Post-Season Baseball in New York City:Giants and Mets: Magic Hits
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
"A Vote for 'ABBH' (Any Body But Harris) is a Vote for Trump and Republo-Fascism" (S. Jonas, March, 2024)
Bobby Thomson 1951. I couldn't find the famous photo of the “Shot heard 'round the world,” but this is a fine picture of Bobby. The bat is likely the one with which he hit The Home Run.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: Unknown (United Press)) Details Source DMCA
As my regular readers know, every once in a while, in this space, I do a commentary on some aspect of sports in general, or "Baseball in New York" in particular. Most recently it was column on the late great New York (later, sniff, sniff, sniff, San Francisco) Giant, Willie Mays. I began that column with a paragraph on just how at a young age I became a Giants fan.
"The Giants played in the venerable Polo Grounds, about 3 miles north and an easy subway ride from where I lived, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. So how did I come to pick them? At the age of ten, sometime in winter of 1946-47 I decided to become a baseball fan. The next issue was 'which team should I root for?' New York City had three at the time: the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Thinking the way I was already thinking at the age of 10, since I lived in Manhattan (and yes, even back then I did even this sort of thing in a rather intellectual way), not too far from the Polo Grounds, and the Yankees were in the Bronx while the Dodgers were in Brooklyn --- the choice was easy: a Giants fan I became."
As it has happened, a number of singular baseball events have taken place with and by baseball players from one or another of the New York City teams: Babe Ruth's 60 home runs in a season (a record that stood for a long time, and still stands for the record hit in 154 games, then the season's length), Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, Jackie Robinson's accession to the Majors as the first Black player, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Willie Mays' "the catch" in the 1954 World Series. One of the greatest was the "Shot Heard 'Round the World,' " Bobby Thomson's dramatic ninth-inning home-run that won the 1951 National League Pennant for the Giants over the Dodgers.
I did not see that game live, but I was there, in a way, when it occurred on October 3, 1951. That afternoon, I had a theory class at the music school I attended, in Manhattan's West 80's. I knew that that critical game was to be played that afternoon, but good boy that I was, I went to music school. But on a "just-in-case" basis, I took with me my large, bulky, portable radio, but back then the only kind available, which transmitted the radio waves to the device's loudspeaker through "vacuum tubes." (By the way, they are still available, in ample numbers .)
Now, as it happened, my theory class was postponed for an hour. And so, I found an empty room with a window that opened, I placed the radio on the sill, and I heard the last of the ninth inning of that game. At its end I heard the Giants' broadcaster Russ Hodges' famous call over the radio, as the event occurred: "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant, oh my golly, they're going crazy --- the Giants' win the pennant." That call is (or was) so famous that when I visited the Hall 30 or so years ago, one could listen to it on a recording, in a special booth, just inside the exit to the building.
Among other things, until this week that was the only time in major league baseball history that a home-run hit in the ninth inning of a playoff game propelled the team for which it was hit to the next set of games in the post-season series. But this year, within a four-day span in this past week, it happened twice, to the New York Mets. But before we get to the details, let me tell you how I became a Mets' fan.
When in 1957 the then-owner of my beloved Giants, Horace Stoneham, decamped the team to the West Coast (San Francisco), following the persuasive tones of the then-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Walter O'Malley (they went to Los Angeles), I followed the team for 3-4 years, when my favorite players, like the "Two Willies" (the other being Willie McCovey), Orlando Cepeda, and Alvin Dark, were still playing for them. But my interest started to fade (they were too far away and of course, their home games were not played on New York television) and then left me completely when in July, 1963 I took off for a two-year post-doc fellowship at the University of London.
When I came home, Casey Stengel's first wacky, then World Champion, New York Metropolitans (now there's team name for you[!]) "The Mets," had been installed in what was to become the venerable Shea Stadium. But I could develop no attachment to them. Until, that is, my son, Jacob, sometime in the late 70's, around the age of six, became a Mets' fan. And so too did I. Together we have gone through the Mets' ups-and-downs since then, like that dramatic World Series win in 1986, a couple of other good post-season runs, some truly great players, like Darryl Strawberry, "Doc" Gooden, Keith Hernandez, and Mike Piazza.
