is kind of the model of how to handle this thing. You know, yeah, you always get the sense that he was never glad that he was, that this is what he's famous for. But at the same time, he seems to have handled being the, you know, the, the villain, not the villain, but sort of like the loser in one of the most famous plays in history as well as anyone has ever done it. Well, and he and Thompson developed a friendship for a long time. I do think that maybe things got a little more strained, like you said, once the sign stealing thing came out because I think, you know, it's almost like, well, you know, he developed his friendship with Thompson. And now it's like, oh, now you're telling me you cheated. So, but yeah, you know, you know, you, and you also, you think about like, you know, some of the, you know, the other one that comes immediately to

2:03:01mind and, you know, there, I mean, I mean, I personally handled it well. And, you know, I mean, but then you think about like a Donnie Moore who, you know, ended up taking his own life, you know, in part because of the way he felt after this. And there's, you know, there's others out there. But yeah, I mean, he, I think also, you know, he, there was probably money to be made through the years. If, you know, if Thompson had fouled out to the catcher, Bobby Frank, or Ralph Frank, I probably wouldn't have made a lot of the money he did through the years. Yeah. I think that's a good point, too. So, you know, I know we've gone long. And this was specifically about 1951. But, you know, giants go, they lose the World Series in six games to the, the mantle, the Maggio Yankees. Dodgers are back in the World Series for a couple of years. Giant's winning in 54. And this is always the thing that I don't think people, I think some of it has to do with the black and white to color switch that's crazy to me. You know, 15 year period for different New York

2:04:01teams won the World Series. It's a good point. It's a good point. Nine to 24, the maze catch Dodgers finally get over the hump in 55. After the 57 season, they're both gone. And they, you know, continue the rivalry. And it's still one of the best rivalries in baseball. I mean, you think Yankees Red Sox, you think Dodgers, you think Cubs Cardinals and Dodgers Giants. I mean, those are those are the three enduring ones over the over history. And I have to imagine that the West Coast version of people like you and me, you know, where I can get worked up about this or something from the 20s, the whatever. I have to think that people who've lived their whole lives in California as San Francisco or LA Dodger fans. I have to think that if, you know, guys in their 60s or 70s or even 40s that are like us, but grew up, you know, ones of Giant

2:05:06fans, ones of Dodger fan would still argue about, well, they were still on the sign or well, they did this like I do still think that that since that rivalry just got up and carried to the West Coast, I do still think the institutional resentment from this carries over. And some of that's that they're still the same team names are still the same colors, you know, but I do think that, you know, that's persevered, which is kind of cool. Well, and I think it helped that maze was on the Giants for another 15 years. It helped that some of the guys that were there in Brooklyn stayed with the Dodgers for a while after we're Jim Gilliam and you know, some of those other guys Vince Scully being there for another 60 years probably helped. I think, you know, obviously the Dodgers were always going to continue to extoll their history with with Jackie Robinson and Campanella and some of those early black baseball stars. I think there's a lot of reasons why it stayed that way. I think

2:06:12the rivalry of the two of them within California. The other interesting thing is that it kind of flips, right? I mean, the Giants won, you know, however many World Series, but you know, you know, we're in however many from 1905 to 1954. Would they win in 05? I guess not as many as I thought, but 05, 21, 22, 33, and 54. Go ahead. What was that? They got to a ton and they got to a ton and the Dodgers won just the one and then as soon as the California move happened, the Giants didn't make it back for 30 years and didn't win one for what? Over 50. Meanwhile, the Dodgers won in 59, 63, 65, 81, 88. It's kind of kind of turned on its on its head. Yeah, then I guess real quick, I would just kind of just to kind of give a coded of the two main characters here. Branca, who had had a hell of a season in 47,

2:07:14you know, Jackie's first year, Branca was a 20 game winner, 21 and 12, all star in 47, 48, 49, 51 is really kind of his last year as a full-time pitcher, certainly as a full-time Dodger. He pitches 52. We'll never again pitch in the postseason. Get's treated to Detroit midway through the 50 season, bounces around, is actually on the Yankees for a little while and then comes back for just a quick two-inning cup of coffee with the Dodgers in 56 before ending his major league career. And then Bobby Thompson gets traded from, leaves the Dodgers after the 53 season and is there in 50 with Milwaukee in 54, 55, 56 and then midway through the 57 season, the giants reacquire Bobby Thompson from the Milwaukee Braves. And I've always wondered if the reason they did that was that they knew they were moving obviously by that point and they wanted to kind of give their fans one last

2:08:20something by bringing Bobby Thompson back. Just it's unfortunate because he just barely misses winning in 54 with the giants and then just barely misses winning in 57 with the Braves. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Yeah, so you're right. I think that was kind of by that point in 57, they all knew they were gone. So yeah, it's, you know, it's something that's been talked about and I feel like I had something that I just forgot to bring up, but I don't think I'm going to remember it at this point. But, you know, it's, it's one of those moments that really forever is still going to be at the very least if somebody does a history of baseball and they do a crappy job and they don't do the early part of the history, they start with this. Like even the laziest sort of like, oh, the history of baseball, they start with this. You know, so it's at least included. Now,

2:09:23they shouldn't start with this. There should be, you know, several minutes into a thing, but like this still gets mentioned. Yeah, because I think there's just, I mean, there's a New York angle, there's a race angle. There's, I mean, it's also just, I mean, it's one of the greatest penit races in, you know, in baseball history. There's just so many different places you can go with it. And I think the one, the last like, some people with you, if you look at this with modern eyes, you might be like, well, they didn't win the World Series. So whatever. There was a much bigger, if you look at like sports now and you say like, losing in the NBA finals compared to winning, losing in the NBA finals is closer to losing in the first round of the playoffs than winning the finals. That's how big a gap there is between coming in second and coming in first. In baseball, probably until they went to divisional play in 69, winning the penit

2:10:27was a lot closer. Like, winning the World Series was a 10 out of 10. Doing anything else was a five out of 10 at best. Winning the penitent and losing the World Series was still a nine out of 10. Like, it was a significant, significant thing, even if you lost the World Series. So I think you have to put that in the context too. Yeah. No, I mean, that definitely was, you know, you do penit race, you know, say nothing, say nothing more. I mean, no other sport has been baseball and for sure doesn't really have it anywhere either, but well, no other sport really has a penit race. So this was fun. This was, you know, we went a little long on this, but not kind of to be expected. And, you know, this is, this is, you know, we love to talk about all sorts of stuff. And, you know, but, you know, there's something, something for us, especially about a 50s New York baseball story that's always going to get us going. So all right. Well, thank you all for joining us. And we will be back with another episode soon.

2:11:28But until then, I'm Dan Newman. Andrew Newman, goodby old sports. This podcast is part of the sports history network. Your headquarters for the yesterday of your favorite sport. You can learn more at sportshistorynetwork.com. Hey, there's Sports History Fan. This is Arnie Chapman, aka the football history dude. And I hope that you enjoyed this recent episode presented by the sports history network. And we're able to learn some good old fashion sports history knowledge nuggets. I started the sports history network back in 2020 with the mission to help podcasts. There's find a community of like minded sports history nerds as well as helping aspiring podcasts to start their own shows. We have a little bit over 30 shows on the network right now covering all sorts of sports history. But as far as I'm concerned, we're just at the toothpick in the ocean moment. You know that can't even figure it out because there's so much more coming. We wanted to create the ultimate headquarters for sports yesterday. Starting with podcast network and our website. But we're going to continue to move into other mediums as well. And here's

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