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Joshua Prager

The Echoing Green

Joshua Prager

The Echoing Green

The Echoing Green

Branca

Jul 14

Written By Josh Prager

Branca (back row, right) in the 1943. A. B. Davis High yearbook. The senior pitcher dominated high school batters, winning seven straight games to lead his team to the Westchester Interscholastic title on June 4, 1943. "He used to say," remembers br

Branca hoped baseball might provide a second career, but he received no viable job offers when he retired in 1956. He turned to insurance, his notoriety an asset. Says Branca, "that would get me in the door."

Branca was an overnight star, winning twenty-one games in 1947, at age twenty-one. But he repeatedly lost the games that mattered most. Branca is shown here after a Johnny Mize single ruined his eight masterly innings in Game Three of the 1949 World

Katherine and John Branca had seventeen children and raised them in a loud and warm home in Mt. Vernon, New York. Thirteen survived to adulthood. The Branca family gathers with spouses and children, an aunt and a brother-in-law on New Year’s Day, 19

Four months after the home run, Thomson and Branca sang together at the annual dinner of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Their performance of Because of Youelicited tears and turned the men into an act.

Thomson and Branca at the former site of the Polo Grounds on March 23, 2006.

The Brooklyn brass believed in Branca. And, on the eve of the 1951 playoff, Charlie Dressen tapped him to start Game One. The manager and pitcher are shown here on September 30, 1951, en route to New York with owner Walter O’Malley and Ann Mulvey.

Franks

Chadwick

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