Krause: Thomson’s Shot Heard ‘Round the World still reverberates in baseball

As a small child, I used to listen to an old album my father had called “Great Moments in Sports History.” The lead item on it was Russ Hodges’ call after Bobby Thomson hit the famous “shot heard ’round the world.””The Giants win the pennant ? the Giants win the pennant ? the Giants win the pennant,” Hodges cried. The call is as iconic as the moment itself.Thomson died Monday night. And with him goes an important link to one of Major League Baseball’s signature moments: the three-run homer in 1951 that lifted the New York Giants from a 4-2 deficit to a 5-4 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 3 of a special National League playoff for the pennant.Two other principals from that day are still alive: Ralph Branca, the Dodger pitcher who served the ball up to Thomson; and Willie Mays, who was the on-deck hitter.One of the biggest reasons sports become etched into the national fabric are moments such as these ? seismic shifts of momentum and irony where what seemed beyond possibility and hope suddenly come to fruition. Bobby Thomson’s home run ? Havlicek stealing the ball ? Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary (not to mention Roger Staubach’s) ? Mike Eruzione’s goal ? these events make sports larger than life. These are the legends that endure ? and that ensure that sports remain a relevant part of the landscape.Of all of them, though, Thomson’s home run might be the most dramatic. It always ranks among the top, or at the top, in every single poll of “most dramatic moments in sports.” In baseball lore, it’s bigger than Carlton Fisk, bigger than Joe Carter, bigger than Bill Mazeroski ? and bigger, even, than Kirk Gibson (though if you want to talk about an iconic call, Jack Buck’s radio broadcast of that one was right up there too).The Giants were 131/2 games behind the Dodgers in August of 1951, and then went on a tear, winning 37 of their remaining 44 games to force a tie. The teams split the first two games of a three-game series, and Brooklyn was leading, 4-1, in the bottom of the ninth before the Giants scored. They had runners at second and third, and one out, when Branca came into the game. Two pitches later, it was all over.Johnny Pesky was well into his Major League career in 1951, and “I was probably watching, or listening to it somewhere. I don’t remember exactly.”But it was the homer that was heard ’round the world. I know that,” said Pesky. “It’s probably the most famous home run in the history of baseball. I’m really sorry to hear he’s gone. I don’t like hearing we’ve lost another one of those guys.”Thomson was known as a quiet, self-effacing man who could never quite believe that it was he – and not some of his more famous teammates – who wore the mantle of hero that day. Pesky seemed to bear that out.”I didn’t know him very well, but I was in his company a few times,” he said. “He was a good guy.”Branca and Thomson became friends because of that home run, and the two of them gave talks about it ? much the same as Mike Torrez and Bucky Dent did a few decades later after the one-game 1978 playoff between the Red Sox and Yankees. And this would have had a nice, happy, idyllic ending, too, were it not for a report that surfaced in 2001 charging that the Giants used a system of telescopes and hand signals to steal, and relay, signs ? including catcher Roy Campanella’s to Branca just before the home run.Thomson always denied this, saying he didn’t know what pitch Branca was going to throw. But the reports were enough to cast doubt in Branca’s mind – and he was very frank about that.In a way, such revelations remind one of the line from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” that says, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” I’d have rather not known this. It would be the same as saying that Curt Schilling put ketchup all over his sock, or that Gibson shot himself numb with Novocain.The fact is that Bobby Thomson, an ordinary ballplayer even by his own estimation, authored one of the true magnificent moments in American spor