“The Giants won the Pennant! The Giants won the Pennant!"

On an early October afternoon in 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ great Jackie Robinson stood alone in the infield, hands on hips as New York Giants slugger Bobby Thompson circled the bases. Most interpreted this as dejection, maybe a sign of his competitive nature, unsettled with the idea of loss. Dejected, maybe. Competitive, yes. Competing to win, and competing for one of many spots in sports and American history.

That year, the New York Giants (yes, the same Giants who are now in San Francisco—or really the same business entity) won the National League Pennant. This may mean little to many of the readers who are not connoisseurs of baseball history. Apart from the drama of the season being decided on its last pitch with a home run and that it was the first baseball moment to be dubbed “The Shot Heard 'Round the World,” there is enough American history buried in that moment to describe more about us as Americans than the celebration of a home run.

If you know baseball history—or are even a 1950s nostalgia buff, you may be familiar with sports broadcaster Russ Hodges' famous call, “The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant!” heralding baseball's first “shot” the call that told baseball fan's around the globe of Bobby Thompson's home run that won the game and the National League pennant for the Giants.

What Thompson did is the ultimate in game-ending drama. This event particularly marks baseball history because that season, the Giants trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers (yes, the same Dodgers who would sneak out of town to Los Angeles) by 13½ games going into the last month of the season. They tied the Dodgers in the standings on the last day of the season, winning their last 16 games. But this is little more than a prologue for the story.

A field day could be had by anyone student of statistics and probability. Unfortunately, attention to statistics was not particularly de rigueur in sports at that time, and came a little late for the Dodgers.

The Dodger's Charlie Dressen managed by the seat of his pants, more so than most in this era without number crunching. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Dressen brought in Ralph Branca to pitch to Bobby Thompson with two runners on base and the Dodgers leading by two runs.

If Dressen had paid attention to statistics, he would have known this; Branca had given up few home runs that season, a plus.  He also would have known that even though he had given up few home runs, most of the home runs he gave up were to the Giants, and none more than to Bobby Thompson.

But Bobby hit a looping fly that, in any other stadium than the Polo Grounds of New York City, would have fallen harmlessly into the left fielder's glove for an out, or would have curved into the seats as a foul, leaving another chance for either a hit or an out. Instead, it was history and the crowd went wild.

I said, though, that this was an event of SOCIAL significance, that brought a single joy to some New Yorkers and a hefty playoff bonus to the guys in black and orange instead of instead of the Dodger Blue.

Jackie Robinson, who a few years before, broke the color line in modern baseball was just one of a host of baseball greats on each team.

The Giant's team included great players like Monte Irvin, among the first of the African American players in the major leagues. Ray Dandridge was not playing for the Giants. He was playing for the Minneapolis Millers, a Giants farm club at the time. He was playing in the minor leagues even though he was widley recognized as the best third baseman in the Giants organization, and maybe in all of North American baseball.
Why did the Giants not have Ray Dandridge with them with the big club?

The Giants ownership said that they never gave Dandridge a shot at the big leagues because they did not want to deprive the good fans of Minneapolis of such a great talent. Was it better to deprive the world? Was it better to deprive the greatest compilation of baseball players in the world of one of its finest talents? Was it better to deprive a great player of the ultimate dream of playing in the Major Leagues?

Dandridge was a star of not only the American Association, with which the Minneapolis Millers were associated. He was also a star in the Negro Leagues and the Mexican League. While the color barrier was broken years earlier by Jackie Robinson, the wall was not totally broken. The National League of Major League baseball was more aggressive than the American League in enlisting the talents of Black players. This included the Giants and, of course, the trend-setting Dodgers. What tends not to be spoken of is the reason Dandridge was not with the Giants in New York; at the time, the Giants had five Black players with the Major League club, an unspoke "gentlemen's agreement betwen owners and executivesof the quota allowed, and five was all they would have.

Dandridge would not be called up.

What if...

What would the season look like if the Giants had the best third baseman with the squad for the entire season? It likely would have saved the baseball world from the last-pitch-of-the-season dramatics. Maybe. A different relief pitcher. A “normally” configured ball park. Maybe.

As Russ Hodges called out "The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant!" as the crowd went crazy, as hundreds of thousands erupted in pandemonium in the streets, homes, schools and bars of New York City—everywhere except Brooklyn and the pockets of fans devoted to the Blue (like little Doris Kearns [Goodwin] and her dear father), Jackie Robinson stood as an island of quiet and composure.

The photos are famous. Jackie Robinson, standing in the infield, hands on hips, somehow sensing that in the middle of the pandemonium, the story was not over.

