Branca finally gets his shot

Posted Oct 2, 2011 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Oct 2, 2011 at 10:34 PM

Sixty years ago — Oct. 3, 1951 — remains a signature moment in baseball history. Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World” won the deciding game of a three-game National League playoff between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Thomson’s three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth made him a hero and sent the Giants to the World Series, while the man who threw the pitch — Ralph Branca — would be viewed as the goat, capping a collapse that saw the Dodgers squander a double-digit lead in the standings in two months.

But while Thomson’s homer was magical, there was more than magic working against Branca that day. A Wollensak telescope stationed in center field and wires to the dugout helped the Giants steal signals during New York’s frantic run to the pennant. Branca learned that detail in 1954, but it was not revealed publicly until Josh Prager broke the story in 2001 (five years later Prager wrote a book, “The Echoing Green,” a fascinating narrative that detailed how the Giants achieved their subterfuge. Branca’s page on baseball-reference.com, by the way, is sponsored by Prager).

Through it all, Branca mostly remained silent. Until now. In “A Moment in Time,” (Scribner, $25 hardback, 223 pages) Branca and co-author David Ritz set the record straight from the pitcher’s point of view.

This book is a healing process of sorts for Branca, who turned 85 in January. Ritz, meanwhile, has some intimate knowledge of healing, having claimed to have co-written the 1982 song “Sexual Healing” with Marvin Gaye while he was a Rolling Stone music critic.

But seriously, while Branca remains angry about the circumstances that surround the “Shot,” he and Ritz have combined to write an even-handed, intimate and entertaining look at his career. It’s an eye-opening window into the Brooklyn Dodgers of the late 1940s and early 1950s that Roger Kahn’s “The Boys of Summer” could only hint at.

Branca won 21 games in 1947, started Game 1 of the ’47 World Series and appeared in three All-Star Games. He won 88 games during his 12-year major-league career. He had credentials.

“It pains me to be remembered for one unfortunate pitch — and unfairly, a pitch surreptitiously signaled to the hitter,” Branca writes. “As opposed to a hurler who, for a number of years, had good stuff.”

Branca recounts his early days with the Dodgers and explains why Leo Durocher (who did him dirty with his 1951 tactics) was a great manager, and why his successors (Burt Shotton and Charlie Dressen) were not. Branca enjoyed fiery competitors, which is why he bonded with Durocher and players like Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe. While Durocher seemed to be five moves ahead of opposing managers, Branca writes, Shotton was more interested in keeping a tidy boxscore while Dressen was obsessed with outdoing his mentor, Durocher.

While the playoff loss to the Giants was shocking, Branca was able to overcome the stigma — it wasn’t always easy, and years later he was still hearing about it. It took the words of a Catholic priest to put things in perspective.

“Why me, Father? I love this game so much. Why did it have to be me?”

Father Pat Rowley, a relative of Branca’s wife, put it simply: “Simple. God chose you because He knew you’d be strong enough to bear this cross.”
Ultimately, it did. Branca has had a happy marriage of nearly 60 years to Ann Mulvey and happily raised two daughters. He was proud of his singing voice and during the 1960s, won 17 consecutive games on the TV show, “Concentration.”

Branca even struck up a friendship in later years with Thomson and the pair did card shows together before Thomson’s death in August 2010, putting together a Laurel and Hardy-like shtick that amused fans at the height of the memorabilia craze.

That friendship was strained a little bit when Prager broke his story about the Giants’ sign stealing. When Branca and Thomson talked on the phone next, Branca asked Thomson what he thought.

“I think, Ralph, that you must feel exonerated.”

“I don’t feel exonerated,” Branca said, “but my tongue is definitely loosened.”

The revelations tainted Thomson’s achievement, of course, but even if a player knows what pitch is coming, he still has to execute, swing and connect solidly. Knowing what was coming helped Thomson and he could adjust, but his “shot” still only made it by a few feet into the stands. Branca does not mince words.

“For the most part, Bobby was truthful, but never went all the way,” Branca writes. “He admitted that he had received signs, but he claimed that in his final at-bat on October 3 he had not.

“I didn’t believe him … Why, suddenly, with a chance to win the pennant, would a player ignore the system that got him into this very game?”

Branca stays balanced throughout most of his book, but the reader can forgive him for taking a few shots at “The Shot.”  He concedes that taking the higher ground is the proper path, but forgiveness?

“I’m trying, but it looks like it’s going to take me a couple of more years to get there,” he writes.

I believe Branca already has forgiven those who have wronged him. He just hasn’t convinced himself yet. This book was the perfect balm to soothe that hurt — and the reader benefits from the unique perspective of a man who played a key role in one of baseball’s most memorable moments.