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Joshua Prager

The Echoing Green

Joshua Prager

The Echoing Green

The Echoing Green

Oct 3, 1951

Jul 8

Written by Josh Prager

Branca pitched, Thomson swung and announcer Russ Hodges screamed five times “The Giants win the pennant!” WMCA engineer Lou Weber recorded the classic call, and among its many incarnations was this 1951record made by Liggett & Myers Tobacco Comp

Dodger leftfielder Andy Pafko stands impotent as the home run enters Section 35. An arrow points to the vicinity of the ball, but who gloved it remains a mystery.

The New York Daily News, October 4, 1951. This headline — the work of caption writer Pete Coutros — was most responsible for the honorific accorded the home run.

Before Thomson came to bat, Don Mueller injured his left ankle stepping on third base. He is shown here being carried off the field. The disruption focused Thomson. "I was like a mechanical doll," he says. "I wasn't aware of anyone else in the ballp

Thomson celebrating hours after the home run at Tavern on the Green, a restaurant in Staten Island.

Unpublished for 55 years, the photo extends to centerfield where a faint shadow can be seen in the fourth clubhouse window. Atop the clubhouse, a clock documents the moment the home run flew.

The front page of TheNew York Times, October 4, 1951. Newspapers across the country trumpeted the Thomson home run at least as loudly as word of a second Russian nuclear test. A delighted Gordon Dean, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, noted

Jackie Robinson, number 42, watches what Branca cannot: the Giants mobbing Thomson at home plate.

Thomson acknowledging what TheNew York Times termed "the most frenzied 'curtain calls' ever accorded a ballplayer."

Polo Grounds

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