| Bobby Thomson | |
|---|---|
Thomson in 1948. |
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| Outfielder | |
| Born: October 25, 1923 Glasgow, Scotland |
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| Died: August 16, 2010 (aged 86) Skidaway Island, Georgia |
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| Batted: Right | Threw: Right |
| MLB debut | |
| September 9, 1946 for the New York Giants | |
| Last MLB appearance | |
| July 17, 1960 for the Baltimore Orioles | |
| Career statistics | |
| Batting average | .270 |
| Home runs | 264 |
| Runs batted in | 1,026 |
| Teams | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
Robert Brown "Bobby" Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010[1]) was a Scottish-born American professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Staten Island Scot",[2] he was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants (1946–53, 1957), Milwaukee Braves (1954–57), Chicago Cubs (1958–59), Boston Red Sox (1960) and Baltimore Orioles (1960).
His season-ending three-run home run for the Giants in 1951, known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", is one of the most famous moments in baseball history. It overshadowed all of his other accomplishments, including eight 20-home run seasons and three All Star selections. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me," he later said. "It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody."[3]
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Thomson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the youngest of six children. He arrived in the United States two years later. His father, a cabinet maker, had moved to New York City shortly before Bobby's birth and sent for his family in 1925.
Thomson grew up on Staten Island in New York City and signed with the New York Giants for a $100 bonus right out of Curtis High School in 1942.[4] However, on December 5, 1942 he joined the United States Army Air Forces and trained as a bombardier. His entire service was within the continental United States. In fact, he played semi-professional baseball in the summer of 1945 while awaiting his discharge.[2]
Thomson batted .283 with 29 home runs (HR) and 82 runs batted in (RBI) in his rookie year, 1947. In 1949 Thomson had career bests in RBI (109) and batting average (.309). He hit a career-high 32 HRs in 1951, the fifth-best total in the Majors; he also had the fourth-highest slugging average in baseball that year.
Thomson became a celebrity for his dramatic walk-off home run off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca to win the 1951 National League pennant. The home run, nicknamed the "Shot Heard 'Round the World", was even more dramatic than it may seem to the modern sports observer as, until 1969, league pennants were only decided by playoff when the teams involved finished the regular season in a tie. Prior to 1951 playoffs had only been necessary in 1946 (NL) and 1948 (AL).
Thomson's three-run shot was the exclamation point on a dramatic season for the Giants. Although in mid-August they were 13½ games behind the league-leading Dodgers, they won 37 of their final 44 games to tie Brooklyn on the final day of the regular season, forcing a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game 3-1 as a result of a two-run home run by Thomson (off Branca). Brooklyn’s Clem Labine shut out the Giants in the second game, 10-0. The decisive contest, played on October 3 at the Polo Grounds, was the first major sporting event televised coast-to-coast in the United States.[5] The Dodgers took a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning; but Giants shortstop Alvin Dark singled, advanced to third on a single by Don Mueller, and scored on a double by Whitey Lockman. With Lockman on second and pinch-runner Clint Hartung at third, Thomson's walk-off home run turned looming defeat into a 5-4 victory. The moment was immortalized by Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges's excited multiple repetitions: "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
Waiting in the on-deck circle to hit behind Thomson was rookie Willie Mays. The Giants' miracle season ended, however, at the 1951 World Series; the Yankees swept the last three games to win the best-of-seven series, 4 games to 2. Thomson batted .238 in the Series with no home runs.
The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The uniform worn by Thomson on that historic day is apparently a part of a large private collection owned by Dan Scheinman, a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group.[6]
Rumors that the 1951 Giants secretly learned opponents' finger signals were confirmed in 2001 when several players told the Wall Street Journal that beginning on July 20, the team used a telescope and buzzer wire to steal the finger signals of opposing catchers careless enough to leave their signs unprotected.[7] Joshua Prager detailed the revelations in a book titled The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and The Shot Heard Round the World. Giants catcher Sal Yvars told Prager that he relayed to Thomson the stolen sign for Branca's fastball.
Thomson always insisted that he had no foreknowledge of Branca's pitch. Branca had been aware of the rumors and was skeptical of Thomson's denial, but later told The New York Times, "I didn't want to diminish a legendary moment in baseball. And even if Bobby knew what was coming, he had to hit it.... Knowing the pitch doesn't always help."[8] Whether the telescope-and-buzzer system contributed significantly to the Giants' late-season 37-7 win streak remains a subject of debate.[9]
In 1952, Thomson led the National League with 14 triples while batting .271 with 25 HRs and 109 RBI for the Giants. In his final season with the Giants in 1953 Thomson hit 26 HRs and 106 RBI and a .288 average. That winter he was sent to the Milwaukee Braves in a multi-player deal. During his first spring training with the Braves in 1954 he suffered a broken ankle, which allowed rookie Hank Aaron to earn a place in the Milwaukee lineup.
The Braves traded Thomson back to the Giants during the 1957 season and he was in the lineup for the club's final game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season, but Thomson was gone, traded to the Cubs. He spent two seasons in Chicago before closing out his major league career in the American League with the Red Sox and Orioles. He played one final season in 1963 with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
Thomson was a .270 career hitter with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBI in 1,779 games. He was selected an All-Star in 1948, 1949 and 1952.
In the 1990s, over 40 years after his famous home run, Thomson received a letter from a former Marine who had been stationed in Korea in 1951:
Thomson died August 16, 2010 at his home on Skidaway Island near Savannah, Georgia.[10][11]
Scottish baseball team, the Edinburgh Diamond Devils, named their home "Bobby Thomson Field."[12] It was opened by the man himself in 2003, while he was in Scotland to be inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.[13]
The UK Chapter of The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is named the Bobby Thomson Chapter.
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