But there has been nothing like what happened to and for the Mets in just this past week. In fact, there has been nothing like what happened in the history of Major League Baseball, other than that "Bobby Thomson home run." It did not happen to happen just once, but twice. That is that a player for the winning team hit a home-run in the team's last at-bat in the ninth inning, that won that game for his team, and sent the team on to the next round of the play-offs. But that's what happened to the Mets.
In 1951, there were the two Major Leagues, the National and the American, each had just eight teams. Ordinarily the winners of each league's 154-game season would then meet each other in the 7-game World Series. Today, there are 30 teams (with one of them in Canada) split still into the two leagues, but with multiple divisions and a very complex post-season playoff schedule (which still culminates in a World Series, between the two teams-remaining-in-each-league-after-the-playoffs, playing for the "World Championship").
This season, in the National League, the Mets came from way behind (as of the end of May) to squeeze into the first round of the playoffs, against one of their traditional rivals (and, as it has happened, from-time-to-time tormentors) the Atlanta Braves. (As it happened, funnily enough, in the 1951 season the New York Giants were 13-1/2 games [non-baseball fans, don't ask about the "1/2"] behind the Dodgers in the middle of August, ripped off a 16 game winning streak, and on the last day of the season were actually "one game" ahead of the Dodgers in the standings. The great Jackie Robinson enabled the Dodgers to get to the play-offs with the Giants by hitting a 14th inning home-run against the Philadelphia Phillies.) That event set up the Thomson homer in the last of the 9th against the Dodgers at the old Polo Grounds that got the Giants to the World Series, against the Yankees as it happened.
And then, in the last game of the regular 2024 season, in the ninth inning, on the road in Atlanta, in what would be the Mets' last at-bat, Francisco Lindor, their great shortstop and most valuable player for this year, hits a home run that sends the Mets to the first round of the playoffs. Just like Bobby's homer sent the Giants to the then only post-season games, the World Series.
And then, incredibly, four days later the same thing happens again. The Mets' win in that last regular-season game against the Braves gets them to the next level, now in the "post-season," a 3-game "first-round" series against the Milwaukee (wouldn't you know it) Brewers. (Just so you know, Wisconsin's professional football team, the Green Bay Packers, are known as the "cheeseheads." And, on where teams play, and don't, the Braves began their baseball life in Boston, MA, then moved to Milwaukee, before moving on to Atlanta.)
And wouldn't you know it, once again, in the third (and last) game of that series, tied at one game each, but down by two runs in the game, in their last at-bat the Mets come up with yet another game-winning home-run, this time one by their star first-baseman, Pete Alonso (who had been in long, no home-runs, batting slump). That hit, which gave the Mets the win, has sent the team along to the next round of the play-offs against the Philadelphia Phillies.
And so there you have it, folks. In baseball, who knows just how many games have been played (which, given the details about various players that the announcers continually come up with, that number is available from more than one computer system), what happened, twice, with and to the Mets, had happened only once before in the history of major league baseball. That is, a home-run, hit in the ninth inning, won a game for a team, that sent them into, or further along in, post-season play. Bobby's ninth-inning homer sent the New York Giants to the 1951 World Series. Francisco's ninth-inning homer sent the Mets to the 2024 post-season tournament. And Pete's ninth-inning homer sent the Mets to the next series in that tournament.
Mark this moment folks. To repeat, there have only been three times that such a thing has happened in the history of major league baseball. One more time: a player, in his team's last at-bat in a particular game, hits a home-run that sends his team on to the next round in the post-season playoffs: Bobby in 1951, and Francisco and Pete in 2024. Remarkable!!!
P.S. I do have to note (ahem!), that a The Athletic/New York Times sportswriter did a column on game-flipping post-season home runs. He did not mention Bobby's. Obviously, he was not born then. And obviously, not enough attention is paid to the study of baseball history.