Some fans jumped out of the stands and onto the field in celebration. Most of the Dodgers ran off of the field to avoid the assault of celebration. Ralph Branca walked slowly, trying not to get run over by the gleeful Giant traffic. In the tornadic frenzy, Robinson stood at his post, watching to be sure Thompson touched each base.

Inside baseball fans and players know the drill.  If Thompson misses a base, the home run is nullified. If he touches all the bases, the game is over and the Giants win. What Robinson realizes is that even if he does not touch all the bases, and if all the Dodgers leave the field, effectively conceding the game, it is also over and the Giants win.

Thompson is mobbed as he touches home plate. Russ Hodges' voice rings out from the broadcast booth and over the airwaves.  Robinson waits, watches, attends to the last hope for the Dodgers and leaves the field only after the last punctuation at home plate.

Moments of quiet dignity: something required of most Black players of the era. It is why Henry Aaron will always command a kind of respect that Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds will never achieve. It should remind us that Babe Ruth , (Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback) Ben Rothlesberger, and Ty Cobb continue to receive relatively big passes for their behavior and Barry Bonds, (NFL quarterback) Michael Vick and Manny Ramirez will not.

But no one was thinking of the social significance, the fate against probabilities or the disappointment of little Doris Kearns and her father in the Brooklyn borough as Bobby Thompson rounded the bases to beat the Dodgers, 5-4, and ignited Russ Hodges' famous call. The Yankees would go on to win the World Series in six games, the other of the three New York teams, to much less fanfare and hoopla. It would be their third in a row, another notch in their entitlement of purchased sense of superiority.

Today, we do not talk about the 1951 World Champion Yankees. We talk about that October day in 1951 and Bobby Thompson and “The Shot.” And we should. We should also remember all the heroes of that day and those who toiled conspicuously and in obscurity and dignity—and who made history as surely as the stars of the show.



*For more historically and socially significant information about this event, see Past Time: Baseball As History, “The Shot Heard 'Round the World,” by Jules Tygiel, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Special thanks to David Unowsky and Mel Duncan for helping me (and countless others) form the thoughts around this event.

"Are You Really Kirby Puckett?"

Pitchers and catchers reported this week to spring training in Florida and Arizona. I'm not sure if this means anything to a lot of you. It means a lot to us whose psyches are fed by the idea of being outside, throwing, running, hitting and witnessing the magnificent art of baseball.

Knowing baseballs are flying from the hands of hundreds of young people who are working on their throwing mechanics and cultivating joy for the game means a lot to stem the doldrums of long, hard winters. Hot stove fantasies carry visions of sun-filled summers of our youth. We live the joy of seeing young bodies carry that everlasting youth on the field of immortality.

We don't keep the youth alive by fooling ourselves into thinking we could take the place of the kids. We keep it alive when we remember and emulate the joy that we see in a child's eye, in their enthusiastic dash across the diamond or between the bases. Kids are our role models.

Even as adults, as we did as kids, we are emulating our heroes on and off the diamond. We mimic what we see on the field and the trappings of their status off the field. We do this for better—and sometimes for worse, and sometimes we just have to ignore the worse to keep ourselves from advocating bad behavior, to keep ourselves from the disillusionment of being grown up and facing the real world of mortal beings and gods of clay feet.

One of the gods was Kirby Puckett: Mortal, flawed god who brought more joy to kids and adults than today's reputation of professional sports can support. It was not fair to Kirby that we made him into a god. The day I met him, he was human enough, maybe just in God's image.

I worked at the famed Hungry Mind Bookstore for most of the 1990s. David Unowsky, the store owner, had a healthy appreciation for and relationship with baseball and baseball players. This was seed enough to urge the publisher of Kirby's autobiography to send Kirby to the bookstore for a book signing one spring afternoon a few days into the season. I remember two things about his visit.

The first is that when Kirby arrived, he did not strike me as the god that he had been made into. The man I saw stepping out of the car in the ally behind the store struck me with the kind of familiarity that one has when seeing one of the baseball stars who is a two or three years ahead of you in your high school. And in those moments, he was superhuman nice, as was his reputation.

The second memorable thing about the signing was the people who came. It was during a school day. Not many kids. I stood next to Kirby, opening each book to the page which he was to sign, a common convention of convenience to speed the process we use when there is such a big crowd for any famous author. Most of the participants were men, a few moms and other women getting an autograph for their husband or their kids. There were the collectors, showing up with a box of books, hoping that the signed copy will bring a nice price some day in the future (especially if Kirby were to die a heroic death, either on the field on a Roberto Clemente-type demise, which, of course, was far from the true track of history).

