The 1951 regular season was as good as over. The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by three runs with just three outs to go in their third and final playoff game. And not once in major league baseball's 278 preceding playoff and World Series games had a team overcome a three-run deficit in the ninth inning. But New York rallied, and at 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The Giants won the pennant.
The Echoing Green follows the reverberations of that one moment-the Shot Heard Round the World-from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where a home run forever turned hitter and pitcher into hero and goat.
VideoWatch an interview with Joshua Prager including footage of Bobby Thompson's shot heard round the world. Click here to watch ->
(Requires Quicktime - please be patient while movie loads)
Audio Excerpts:
Prologue,
Chapter 14,
Chapter 14 (Part II)(Excerpted from the Simon & Schuster audiobook, read by the author and available on CD and for download.)
Joshua
Prager is a senior special writer at The Wall Street Journal. He lives
in New York City.