Bobby Thomson HR books

[Moderator1]

A student is reading The Echoing Green as part of one of her assignments. She's loving it, she said, and is interested in more books on the topic. I won't have time to look until later but will gladly solicit and accept suggestions here. I know there are several more.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Nothing to add except that the work Prager put in on that book is truly awe inspiring. Check out the acknowledgements and bibliography.

THAT is how you research a book.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Prager did an amazing job on that book.

 

[WaylonJennings]

I hope he made some cash money off of it, because he certainly deserved to. I just don't know how much sports books like that sell.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

I loved Echoing Green, but know sales hit a wall, quickly. I stocked up on multi-$1 CD sets, as gifts.

. . . which includes the sharpest (if grotesquely-belated) profile of Dirtbag
Duroucher, ever.

 

[Double J]

An absolutely wonderful book. It clocked in at about 150,000 words and not one of them was wasted, imho.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Where the marketing problem lay, I fear, is how long ago this was. The "shot" lives on, but fear that deep, paying interest in all the delightful surrounding details doesn't run deep enough to make it pay big.

 

[YankeeFan]

Quick Brance/Thomson story:

About 10 years ago I’m at the Baseball Assistance Team dinner in New York and I get both Branca and Thomson to sign a ball for me. (I’m not a journalist.)

I tell my college buddy a few days later and the first thing he asks is, “who did you get to sign the ball first?”

“Branca of course,” I told him.

I mean, that’s the protocol right? It’d be tough to ask Branca to sign a ball already signed by Thomson, although I bet he’s been asked a hundred times.

 

[Double J]

I think that was the right order, just as it was in real life - from Branca to Thomson to history.

But did you have a Giants coach watching through binoculars from about 500 feet away and, via the bullpen, giving Thomson the go-ahead to sign? Only then would it have been like real life.

In all seriousness, Thomson still had to hit the ball that was thrown to him that day. Simply knowing what the pitch was told him nothing about its placement or anything like that. He might have simply grounded or popped out or even swung right through the damn ball.

Kinda funny, when you think about it, that the ball game played that day, merely to decide a league pennant, probably held 1,000 times more interest than does any one game in this year's World Series. At least.

 

[Baltimoreguy]

Read the opening section of Don DeLillo's "Underworld" -- it originally appeared as a novella in Harper's Magazine called "Pafko at the Wall." It's a fictionalized account of being at the ballpark that day. Incredible.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Kinda funny, when you think about it, that the ball game played that day, merely to decide a league pennant, probably held 1,000 times more interest than does any one game in this year's World Series. At least.

It was a perfect storm moment, no doubt. Two New York teams. The incredible Giants charge to tie the Dodgers for first. And then perhaps the most dramatic game ending in baseball history.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Kinda funny, when you think about it, that the ball game played that day, merely to decide a league pennant, probably held 1,000 times more interest than does any one game in this year's World Series. At least.

It was a perfect storm moment, no doubt. Two New York teams. The incredible Giants charge to tie the Dodgers for first. And then perhaps the most dramatic game ending in baseball history.

Don't forget Maz.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Kinda funny, when you think about it, that the ball game played that day, merely to decide a league pennant, probably held 1,000 times more interest than does any one game in this year's World Series. At least.

It was a perfect storm moment, no doubt. Two New York teams. The incredible Giants charge to tie the Dodgers for first. And then perhaps the most dramatic game ending in baseball history.

Don't forget Maz.

Absolutely. Mazeroski's HR won the World Series for a team that hadn't won a championship in 35 years, and beat the scary Yankees in a Series where the Yankees' three wins were by a score of 200-2.

Thomson's HR is a great moment, but it won the NL pennant for a team that went on to lose the World Series.

 

[Goldeaston]

In that regard, it's like Fisk's home run, Elway's drive and Jordan's shot. What do those things really mean, when their teams lost in the next round (or in Fisk's case, the next night)?

 

[YankeeFan]

While I’m not nearly old enough to remember Thomson’s HR, I think winning a pennant meant a lot more before divisional play, play-offs, wild card teams, and inter-league play.

Sure winning the WS was the ultimate goal, but winning a pennant was still a championship in its own right and celebrated much more than it is today.

I think.

 

[WaylonJennings]

In that regard, it's like Fisk's home run, Elway's drive and Jordan's shot. What do those things really mean, when their teams lost in the next round (or in Fisk's case, the next night)?

A lot. You still won your league. You think Cubs fans would like to win a National League pennant? Think they would consider it meaningless without a World Series victory? Think the Rockies considered their N.L pennant last season meaningless? The Tigers in 2006?

 

[Ben_Hecht]

While I’m not nearly old enough to remember Thomson’s HR, I think winning a pennant meant a lot more before divisional play, play-offs, wild card teams, and inter-league play.

Sure winning the WS was the ultimate goal, but winning a pennant was still a championship in its own right and celebrated much more than it is today.

I think.

Especially if it was in the NY intramural league :

(No offense meant . . . just couldn't resist).

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

While I’m not nearly old enough to remember Thomson’s HR, I think winning a pennant meant a lot more before divisional play, play-offs, wild card teams, and inter-league play.

Sure winning the WS was the ultimate goal, but winning a pennant was still a championship in its own right and celebrated much more than it is today.

I think.

True, but that isn't relevant to the Thomson-Mazeroski comparison.

 

[buckweaver]

A student is reading The Echoing Green as part of one of her assignments. She's loving it, she said, and is interested in more books on the topic. I won't have time to look until later but will gladly solicit and accept suggestions here. I know there are several more.

Honestly, there's no other book on that specific moment/game/season that can compare to Prager's. I second Waylon's suggestion to go through the bibliography of that book for further reading. One book would be "The Shot Heard 'Round the World," by Ray Robinson. I haven't read "The Era: 1947-57" by Roger Kahn, but I'm sure that's pretty good, too.

I'd also recommend "The Boys of Summer" (Kahn) or "The Lip" (Ezkenazi) or one of the Willie Mays biographies (Hano or Einstein).

 

[Double J]

Well, Maz's homer broke a tie. Thomson brought the Giants back from two runs down....and capped the "miracle" comeback. I don't think it ever mattered to the Giants or their fans that the Yankees beat them in the World Series that followed. What they had accomplished was pretty damn special in its own right.

Besides, if you're a Yankees fan, what do you remember/think about the 1951 World Series? Joe DiMaggio's swan song and Mickey Mantle ****ed up his knee for the first time. Yeah, the team won it all, but would a Yankee fan trade that WS win for another year or two of Joltin' Joe, or for a healthier Mick, or both? Damn right.