Also in line to meet Kirby were a small boy and his mom. When it came time for the boy to meet Kirby, he stood back, not moving forward into the large open space before the table where Kirby sat. The boy was slightly frightened, anxiously peeking from behind his copy of I Love This Game: My Life in Baseball. (See http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/531748.I_Love_This_Game.) The boy's mother bent down and whispered to him. She gently nudged him forward with her hand. He studder-step resisted and then he slowly, tentatively made his way to the table.

The boy was small for his age. He wore glasses that made it clear that he was never going to see well enough to hit a curve ball, and maybe not even a fastball. He was never going to emulate this god-like image in a fashion that even resembled his peers' level of accomplishment. But, like many of us, he was there to emulate and celebrate in spirit.

When the boy arrived at the front of the table, he received a most cheerful greeting from Kirby. The boy stood slack-jawed, still protecting himself from the glare of stardom with his book. “Hey, man, want me to sign your book?” Kirby asked. I think the boy managed a slow nod. I gently took the book from the boy's hands, which I placed squarely on the signing table, the boy's mouth still agape, eyes wide open, breathless.

Kirby signed the book. The boy, hands still planted on the table, found the strength to utter the words, “Are you really Kirby Puckett?”

“Yeah, man,” smiled Kirby with his trademark grin. “I'm really Kirby Puckett.”

“Really?” the boy asked again.

“Yeah, it's me. I'm Kirby Puckett.”

The boy turned to his mom who was standing back with the other patrons waiting for signed books. With eyes bigger than the glasses on his face, he looked to her and said, “It's really Kirby Puckett!” He turned back to Kirby and said, “You're really Kirby Puckett!” Kirby held out his hand, I think going as far to pry the boy's hand off the table to shake it. With a slow, stunned hand shake, he was meeting the real Kirby Puckett.

There are many reasons I love this moment. One, for this boy, Santa Claus, at that point, became totally unnecessary. He met the Real Kirby Puckett.

Another reason is that by meeting this young man, I gained another role model. He reminded me of why baseball is important. I remembered for whom baseball is most important. That boy was my role model, our role model because he showed us—reminded us that there are good, healthy and important places from which to access and practice joy.

I have to say that most of us adults at the event were making a small attempt to access that joy, the joy that belongs with baseball, with the kid inside us and with the hope that comes with every spring. This is the hot stove time of year when we really start to look forward to tasting that cup of joy, the trigger that can often turn our winter depression into one of those things that gives us new life.

Baseball is, at its heart, a kids' game. When the Twins played at the Dome, it seemed that most of the people who filled the stands where there for one or more of baseball's joys. As much as baseball purists scoffed at baseball indoors, most still showed up to experience one of their childhood loves.

Now there is a new stadium—or I should say ball park. Seats are more expensive, more than a kid can afford. Tickets are hard to get. Looking at the patrons who make their way through the gates, they are just as likely to be guys taking a date who they intended to impress by sending at least three times the steep ticket price. Like at any park, old or new, Metrodome or Target Field (and why it is not called Hennepin County Stadium is beyond me, since that is where/who the money for it came from) the hot dates and business clients are still the ones with the best seats, close up like the side lines at a Los Angeles Lakers game—next to Jack Nicholson or some other movie star. Maybe one day, those seats will be filled with boys and girls aged eight to 15 and the tycoons can sit in the nose bleed section of the field with their corporate claim: “No bad seats in the house.”

But who am I to talk—on several counts. For one thing, I had a front-row seat to see a boy make the best use that anyone could ever make from meeting one of the most memorable baseball players in recent history. Over the years, Kirby Puckett's image has acquired its share of tarnish, a failure of godliness that wakes us up to who we really are after we have devoted ourselves to media's graven idols. Still, the reality that I cannot take away for the world of realities is the one that I saw that day, in the eyes of the boy and in the person of Kirby Puckett: that is Kirby's ability to bring that kind of joy, excitement and positive energy to a game that has enough foibles to make us jaded; to a society filled with mortals and mortal limitations; and to anyone who needs to remember to pursue our life's joys and all the seemingly compromised sources that help us make that joy.

In places all over the country, all over the Americas, not just in Florida and Arizona, but in other warm places, in gyms and field houses, and on scraggly, weedy fields, you can hear the sound of balls popping in leather mitts and the chatter that propels the happiness of play, games and life. Boys and girls asking for autographs, even from guys who will spend the next six years in the minor leagues or who will never make it further than the college squad.

Baseball is important for a lot of reasons. I could go on about its place in society, how it is a profound expression of American culture and the deep social and economic justice struggles of our country, the style and attitudes of the people, and as an impeccable marker of history. I could talk about all the great personal stories of triumph and tragedy that express themselves like in no other sport. But today, baseball is important for this fact: For the coming spring, we have the chance to find at least a little corner of happy on more days than not—because of a terribly far-sighted boy and because Kirby Puckett was really Kirby Puckett.